Masters in Public Administration - MPA / Public service motivation refers to individuals’ with a predisposition to perform public service for largely altruistic motives in public institutions. The purpose of this study was to investigate what public service motivation (PSM) meant to state-employed social workers in the South African context. In gaining insight into PSM amongst social workers in the public sector, my objectives were to explore the value social workers place on intrinsic rewards, the reasons why participants entered the profession, and what social workers’ self-perceptions of their role was as public servants and what public service meant for their own identities. This qualitative study was conducted in the Western Cape with state-employed social workers. The social workers were selected using snowball sampling. Participants varied in age, years of experience as social workers, gender, and race. Data for this study was based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews. With public service motivation being an under-researched subject in the South African context, an open-ended inquiry into the important variables that influence PSM in the local context was followed. This approach will inform ways in which PSM could be measured in the future in the South African context. The results of my study indicate that social workers were attracted to public sector employment because it offered the greatest extrinsic incentives – higher salaries, medical aid benefits, and a housing subsidy, compared to NGO’s in the private sector. This finding challenges the widely accepted notion in PSM literature that social workers place more value on intrinsic reward than extrinsic rewards. Extrinsic reward refers to financial or other tangible incentives. The data further revealed that participants were willing to leave the social work profession and exit public service for employment opportunities that offered them greater support from superiors, and remuneration that acknowledged their academic qualifications. Poor remuneration adversely affected participants’ feeling of job satisfaction and motivation to perform their duties. Politics has played a seminal role in shaping the quality, and the denying of public service to certain categories of citizens.

No / Digitally-Enabled Service Transformation (DEST) projects in public sector institutions are viewed as a choice of strategic response towards changes in policy. Such transformation can destruct institutional stability and legitimacy and result in failure if the complex institutional setting of the public sector is not comprehended in the change-institutionalisation effort. Through a multiple case enquiry, this study examines how institutional pressures contribute towards the emergence of DEST in public agencies and how newly introduced transformation is implemented and diffused within the institutional setting. The findings highlight that as a form of technology driven change, DEST is characterised and shaped dominantly by continuous interplay with institutional elements and the impact of these interactions define the institutionalisation, deinstitutionalisation and re-institutionalisation of DEST. Ability to recognise such stages and provide the required support will determine a public institution's ability to effectively manage DEST and attain its strategic goals.

A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Masters (Information Science) in the Department of Library and Information Studies at the University of Zululand, 2017 / This study investigates the different medical records management regimes within public and private hospitals in the Umhlathuze Area, KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. The study made a comparison and examined whether the current management practices support service delivery in the context of the Batho Pele principles. In doing this, the study reviewed extensive literature on records management standards and theories, legislative framework of medical records in order to establish the extent of the level of compliance to the set regulatory framework in the management of medical records in South Africa. It also assessed the depth of the integration of ICTs in the management of medical records in South Africa. The targeted study sample in both the public and private hospital was 193. Of these, only 180 responded and this represented a respondent‟s rate of 93.5%. The study was largely a quantitative research. The study adopted a survey research design and used multiple forms of data collection techniques such as structured questionnaires, observations and document review. Quantitative data collected was analysed to obtain some descriptive statistics while qualitative data was analysed using content analysis to derive particular themes pertinent to the study. The two sets of results were compared and contrasted to produce a single interpretation and then conclusions were drawn. The study findings established that the records management practices in both hospitals were not well entrenched thus undermining quality health service delivery. This was evidenced by lack of awareness and existence of the records management policies and procedures manual; lack of adherence records management standard; lack of security measures, with rampant cases of missing files, folios and torn folders; delays in access and use of records; lack of an elaborate electronic records management programme and low levels of skill and training opportunities in records management. The use of paper records is still dominant in the public hospital; while the electronic medical record system was in place in the private hospital with some degree of success even though implementation challenges continue to exist. The integration of ICTs in the management of medical records was more evident in the private hospital while the public hospital continues to be underfunded undermining the current capacity for effective medical records management. The role of accurate, reliable and trustworthy medical records in the ii | P a g e context of quality health service delivery in accordance with Batho Pele principle in both hospitals remains problematic. In order to enhance the role of medical records for quality service delivery, the study recommended that a regulatory framework for records management should be developed and implemented in both hospitals. It is also recommended that more technical and human resource capacity is required in the public hospital to help speed up the services to its user while the private hospitals need to entrench their evolving capabilities in medical records management. The study further recommends that training around records management should be provided to all staff that deal with medical records management in both hospitals.

