Thesis (diploma in librarianship)--University of the Witwatersrand.

<p> There is convincing evidence that effective leadership is a major contributing factor to small business growth and success. However, attention to leadership focused on founding CEOs abounds at the expense of exploring the distribution of leadership across an organization. This study explored the hybridity of focused and distributed leadership enactment in a fast-growing small business situated in South Africa. The first objective was to form a holistic view of how the members of the organization lead, incorporating leadership focused on key individual leaders and that which is shared and distributed amongst and between others. The second objective was to contextualize leadership hybridity to the South African culture and demands of fast business growth. The third objective was to explore how leaders transform as they navigate the terrains of focused and distributed leadership. The overarching goal was to propose a holistic leadership hybridity framework that appreciates these complexities. A qualitative single case study research design guided the study. The case study database was created from in-depth interviews with leaders and followers, focus group interviews, participant observations of organizational activities, and the review of two documents. Themes emerged to suggest that there is harmonious leadership hybridity that occurs through both the behaviors of critical individual leaders at the top (notably, the CEO) and those emerging from outside of formal structures through distributed leadership across multiple leadership actors and factors. The South African culture of ubuntu seems to support post-heroic leadership but does not exclude acknowledging that growing a business involves a collection of heroic acts. And lastly, leaders and followers who performed leadership within hybridity (i.e., those that can fluidly move between being a leader or a follower) benefited from enhanced self-regulation, amongst other psychosocial benefits. The insight gained from this study could inform leadership development initiatives that are more effective in growing leaders and small businesses in Southern Africa.</p><p>

It was the actions of the Congress Alliance that dominated the political activity of the dominated classes in the 1950s. Mobilising across class and colour lines, the actions of the Congress Alliance had witnessed a growing unity between the leading political organisations of the Indian, African and Coloured dominated classes. However just as quickly as it appeared, the Congress Alliance disappeared from the poitical scene, crushed by the state's repressive apparatus. The state, in order to ensure that the extra-parliamentary opposition characteristic of the 1950s did not once again re-emerge, sought to divide the dominated classes more systematically along ethnic and racial lines by creating mechanisms for the implementation of the policy of separate development. It is within this context that the Promotion of Bantu-Self-Government Act of 1959 was passed and the Coloured Persons' Representative Council (CRC) and the ' South African Indian Council (SAIC) were established. Whilst the history of Indian political organisations in the pre-1960 period has been extensively researched, no in-depth study of the SAIC has been made. Probably the main reason for this area being under-researched, has been the inability of researchers to gain access to information on the SAlC, especially of the period covering the early years of the organisation’ s existence. This study aims to fill this vacuum by utilizing in the main previously unused minutes of the SAlC from 1964 to 1977 together with numerous documents and memoranda presented to the South African government by SAlC delegations in the aforementioned period.

<p> Transition planning is not an alternative for students with disabilities, but rather a fundamental aspect of their lives upon which educational programs and activities are developed to achieve successful postsecondary outcomes. Unlike developed countries such as the United States, Botswana does not have a transition mandate that guides the preparation of individuals with disabilities for adulthood. In this study, the researcher utilized the United States&rsquo; transition framework, with modifications, to suit the cultural context of Botswana in an exploration of perceptions of secondary and vocational school teachers on effective transition programs for students with disabilities. The study especially focused on students with visual impairments, in a sampling of Botswana&rsquo;s secondary and vocational schools. It examined differences in the beliefs, knowledge, and views of general education teachers, special education teachers, guidance and counseling teachers, and vocational teachers regarding supporting students with disabilities to achieve successful post-school outcomes, as well as participants&rsquo; perceptions about the importance of the academic and functional curriculum in the transition planning process. Teachers expressed diverse views, beliefs, and knowledge levels concerning transition planning practices and principles. Recommendations for practice and future research are discussed.</p><p>

Magister Legum - LLM / Under the United Nations Charter, the Security Council may decide what measures, not involving the use of armed force, are to be employed to give effect to its decisions and may call upon member States to apply such measures in order to maintain or restore international peace and security.2 One of the measures that can be decided on is sanctions. Sanctions have, to a large extent, been imposed to defend human rights. Economic sanctions were commonly believed to be a mechanism that was a humane alternative to war. During the last decade, the Security Council has applied economic sanctions in several cases that, in turn, have drawn the attention of different United Nations human rights bodies and mechanisms to their possible impact on the enjoyment of human rights.3 Fundamentally, any economic sanctions programme's main objective is to induce dysfunction in the trade and financial systems of the target State. / South Africa

