The present study focuses on the application of electronic governance (e-governance) or implementation of ICTs by governments. This topic has been a worldwide focus for several years to date. This study has unpacked and analysed various contrasting views on the use of ICTs in promoting e-governance. In some quarters there is criticism about challenges and problems which include: lack of in-depth training of public personnel; the particular need to skill public managers in the use of ICTs; the development of training models for ICT/e-governance for public managers in order to improve the services rendered by governments. On the same note, some criticisms have been highlighted on insufficient alignment between governments and legislations governing the use of ICTs. The lack of adequately trained public managers in ICTs has also become a critical factor in African countries, including South Africa and its provinces. This study works toward constructing a training model in e-governance for the selected Free State provincial departments. The aim was especially to empower public managers in order for them to participate effectively in e-governance applications and implementations and thereby fulfil the mandate of the South African legislation governing the use of ICT in Government. This study will start off with an orientation of the problem statement, as well as the goal and objectives as outlined in Chapter 1. The process of developing the e-governance training model will be aligned in Chapter 2 with training principles and theoretical underpinnings as perceived by various theorists who advocate management training. This implies that managers should be trained in interactions between levels and units of analytical skills in a work place. Furthermore, the study will focus in Chapter 2 on the legislation that governs the training of public managers in South Africa. This legislation applies as a legal framework that guides the use of ICTs in government. This discussion will be followed by an examination (in Chapter 3) of the worldwide practices and models on the use of e-governance and ICTs. A selected number of these global e-governance practices and models in chapter 3 will be incorporated (in Chapter 4) into a workable, drafted e-governance training model for the selected Free State provincial departments, while the basic elements of managerial training and model development will be discussed as well. The process of model development will be discussed in Chapter 4 based on the overarching principles such development. The exposition will focus on the concentric layers as macro-, meso- and micro- levels of model development. This will be followed by the processing in Chapter 5 of the empirical findings obtained from the data analysis on training in e-governance. This analysis will be a prelude to the development in Chapter 6 of a comprehensive, operational e-governance training model for Free State provincial public managers. The final, comprehensive e-governance training model will be presented in Chapter 6, after refining the drafted training model from Chapter 4, when the data will be collected, analysed and interpreted in Chapter 5. / PhD (Public Management and Governance), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Published Article / The South African public service has unfortunately rapidly gained a reputation for inefficiency, corruption and incompetence. Government has therefore introduced a variety of legislative measures to ensure that the public service would play a meaningful role in a well-functioning country, one that maximises its development potential and the welfare of its citizens. Examples of these measures are the Single Public Service (SPS) and the Local Government Turnaround Strategy (LGTAS), two seemingly contradictory measures to accomplish the above-mentioned objectives. Concerns that a SPS was a move towards recentralisation by central government were countered by the LGTAS to strengthen local government per se. It was found that both projects endeavour facilitative measures for improved coordination and integration of services in local government to provide efficient and effective services.

The dissertation examines the effect of changes since 1994 on the role of the South African Public Service Commission (hereafter referred to as the Commission). Its contention is that the changes since 1994 re-focused the role of the Commission on development and modernisation of public administration practices. The role of the Commission is now confined to monitoring, evaluation, investigation and research. The dissertation finds that the Commission does not have a formal transversal monitoring and evaluation system. The co-operation between the Commission and other oversight bodies (such as the Public Protector and the Auditor-General) involved in monitoring and evaluation of public service delivery is minimal. There is no "national consensus" yet on what the constitutional value and principle that public administration must be development-orientated means. The Commission has not set out research as its key performance area whereas its role in labor relations is superfluous. Recommendations in respect of the foregoing shortcomings are made in the dissertation. / Public Administration / M.A. (Public Administration)

Purpose: To explain how some of the local TV stations of Swedish Television relate to the rules of public service when using social media. Method: This essay is written by a qualitative method and is the result of interviews with eight respondents from four different editorial offices in Sweden: SVT Väst, SVT Skåne, SVT Västernorrland and SVT Västmanland. After having interviewed the respondents and read relevant literature, we could draw conclusions and discuss how the editorial offices deal with the contract of public service while being on social media. Main results: Our results showed that the difference between commercial media and public service media is getting smaller. It’s important for the editorial offices of the local TV stations to use social media as a platform for their news, even though there are commercial ads on Facebook, for instance. It’s also important for them to be where the public is, although it’s on a commercial digital platform as Facebook or Twitter. We also found that the rules of public service may be changed in a near future. The bigger editorial offices want to get viewers by having sensational headlines, whereas the smaller ones focus on the relationship with the public.

