Supply chain disruptions are detrimental to the performance of companies due to the associated loss of profitability and reduced sustainability. In 2016, organizations lost at least $1.2 million in a single supply chain disruption. Guided by the contingency theory of fit, the purpose of this exploratory multiple case study was to explore the strategies agribusiness managers use to prevent and mitigate the effects of disruptions in the agro-food supply chains. A total of 5 purposefully-selected agribusiness managers from Harare, Zimbabwe participated in semistructured interviews. Participants were senior agribusiness managers who implemented successful strategies for preventing and mitigating the effects of disruptions in agro-food supply chains. Three themes emerged from the thematic analysis of interview data and review of organizational documents: collaboration among supply chain partners, business continuity management, and the use of a multiple supplier base. Agribusiness managers must first understand the sources of disruption risk, assess the impact of the risk, and then select an appropriate strategy based on the level of uncertainty and risk. By managing the risks effectively, managers can improve the performance and competitiveness of their businesses. The implications for positive social change may include a reduction in supply chain costs, provision of better services and products to consumers, and lower prices of agro-food products to consumers which could lead to an improvement in the lives of consumers.

Thesis (MPA.) --University of Limpopo, 2011 / The public sector is faced with increased demands for public goods and services from communities. Public institutions have limited resources which should be managed effectively for effective and efficient service delivery. The South African government initiated and implemented financial management reforms since 1994 with the aim of improving public service delivery. The Public Finance Management Act, 1999(Act 1 of 1999) was promulgated to regulate financial management. The object of Public Finance Management Act is to secure transparency, accountability and sound management of revenue, expenditure, assets and liabilities of the public sector. The aim of the Public Finance Management Act is to enable public sector managers to manage and be more accountable with the purpose of eliminating waste and corruption in the use of public resources. A Supply Chain Management system was introduced by the South African government in 2003 to ensure effective procurement and improve financial management in the public sector. The introduction of Supply Chain Management led to procurement reforms which resulted in government decentralising and delegating authority for procurement to public institutions. Supply Chain Management forms an integral part of financial management. The process integrates general financial practices with budgeting, procurement and asset management. Supply Chain Management is currently not correctly implemented by some public institutions and this lead to irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. Accounting officers should recognise the importance of Supply Chain Management in order to ensure effective procurement, sound financial management and improve service delivery. The study highlights the important of implementing Supply Chain Management in an institution. The implementation of adequate Supply Chain Management practices will promote efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, openness, accountability and fairness in procurement and improve ethical conduct of officials.

Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo, 2011 / Water shortage is a global problem. While other people in some parts of the world maybe enjoying enough supply of water others are faced with water shortage. South Africa is not an exception in this regard because some do not have access to water but rely on distance conveyance. Government is under constitutional obligation to supply this basic social and economic service. This study, therefore, aimed at investigating the causes of water shortage and the impact thereof on the household of Ga-Kgapane Township in Limpopo Province. This township falls under Greater Letaba Municipality in Modjadjiskloof. The data collected from four sections/localities of this Township showed that the area has a serious problem of water shortage. The lack of water according to the findings negatively affects the livelihoods and development of the people of Ga-Kgapane Township.

Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo, 2010 / This study was undertaken in the Limpopo province, South Africa. Its aim was to assess the capacity of the NGOs that benefitted from Masibambane which is a donor funded programme and to examine the contributions that they are making towards addressing the water and sanitation challenges. This programme made funding available to capacitate the NGOs with the hope that they will assist the sector. Five NGOs which are operating in various districts in the province were included in the study. This was a qualitative study. Purposive sampling was used to select participants from NGOs, municipalities, Department of Water Affairs and communities. Primary data were collected through interviews, focused groups and observations in the field while secondary data were obtained from NGO and Water Affairs documents. The findings of this study revealed that The Mvula Trust and Tsogang Water and Sanitation NGOs have the capacity to implement both water and sanitation infrastructure projects at a village level. Operation Hunger‟s expertise regarding water infrastructure projects is on digging boreholes and installing hand pipes even though it diversified to include water conservation. Akanani Rural Development Association has the expertise of building sanitation facilities while Thlavhama Training Initiative is still learning. It was also discovered that NGOs are good at mobilizing communities and also have the capacity to impart skills to the communities. Participants from NGOs confirmed that learning occurred through Masibambane programme even though some felt that the needs of the NGOs were not adequately addressed.

