This study explores the perceptions and experiences of senior managers regarding organisational transformation and change. To achieve this objective, a qualitative methodology was undertaken and twelve open-ended questions were formulated for the study. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted. A non-probability sampling technique was utilised, along with snowball sampling and judgement sampling methods to select participants for the study. The sample consisted of twenty-two senior managers from different Units and Departments within the eThekwini Municipality. The data collected were then qualitatively analysed using thematic analysis. The findings of the study were presented under key themes that had emerged during the study. The main findings of the study showed that the municipality had radically transformed in response to the new political dispensation in South Africa, as of 1994. The study highlighted the general consensus amongst senior managers that fundamental transformation of the Municipality was imperative. The participants of the study expressed the view that the former municipal organisation had become misaligned with its environment. It was therefore imperative to ensure fundamental transformation of the municipality. Most senior managers, however, felt that the transformation process was poorly managed. These negative views were attributed to, inter alia, the long period of transformation, poor change management, and lack of a clearly articulated organisational culture coupled with some poorly implemented systems. Although negative views were expressed with regard to the transformation process, most senior managers were satisfied with their specific jobs. This surprising finding was attributed to positive personality characteristics and humanistic-existential perspectives that most senior managers were found to possess. Existentialists believe in people taking responsibility for their lives and the humanists stresses the importance of self-actualisation. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

Despite its rhetoric about prioritising Africa and the need for an African Renaissance, South Africa's leadership is severely constrained by domestic political factors in its ability to engage and lead the continent. To date, the ANC-led government has been criticised for its incoherent foreign policy. Most criticisms have centered on South Africa's failure to engage the SADC region effectively. This research, examines the importance attached to South Africa getting involved in the region and the rationale guiding its involvement. Employing realism as a technique of assessment, the study examines the factors that influenced South Africa's actions or inactions. The ANC (African National Congress) -led government must concern itself with several issues that can muffle efforts by the state to intervene or act in concert with members of the region. Such issues include a historical (apartheid-induced) antipathy toward Africa, a 40 percent unemployment rate amongst its main racial constituents, a very vocal and demagogic opposition, large minorities with little or no interest in developing extensive links with the region, and the ever-present need to contest and win domestic elections. Given this internal context as well as the general desire to lead and effect change within the region and to improve her international prestige (for instance, by securing a permanent seat on the UN Security Council or bids for major sporting events), South Africa will find herself torn between domestic and external imperatives. As such, the ability or capacity of the South African government to act effectively in conflict resolution missions within Africa will be shaped substantially by how well it is able to attend to, and reconcile, those tensions. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2001.

The research project begins with the land reform programme in Zimbabwe between 2000 and 2008. Under colonialism Britain took most arable land from the indigenous Zimbabweans and gave it to the white (minority) settler population. The research attempts to look at how, after independence, President Robert Mugabe has handled the issue of land in an effort to reverse this situation. Some of the consequences of land reform include the collapse of the economy, political instability and social incoherence. Together, these consequences have led to the 'crisis' to describe social and political life in Zimbabwe. Most importantly, the project analyses South Africa's approach in dealing with this 'crisis'. Therefore, South Africa's approach has become the key subject upon which this project will be focused. Initially, the approach that was adopted and implemented by South African government towards Zimbabwe was termed "Quiet Diplomacy". The reasons for this approach are several. Firstly, this approach was one way of respecting the sovereignty of Zimbabwe. In other words, this was an attempt to honour and respect the internal affairs of Zimbabwe. Secondly, Thabo Mbeki's government was of the view that using economic muscle to sanction Zimbabwe would worsen the situation because Zimbabwe is dependent on South Africa in terms of electricity supply and other resources. However, as Quiet Diplomacy appeared to be ineffectual in halting Zimbabwe's slide into further disarray, much criticism has been generated. Critics state that the approach is not working, and it has made the situation worse in Zimbabwe. In addition, the study, therefore, has hypothesised that: "Quiet Diplomacy" is not a viable approach to deal with the Zimbabwean crisis. In making this claim, the study observes both the strengths and weaknesses of "quiet diplomacy". Finally, the study also seeks to make possible options (other than quiet diplomacy) that South African government should have considered. In the end, the study intends to make recommendations such as 'smart' sanctions that could be used to address the situation in Zimbabwe. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Durban-Westville, 1985.