The objectives of this research are to explore the relationships among service chains of electronic government services. This research proposes models (1) to explore the linkages among internal marketing, internal service quality, and internal customer satisfaction in electronic government services, i.e. the internal service chain; (2) to explore the linkage between external service quality and external customer satisfaction, i.e. the external service chain; and (3) to employ the concept of the service profit chain model and the public sector service value chain model to explore the linkage between internal and external service chains. Two kinds of surveys, employee and citizen surveys, were conducted to collect data for this research on two cases including the Kaohsiung Citizen Electronic Complaint System and the National Science and Technology Museum Collection Management System. Internal and external customer data was matched through individual-level instead of group-level used in most studies. Structural equation modeling and Ordinary Least Squares regression analysis were used to test proposed models. The research results support the proposed hypotheses, including (1) internal marketing positively influences internal service quality; (2) internal marketing positively influences internal customer satisfaction; (3) internal service quality has positive influence on internal customer satisfaction; (4) external customer satisfaction is influenced by external service quality; with the exception of (5) the relationship between internal customer satisfaction and external service quality receiving no significant support. Managerial implications are presented for public managers to better serve internal and external customers. Further studies are encouraged to include service-specific variables and technology-specific variables to examine the internal-external link of customer perceptions.

Magister Administrationis - MAdmin / The complex and multi-facet decentralisation process of Primary Health Care services in the Cape Metro District of the Western Cape will be critically assessed in this thesis. Primary Health Care is the provision of promotive; preventative; curative and rehabilitative services within the community setting. South Africa initially adopted the Primary Health Care strategy in 1978 as a member state of the World Health Organisation but this was during the Apartheid regime which did very little about implementing the strategy. In 1994 the Government of National Unity (GNU) came into power and there was a renewed commitment to implementing Primary Health Care in order to render health care services to the previously underprivileged masses. The GNU set an eight year time frame for the full implementation of this process from the date of commitment. Now more than ten years later an assessment of the process is necessary to determine if the objectives of the process has been achieved. An independent organisation such as the Health System Trust has in 1998 and 2003 provided some form of evaluation of the process and this will also be discussed in thesis. The District Health system is part of a unitary Provincial Health System that is decentralised to enable the centre (Provincial Management) and the periphery (District and Sub-district Management) to function more effectively and cooperatively. The District Health System is the management structure for primary health care services as this system allows for interaction of all the role-players involved in delivering health care at district level as it puts in place a decentralised Health Management team who is responsible for the planning, managing, implementing and monitoring of the Primary Health Care Package of care at district level. In summary the district is the place where community needs and national priorities are reconciled. This thesis will therefore show the disjuncture that exists between the Primary Health Care policy intent, the policy implementation and the service delivery outcomes on the ground level. The general objective is to do a critical assessment of the Quality of Decentralised Primary Health Care Services in the Cape Metro District of the Western Cape. More specific objectives for the research include: Defining and discussing the Primary Health Care Approach and the District Health System using the target indicators currently used by the City of Cape Town and the Provincial government of the Western Cape Health department to assess the impact of this process. To document the implementation process of the District Health System in the Cape Town Metro District as a case study while analysing the findings in terms of successes, constraints, challenges; and make recommendations for the way forward. The methodology of the study is of a qualitative and descriptive nature. The research design is a case study of the Cape Metro District. The target population will be all those accessing primary health care services in this district. The sample technique is selected by convenience. Data will be gathered directly and indirectly by doing observation and semi – structured interviews and the administration of questionnaires. The framework criteria for assessing the quality would for example include key indicators such as for example the ratio of Professional Nurse to patient; number of health services per three kilometre radius as per the Comprehensive Service Plan 2007 goals and the availability of essential drugs as per primary health care protocol. This directly relates to the key elements that underpin the District Health System namely: equity, access, quality, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability, overcoming fragmentation, intersectoral approach and community participation. The main findings indicate that not enough resources have been allocated to the decentralising process causing much delay in its implementation. Shortages of health professionals, infrastructure constraints and poor adherence to legislation also contribute to the delay in implementation. This is why to date the four health districts of the Cape Town Metro District is not fully functional and the quality of the service they provide do not fully adhere to the 2010 Health Care Plan Model.