Magister Philosophiae (Land and Agrarian Studies) - MPhil(LAS) / In 1994 the South African government embarked on a land reform programme to redistribute and return land to previously deprived and displaced communities and individuals. Concerns have, however, been raised about the impact of land reform on the environment and its natural resources. The Department of Land Affairs (DLA) has attempted to deal with this problem through the National Training Programme, which was specifically initiated to develop capacity among officials of the DLA to integrate environmental planning into the land reform programme. This study assesses the National Training Programme to determine whether the participants who attended the Nationa lTraining Programme are in fact integrating environmental planning into land reform projects. To achieve this aim a qualitative research methodology is used, which involves both the survey based method and a case study approach. From the literature review there is sufficient evidence to indicate that the enormous pressure on the land and the lack of environmental knowledge are the major contributors to environmental degradation in South Africa. The study points out that the South African experience suggests that land reform cannot be sustainable without adequate provision for environmental planning. In its assessment of the National Training Programme, the study finds that, although the participants had gained self-confidence and a positive attitude towards the environment, this has not been applied in practice. Of significance also is the fact that, given the evidence which indicates that where land reform takes place land resources might be degraded, the study clearly demonstrates how environmental planning has in practice been neglected by the DLA, due to a lack of capacity. In view of the outcomes of the assessment of the National Training Programme, the study recommends that further research be undertaken to investigate and indicate the extent and the rate of land degradation as a result of the neglect of environmental concerns in the land reform programme.

No abstract available Copyright / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Mercantile Law / unrestricted

Please read abstract in the dissertation Copyright / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Mercantile Law / unrestricted

While research in the area of strategy is diverse and widely diffused across different areas of interest within the domain of strategy, the academic interest in the process of strategy-making still remains current (Szulanski, Porac and Dos, 2005:xiv). Some researchers deem the amorphous boundaries and inherent pluralism in the field of strategy as benefiting scholars and practitioners to thrive as a community without being constraint by a dominant theoretical or methodological ‘straight-jacket’ (Nag, Hambrick&Chen, 2007:952). It became evident from the literature review that academic discourse on the process of strategy-making renders little academic agreement and is explained in diverse and opposing ways. This study endeavored to unite various views into a single description of strategy-making processes. A continuum of diverse strategy-making approaches is crystallized from literature. Various and divergent views on strategy-making are grouped together and associated with extreme views in this range of approaches to strategy-making. These extreme views represent the rational planning approach to strategy-making on the one end and the emergent approach to strategy-making on the other end. Issues influencing the choice of strategy-making approach, hinging on the perceived advantages and disadvantages of these approaches, are also investigated. The study set out to describe the dominant approach/es to strategy-making followed in South African organisations. This is done through qualitative and quantitative research exploring the research questions and hypotheses. Furthermore, defying critique on research methodology typically followed for strategy research (with dominance of qualitative research methods), this study made use of mixed method research. This enabled quantitative data (from questionnaires) to be corroborated with qualitative data (from interviews). Results were also quantified and a spread of data analysis techniques applied to provide the most reliable and valid results and conclusions. This study describes, applies and tests an array of strategy-making approaches categorised according to extreme views. The study therefore shows that reflecting only on one aspect or extreme of strategy-making to the exclusion of other views when conducting strategy research, training on strategy or practicing strategy distorts the truth and reality of strategy-making and cripples the application of strategy in general. / Thesis (DCom)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Business Management / unrestricted

This dissertation is a study of agricultural failure. It follows the efforts of settlers, then scientists, to impose cotton as a commodity crop in the eastern region of South Africa, known today as KwaZulu-Natal. Touted as a commodity crop capable of remaking land and life in this region in the 1850s, the 1860s, at the turn of the century, and again in the 1930s, cotton never achieved more than marginal status in the agricultural economy. Its story is one of historical amnesia: although faith in the region’s cotton prospects dipped following each spectacular failure, it was routinely resurrected once previous failures had been accounted for, or memories of them had faded. Two crucial issues are at the centre of this episodic history. First, I explore the enthusiasms that underpinned successive efforts to introduce cotton, the logistics of planned expansion, and the reasons for the repeated collapse of cotton-growing schemes. My primary argument is that cotton failed because colonists lacked the technology to overcome natural constraints to production, in the form of temperature, rainfall, soils and insect pests. Settlers and scientists could not remake the land, the climate, or the cotton plant to meet their needs or realize their dreams. They attempted to overcome obstacles to production through settlement schemes, new agricultural inputs, and breeding technologies, but were unable to conquer the ecological incompatibilities between theoretical ambition and practical cultivation. This dissertation stresses the limits of colonial agriculture when confronted with unsuitable growing conditions. Second, I aim to unravel the side effects of the repeated failures of cotton production in Natal and Zululand. I turn the question of agricultural failure on its head to ask what was achieved through these repeated attempts to develop cotton as a commodity crop. I concentrate on the outcomes of these difficult and disappointing efforts at cotton cultivation – increased settler presence, stronger delineation between settler and African space, expanded state control into rural areas – and argue that, despite repeated failure, cotton facilitated important structural changes to the region’s agricultural, political and economic landscape. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate