This study is an evaluation of the factors influencing the delivery of Swaziland tourism industry towards its full potential. It will provide recommendations on what Swaziland can do to improve the delivery of this industry. The reason could be that, Swazis are not frequent tourists and do not consider tourism as an important income to the country. Also, there are no clear marketing strategies and policies put in place to address the tourism industry Again the capital output is low resulting in tourism employees not attending tourism workshops (e.g. Indaba Forum, Durban). Both employees in the Tourism and Customs departments are not well trained to deal with tourists. On this basis, there is a need to re-skill staff members in the industry so as to empower them with relevant skills. At the end, suggestions are made that Swaziland needs to introduce specific tourism Programmes at all levels of education (schools, communities, technicon, private sectors and University). This will propel their endeavour to improve the delivery of the tourism industry towards its full potential. The tourism programme must be monitored to ensure that it is accomplishing the recommended objectives. Monitoring will detect any problems that arise so that remedial measures can be taken before problems become serious. An evaluation at the end of the project is crucial. The evaluation should investigate issues like knowledge, land use, attitude, culture and beliefs of the country. The programme should expand to its stakeholders, Customs department, networking with other government ministries (Ministry of Education, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade) so as to share a wealth of resources that the tourist destinations provides. The result of this research will be of great importance because it could double the number of tourist’s arrival to the Kingdom of Swaziland. The study has used a case study method. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2003.

This dissertation focuses on the management of cultural diversity in a joint venture (JV), formed in 2002, between a South African company, Sasol Chemical Industries and a Japanese company, Mitsubishi Chemical Cooperation (MCC). The reasons for the formation of the JV as well as the details are provided. One of the key threats identified for the JV is the challenges posed by the merging of two different cultures. Research studies indicate that the longevity of a JV is largely determined by the management of cross cultural conflicts. Unresolved cultural differences can have a detrimental effect on the success of the JV. This leads to the formulation of the following hypothesis "Proper Management of Cultural Diversity will result in the long term success of the JV between Sasol and MCC". According to Hofstede (1983), an evaluation of the management of cultural diversity requires an analysis of the managerial and cultural behaviour of both South African and Japanese culture. Questionnaires, comprising largely of rating scales, were administered to a population comprising of the senior, middle and junior management from Sasol that were directly involved in the JV. The aim of the questionnaire was to evaluate and compare the knowledge Sasol employees have about South African and Japanese business culture, determine the current level of cultural sensitivity and to evaluate the level of cross-cultural diversity training received. The results are then benchmarked and evaluated against those characteristics displayed by JV’s that adopt a third culture approach. Based on this information it was determined that the current management of cultural diversity was not adequate for the long term success of the JV. Differences emanating from managerial behaviour such as the differences in managerial style, decision making process, organisational structure and communication styles lead employees to become frustrated and unsure of what to do. Differences in Cultural behaviour such as the degree of Individualism, Uncertainty Avoidance and Masculinity also resulted in misunderstanding of intentions that often lead to distrust and ethnocentric behaviour. These findings correlated when benchmarked against the ratings of those characteristics displayed by JV's that adopt a third culture (Graen, 1996). The hypothesis "the current level of management of cultural diversity is sufficient to ensure the long term success of the JV' was rejected with the final finding being that the current management of cultural diversity is not sufficient to ensure the long term success of the JV. Comments from participants indicated that there was indeed no management practice in place to manage cultural diversity. Most participants felt at a loss when handling diversity issues and were unsure of the level of sensitivity to display to other cultures. The key recommendation was the implementation of cultural training programs similar to that developed by Berrell (1999) and to develop an organisational culture that will assist employees in reducing behaviour variability. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

With the introduction in South Africa of the Skills Development Act (1998) and the Skills Development Levies Act (1999), employer organisations are obliged to set aside a portion of their annual payroll for the internal training and development of their workplace. Since 1998, the Learnership model of workplace training has been promoted in South Africa as a creative vehicle for addressing high unemployment rates and a serious skills shortage. This is achieved through fast tracking the acquisition of skills and increasing a learner’s chance of employment. However because learnerships are a recent innovation, the body of applied knowledge is small. The study was conducted to provide a comprehensive insight to the effectiveness of learneship in promoting skills development. The research study was based on the explorative research method to clearly understand the dilemma and challenges facing learnership learners. A well structured questionnaire was found to be the most suitable method to collect data that was essential to the study. A key finding concerns how learnerships are managed: the effective delivery of a learnership programme and of its outcomes requires the involvement of key stakeholders from the outset. The study reveals that the SETAs are not doing what they are supposed to be doing in terms of ensuring support with regards to the implementation of learnerships. Based on the findings of the study, recommendations are made to assist SETAs and organisations with regards to learnership objectives that may not easily be achieved if they are only identified through SETA structures. The study concludes with the implications for learnership training and maps the way for future research. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2009.