Magistro baigiamajame darbe nagrinėjamas karjeros planavimas ir karjeros realizavimo galimybės viešajame sektoriuje – savivaldybės administracijoje, pateikiamos rekomendacijos, kaip sumažinti personalo kaitą, kad darbuotojai nepereitų dirbti į privatų sektorių siekdami patenkinti savo karjeros tikslus. Pirmoje darbo dalyje analizuojama karjeros samprata ir rūšys, jos planavimo ir realizavimo teoriniai aspektai vadybos moksluose. Antra dalis skirta teisės aktų, reglamentuojančių personalo valdymą savivaldybių administracijose, nagrinėjimui. Joje pateikiamos esamos problemos, nagrinėjamos viešojo sektoriaus žmogiškųjų išteklių valdymo kaitos tendencijos. Trečiojoje dalyje analizuojamas Visagino savivaldybės administracijos darbuotojų karjeros planavimas bei individualios karjeros realizavimo galimybės, pateikiami kokybinio ir kiekybinio tyrimų rezultatai. / In this Master‘s final paper the following topics are covered – career planning and career realization opportunities in the public sector – municipality administration. Recommendation on how to decrease personnel turnover and how to keep employees from leaving to the private sector looking for career opportunities are also set out in the present work. First part of the paper deals with notions of career and its types; theoretical aspects of its planning and realization as presented in the management studies. Second part is dedicated to the review of regulatory laws and norms applicable to the personnel management in municipality administration. It also addresses current problems and turnover tendencies of public sector human resources‘ management. Third part analyzes career planning of Visaginas municipality administration employees and individual opportunities for career realization complete with qualitative and quantitative research results.

Over the last two decades public service broadcasting (PSB) around the world has faced increasing pressures from accelerating commercialisation and the fragmentation of the broadcasting landscape. This has led a number of media commentators in the system's traditional heartlands to ask whether the idea has now outlived its usefulness. Against the grain of this international trend, Taiwan has moved in the opposite direction, democratising its state-owned television system and introducing a form of public broadcasting for the first time. Against the grain of growing enthusiasm for a privatised solution supporters presented PSB as a necessary counter to the perceived deficiencies of the existing system, in serving a society moving from authoritarian to competitive party rule. This study sets out to explore how the expansion of PSB in Taiwan has been socially defined and constructed, and by whom. The various constructions in play were mapped through in-depth interviews with a range of claim-makers involved in the process. A systematic content analysis of the mainstream Taiwanese press was then conducted to explore the ways contending positions and issues were presented in the public domain and to identify the key voices given a public platform. This analysis demonstrated that the opinions and concerns of the general public were largely missing from a debate dominated by political and academic elites. Against the grain of their own claims to be representing the public key actors constructed public debate as a series of monologues, advancing their own sectional and paternalistic interpretations of the public interest. These findings point to the supremely ironic conclusion that a process ostensibly dedicated to reconstructing broadcasting as key element in a new, democratic, public sphere, excluded the public from active participation and relegated them to the role of spectators.

Journalists´ role in society has traditionally been of representative nature with a task to distribute news and scrutinize those in power. But technological changes have created a new publishing world outside the traditional media institutions. In today’s redactional society anyone can become a publisher in a blog or through other channels on online. This process can be seen as contributing to increased democratization giving everyone the opportunity to publish. However for those used to having monopoly on distributing news and scrutinizing society these changes are forcing journalists to adapt to a new competitive environment.   There have been several previous studies of how this new digital milieu is affecting journalism from societal, organizational and news room perspectives. Little or no focus has been on how journalists themselves experience their changing professional status as a result of this new media world. Journalists employed by the public service broadcasters have got the most specified and explicitly expressed task with their responsibilities for contributing to a democratic society and an active citizenship, as stipulated by the government. How do these journalists deal with citizens now challenging the journalists´ previous well-guarded access to publishing?   This essay examines the affect of these changes on journalists within two public service organizations in Sweden, asking journalists to reflect on the impact on their professional roles. The study is based on ten interviews with regional journalists employed by the Swedish public service radio and television corporations: Sveriges Radio and Sveriges Television. The analyze is based on theories on public service, professionalism and boundary maintenance. The study shows that the interviewed journalists identify more strongly with being a part of a public service ethos than being a journalist as such. They value the relationship with the audience and express a wish for even more contact with listeners and viewers. At the same time they want to continue to keep the in-house control over the journalistic process where they are the producers of the content. It is clear that the journalists appreciate publishing initiative allowing the general public to ‘be journalists’ but they warn against mixing the citizen reports with journalism. Citizen contribution in terms of user generated content or citizen journalism, is considered as something to satisfy people’s “creativity and wish to express themselves” – not a valuable contribution to journalism. Boundary maintenance mechanisms can be clearly observed among the journalists in an attempt to keep their journalistic authority and the arguments used refer to the “other´s” lack of credibility, accountability and impartiality. A similar role hierarchy can also be identified within the occupational group, where some characteristics and qualities are considered to contribute to a more “genuine” journalism than other. Nevertheless, a journalistic “us” always appears when boundaries are marked against what is looked on as non-journalism, for example user generated content and grass root journalism.