Using a conceptual model of a water supply firm, the necessary conditions for production and market efficiency are derived when renovated wastewater is considered as a potential water resource. The nature and extent of the supply augmentation due to recycled reuse is demonstrated using classical optimization techniques. Three stages of short-run supply corresponding to no recycling, partial recycled reuse and complete recycling of all reclaimable water are identified through appropriate Lagrangian Multipliers as well as graphical techniques. A mathematical programming model is structured to determine the optimal water resource allocation and pricing policy for Salt Lake County. By maximizing the sum of consumer and producer surplus (the difference between total willingness-to-pay and total cost) economically efficient equilibria are derived. The feasibility of recycled reuse for municipal purposes is examined in a planning context. The impact of higher water quality discharge standards on the attractiveness of water recycling option is studied. To ensure social acceptability of renovated wastewater for culinary purposes, blending restrictions are imposed, which stipulate that the amount of water for reuse be less than a fixed percentage of the water from other sources. The effect of such a constraint on the prices and water allocation are delineated. The hydrologic uncertainty in water supply is treated using stochastic programming techniques. Application of the concepts of single and joint chance-constrained programming are illustrated. The resulting changes in pricing and allocation policies are discussed.

During the period 1996 to 2003 the number of GP services per capita in Australia fell by 14 percent and the proportion of services bulk billed (ie provided at no cost to the patient) fell by 12 percentage points. The Government responded to these trends by outlaying hundreds of millions of dollars to increase Government medical insurance rebates, to increase the number of GPs in Australia, and to provide incentives for GPs to bulk bill. ¶ There has been no comprehensive modelling of the GP market to assist in understanding the reasons for either the declining trends or whether the Government responses were successful. This thesis aims to fill that gap. ¶ Previous Australian modelling of the GP market has been cross sectional and mostly demand focused. This thesis uses panel data to minimise the biases caused by unobserved heterogeneity and border crossing, and to estimate explicit supply and demand equations to enable the relationship between supply and demand to be explored. ¶ This approach estimates the impact on GP market outcomes of both policy decisions regarding rebates and GP numbers, and of external changes such as the trends in social attitudes and age. The likely future paths of the market without further policy change can be considered, and the measures needed to meet given policy targets determined. ¶ In addressing these questions it is also shown that supplier induced demand does apply in Australian general practice but is not material, that previous cross sectional analysis was biased due to border crossing by patients, that GPs who charge patients with concession cards less than other patients are behaving economically rationally, and that when the Government increases the Medicare rebate payment, 85% of the increase goes to the GP and 15% to the patient. The analysis also shows that GP density has no significant effect on mortality in Australia, and was unable to detect any effect of the business cycle on mortality. ¶ The demand curve for Australian general practice services is shown to be fundamentally determined by the real value of the MBS rebate in the short term, where the real value adjusted for growth in average weekly earnings. ¶ The supply curve is determined by aggregate numbers of GPs and by the number of services they each provide. The average number of services provided per GP is determined by GP age and gender, but more importantly by a trend effect thought to be due to attitudinal changes which must be explored further, and must be incorporated into any prediction of GP market outcomes. ¶ The thesis provides the first empirically based overview of the behaviour of the GP market at end of the twentieth century, and shows how Government policy levers and other trends interact to generate the market outcomes. If the Government has targets for service levels or charging patterns in general practice, these models can facilitate determination of the policy options appropriate to achieve those targets.