Since the outbreak of the Soweto uprising in 1976 there has been a noticeable change in the thinking of the South African government. This change has been evident in the departure from classical Verwoerdian apartheid to reform apartheid where the state has increasingly undertaken a programme of restructuring of political positions. The main strategy has been to co-opt blacks into statutory bodies such as the homelands, the tricameral parliament and town councils. In response to this shift in policy, blacks have intensified resistance to reform apartheid by forming a number of "extra-system" organisations which have constituted the extra parliamentary opposition. Co-optive reforms have not been limited only to the political sphere, a number of social and economic measures intended to accommodate 'qualifying' blacks have also been introduced notably by the private sector. For instance, private corporations have attempted to 'deracialise' positions at work by instituting 'black advancement' programmes to integrate the workforce and allow for occupational mobility across all races. Further, there has been a measure of relaxation in the social sphere: petty apartheid in the form of restrictions on mixed audiences in places of entertainment has been abolished, the Immorality Act and the Mixed Marriages Act are no longer on the statute book and private schools as well as white liberal universities opened their doors to black pupils and students. The main objective of this thesis has been to establish how the African elites who qualify as the 'main beneficiaries' of these changes react to reform. The thesis is, therefore, a reflection of the attitudes of 93 respondents selected from the professional and managerial ranks, community leaders and opinion-makes in the Pretoria-Witwatersrand Vereeniging Complex in the Transvaal, the Durban-Pietermaritzburg region in Natal, and from the Eastern Cape. This almost covers the main urban metropolitan complexes excluding the Western Cape and the Orange Free State, and therefore, almost represents a national survey of African elites. Findings drawn from the data indicate that, in the main, African elites reject co-optation as an avenue of inclusion into the 'centre' of power primarily on political grounds. In the views of the majority of the subjects in this thesis, the solution to the national question is critical to any strategy of accommodation, and this precedes any other arrangements - economic educational etc. This 'primacy of the political' refutes any suggestions that a subordinate group may be won over through economic and status rewards without attending to the basic issues of human rights which are, in essence, political. Secondly, the findings demonstrate that co-optation as a hegemonic, strategy has not achieved the intended objectives. It has failed to legitimate a process of elite incorporation in spite of derived status and power that accrue to the beneficiaries as individuals. The subjects aligned themselves with the extra-parliamentary opposition as ideological opponents of apartheid including reform apartheid both in terms of policy and strategy. The thesis ends with three scenarios. The first postulates the failure of co-optation as a strategy and examines the possibility of non-collaboration as a successful substitute. This is, however, not possible in the immediate future given the power of the state on the one side and the weaknesses on the part of the extra-parliamentary opposition on the other, particularly at the level of organisation, and discipline as well as the capacity to deliver the requisite material goods and services to the masses. The second scenario projects a situation where co-optation succeeds. This is, again, a difficult scenario to realise given the massive opposition against the present state and the inability of the South African government, as is presently constituted, to address basic issues of human rights, issues which lie at the bottom of the present crisis. Finally, the remaining option is that the stalemate continues but with the possibility that both the present government and the extra-parliamentary opposition seek ways to reach workable alternatives as is crystalised in the pre-negotiations that are presently taking place. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1991.

No abstract available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, 1979.

This thesis offers an overview of the functions served by various mobilisations of "poverty‟ and "the poor‟ across the histories of capitalism. It shows how "poverty‟ and "the poor‟ come to be shaped as governmental categories in the interests first of encouraging the acceptance of wage labour in industrial society, and then in encouraging the acceptance of a logic of individual responsibility and entrepreneurship as wage labour declines in post-industrial society. It also examines the deployment of discourses of poverty within social movements, showing the close relationship between the elaboration of governmental discourses and resistance in the contested process of the "making‟ of "the poor‟. In particular, it explores the increased mobilisation of discourses of poverty in post-apartheid South Africa, where, it is shown, "poverty‟ and "the poor‟ are shaped as governmental categories that aim to fashion particular forms of life for that population group identified and targeted as the poor, and become ways for poor people to make demands of the state in the context of the adoption of neoliberal policies, such as cost recovery, privatisation, and the flexibilisation of labour. Through a close exploration of state policy formulation and community struggles in the sphere of the delivery of basic services, this thesis presents the contested field of signification and production that emerges around the meeting of the basic needs of the poor in the City of Johannesburg and Orange Farm (a particularly disadvantaged part of the city) as a case through which to think through contemporary mobilisations of "poverty‟ and "the poor‟ in relation to processes of subjectivation and the possibilities for the production of subjectivities antagonistic to the logic of capital. Focusing on the City's most recent return to indigent management as a strategy to contain and address the needs of the poor, in the context of organised resistance on the part of poor communities, this thesis offers an experience of a process of neoliberalisation as a contested process, in which attempts to shape and deploy "the poor‟ and "poverty‟ as governmental categories come up against mobilisations of "the poor‟ in challenge of the dominant logic of commodification, the market, and "individual responsibility‟. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Durban, 2010.

No abstract available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1991.

This study aims to understand emerging black identities in contemporary South Africa. The focus is on the impact the radical transformation of the political and social system in South Africa is having on black identity. This study emphasises two key ideas: possibilities for the construction of black identity and the significance of apartheid on black identity, and how these two factors have impacted on the construction of black identity. A reflection on the work of Biko (1978) is used as the key theoretical framework for this study to understand the construction of black identity in the process of encounter with whiteness and encounter with racism. In this thesis, black people‟s autobiographies have been studied as a site where shared images of the past are actively produced and circulated: a site where a collective engagement with the past is both reflected and constructed. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2008.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1978.