The public service ethos (PSE) has spent thirty years - since the advent of New Public Management - in flux. In the late 1990s, partnership working appeared to offer an alternative to NPM, as part of a perceived shift to network governance. What impact has partnership and network governance had on the PSE? This study looked at two case studies of Community Safety Partnerships (CSPs) operating under different local governance conditions. It interviewed public servants within these CSPs on their experiences of partnership working, and perceptions around public service itself. What emerged is a picture of partial network governance, with each case study taking a different approach and yielding different structures and outcomes. While the public servants were professional and committed, they were loyal to their field of work and individual clients. In the recent decades, public interest and consideration of wider societal impact has been removed from everyday working; what remains is a vacuum. The neo-liberal view – that satisfying individual client need creates societal benefit when aggregated – has taken root. PSE is now a partial concept: it remains altruistic but without the core of wider, deeper thinking required. While network governance could ameliorate this trend, the partial and limited implementation of the concept by government means that it hinders PSE as much as it fosters it.

Budgeten har av forskare sagts vara hjärtat av ekonomistyrning. Den traditionella budgeteringen har länge fått kritik för sin stelbenta syn på resurser och organisationer. Det har även förts en debatt gällande hur ekonomistyrning kan ske på bästa sett. Contingencyteorin hävdar att det inte finns ett universellt sätt att styra organisationer, utan att varje organisation måste anpassa sin styrning utifrån sina situationsfaktorer. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur budgetprocessen fungerar inom en organisation med ett specifikt uppdrag och fasta intäkter, samt vilka eventuella nackdelar användning av traditionell årsbudgetering medför. Studien realiseras genom en kvalitativ fallstudie genomförd på Sveriges Radio, vars uppdrag och intäkter beslutas av riksdagen. Undersökningen fokuserar på hur dessa contingencies, omvärldsfaktorer, påverkar budgetprocessen på olika nivåer inom organisationen. Resultaten tyder på att dessa contingencies har en påverkan på budgetprocessen, men inte har samma dysfunktionalitet som tidigare kritik belyser. Slutsatsen av studien är att uppdragsspecifikation och fasta intäkter påverkar budgetprocessen och kan i viss mån bistå med vidare underlag för kritik till budgetprocessen. Studien bidrar till vidare förståelse för budgetprocessen inom organisationer med dessa situationsfaktorer och föreslår vidare forskning på liknande organisationer.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether or not Public Service Announcements (PSAs) were an effective tool at modifying young adults’ perception of the r-word (the word “retard” or “retarded”). The PSAs included in this study were part of the Special Olympics’ “Spread the Word to End the Word” campaign. This study examined the efficacy of these PSAs by comparing three groups’ perception of the r-word: experimental group 1 who watched a PSA titled “It’s Not Acceptable” (PSA 1 group), experimental group 2 who watched a PSA titled “We Need a New R-word” (PSA 2 group), and a third control group who watched no PSA. The purpose of the control group was to gain a baseline of how today’s young adults perceived the r-word with no influence from PSAs. Six hundred and seventy-five participants were randomly assigned to one of the three groups. The two experimental groups watched their respective PSAs and completed the survey materials comprised of a consent form, their affective and cognitive responses to the PSA, their ratings of the r-word and their demographic information. The control group watched no PSA but completed the survey materials comprised of a consent form, their ratings of the r-word and their demographic information. This study then examined what the differences were between the three groups’ perception of the r-word. It was hypothesized that PSA 1 group would have a more negative perception of the r-word than PSA 2 group and the control group, due to PSA 1’s framing the r-word as similar to other minority slurs, and using affect to facilitate message acceptance. The PSA 1 group participants thought more about the argument within their PSA, and rated higher affective responses to their PSA, when compared to the PSA 2 group; however, PSA 1 group did not have a more negative perception of the r-word than the other two groups. Results found that the PSA 2 group perceived the r-word as significantly less respectful than the participants in the control group. These findings are discussed in terms of message design for future PSAs regarding the r-word