There are a number of factors recognised as significant for nursing staff retention. These include, a lack of organisational care, bullying (commonly referred to as horizontal violence), and high workload acuity. However, there does not appear to be any indication that these factors influence the retention of nurses within the speciality of acute perioperative nursing. A descriptive study using postpositivist methodology and triangulation of methods was designed to answer the question: What are the critical factors that influence staff retention in an acute perioperative environment? Forty-eight (n = 48) perioperative nurses answered a questionnaire in relation to individual needs, provision of nursing care and administration and management. Four (n = 4) nurses subsequently participated in a focus group interview that explored in more depth, the survey data related to the following characteristics: Educational opportunities; Level of workload acuity; Rostering flexibility; Management; Established policies/Quality assurance; Graduate orientation programs and Professional relationships in an acute perioperative setting. Data analysis revealed that > 90% of respondents agreed that these characteristics are important for job satisfaction and influence staff retention in an acute perioperative environment. A sense of belonging appears to be the most important theme that emerged from the qualitative data. Job satisfaction and staff retention are attained when nurses have a sense of belonging in the workplace. To achieve these, nurses need to identify barriers, develop their communication and leadership skills and determine the ideal professional practice model. The themes (Figure 5), "Finding time" and increased "sick leave", in relation to workload acuity are new findings that provide a platform for future research.

Bibliography: leaves 61-64. This thesis reviews the sustainability of water resource management in Singapore and adequacy of the water conservation efforts put up by its government, population and industries. The write-up deliberates on the various trans-national water issues faced by the small Republic, interactions within its water sector and with the rest of the economy, management of its water supply and demand, as well as the various problems and challenges confronted by the country. This study is intended to highlight the relative wisdom of reducing water demand over pursuing supply solutions.

Urban drinking-water supplies are still implicated as pathways for the transmission of waterborne disease. A move toward risk informed, proactive water system management has occurred over the past decade and is advocated in current international drinking water guidelines. Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) is a tool with potential for aiding health risk management; however the refinement of scientific based practical methods to support that philosophy still requires development. This thesis focused on the water utility, its responsibility to manage microbial water safety, and how probabilistic QMRA may aid in developing management strategies. A framework for waterborne disease risk assessment from urban supply systems was derived and tested on an Australian case study. The main premise was that, in order for risk assessment outcomes to inform the management process, the steps should incorporate the concepts of risk variability, the explicit event conditions that can drive it, and that examination of QMRA sensitivity to various risk scenarios/model uncertainties is undertaken. The identified management uses were: (i) prioritising for attention issues hampering the system's ability to meet or the assessor's ability to interpret against (e.g. knowledge gaps about the system), a water quality health target; and (ii) identifying potential strategies or control points for addressing those issues. Additionally, rarely occurring, high impact, adverse fluctuations in treated water quality (and consumer infection risks), especially from source water contaminant "peaks", are highly, nearly totally, influential over the extent of risks averaged over longer, say annual, periods. As such, a case is made calling for widespread adoption of health targets that refer to tolerable consumer risks per exposure, rather than or as well as the current common practice of expressing targets in terms of risks from exposure over a year or lifetime. Doing so may provide incentive and opportunities for improved management, and the future derivation of specific microbial treatment or treated water quality targets, with a view toward protecting the community from extreme high risk periods associated with disease outbreaks.

This thesis is a documentation of the author's learning journey with the farmers, researchers and development agents in the eastern hills of Nepal.The purpose of the study was to find a solution to the problem of food security faced by the farmers in this area. The basic assumptions underpinning agricultural development in Nepal are that food security can be improved through the application of agricultural technologies and increasing production. The findings of this research question these assumptions.The study demonstrated that external changes which take place in the real world are connected to the internal changes which occur within the individuals and groups involved.An action research methodology was chosen to find alternative strategies to examine the current approaches to addressing the food security situation. The findings revealed three dimensions needing to be addressed to deal with food security at the farming household level. The fact that a collaborative partnership must be established between all the stakeholders involved in order to bring about improvements in the situation was revealed.This called for the conversion of 'experts' into 'co-partners' in the learning process. The learning journey showed that it is possible to initiate change, and the changes achieved indicate a huge potential for researchers and those interested in food security to make a real and lasting difference / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)