The purpose of this study was to design and implement a customer service model that will assist the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) to improve their levels of service delivery by providing world class customer services. A sample population of 51 managers or senior managers who are students at the University of Kwazulu Natal, Graduate School of Business were interviewed. The respondents were from different companies in both the private and public sectors. The results indicated that there is a strong correlation between client satisfaction and the quality of service provided by DHA. Data was gathered by means of interviews. This made it possible to address specific areas of interest for the study. The interview questions consisted of three areas of focus, namely demographical information, customer service-related issues and DHA service-related issues. The research questions were original as there were no pre-exiting interview questions that met the research criteria. The questions were based on a theoretical foundation. Interviews were conducted on a sample group of 51 respondents and consisted of open-ended questions in order that the respondents were able to fully express themselves when answering the questions. The non-probability sampling technique was used. SPSS was used to analyse the data. The study revealed that DHA has a serious problem with staff inefficiency and many members of staff lacked customer service skills that could help the Department to improve their service quality. The study also revealed that most of the clients had visited the DHA offices to apply for Identity Documents. It is was not clear if those were new documents or first applications, but the study can assume that since these people were adults, the possibility existed that most of them were applying for lost ID documents. The study highlighted the need to improve the levels of service by training staff members, but there is also a need to increase human capacity on counters especially in the sections dealing with ID collection, ID applications and Passports. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2009.

This study was concerned with the journey that an organisation will need to embark on from being a product centric organisation to becoming a customer centric organisation. The change that is required to become customer centric is about the culture of the organisation that must change, and not the vision and mission statements as published by the senior executive of the company. Customer centricity is the concept where the customer is truly seen to be the most important part of the organisation. The focus of everyone in the organisation is to satisfy the customer in such a way that there will be a mutual beneficial relationship for both parties. Literature research was done to understand what customer centricity means and it was amazing to see the various definitions and information that was available on this topic. Most of the researchers alluded to corporate culture and the readiness and ability to change the culture throughout the whole of an organisation. Afrox identified the need identified to become more customer centric and wanted to know why the delivery of the service offers were not happening. The senior management of Afrox was used in a survey to get their perception of how far the company has moved on the journey to becoming customer centric, and what they would recommend the company should do to becoming customer centric. It was interesting to note that not a single senior manager said that the company was customer centric, although they all agreed that the company was well on the way to becoming customer centric. Since the whole concept of becoming customer centric is now taken up in the strategic plan, business plan, vision and mission statements of Afrox, the study looks at what Afrox can put in place as a result of the research to enable the changes in culture of the employees and culture of the company that will result in a customer centric organisation. It is very clear that this is a long term journey, and that the company may never get to the true text book definition of customer centricity, but the journey is critical for the company to remain competitive. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

The aim of this study was to determine whether the SAP Finance module implemented in Pick n Pay retailers was successful or not. In order to establish the success of the implementation it was necessary to obtain a management and user perspective. In order to assist in evaluating the effectiveness of the SAP finance module the finance strategy of the organisation was explored with the group financial director. Information Technology and systems justification to identify and select and appropriate ERP system are discussed in this research document. Furthermore, a questionnaire was devised to measure the users' response to the effectiveness of the implementation. This questionnaire was circulated to all the finance users of SAP in the Western Cape corporate division as well as the regional support office. It included accountants, creditors, expenses, debtors and financial managers. The data generated revealed that there was a significant relationship between the training and user acceptance of the SAP system. Furthermore, there was a strong resistance to system adoption by employees with longer service. This research document will assist the organisation in identifying obstacles that have impacted on the success of the implementation of SAP in the business. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2010.

eThekwini Municipality, as one of the public sector organisation, also subscribes to the Batho Pele approach. In improving the service quality, it has provided greater accessibility by introducing the Sizakala Customer Care Centres throughout its boundaries. In the public sector the endeavour should always be for actions which lead to the improvement of the quality of service rendered. Public sector institutions should constantly strive towards improving their service delivery. The concept of the Sizakala Centres within eThekwini Municipality is to ensure that services are easily accessible to its customers. This study focuses on the customer expectations and evaluation of the Sizakala Customer Care Centres, using the SERVQUAL model. The Sizakala Customer Care programme is a special programme aimed at helping people gain equal access to municipal and government services. It forms an important part of the city's Integrated Development Plan (IDP), and shows the municipality‟s commitment to ensuring service delivery and a better quality of life for all its citizens. The research aims to investigate customer perceptions on service quality in the Sizakala Customer Services Centres of eThekwini Municipality. Questionnaires will be used as a data collection tool for this study, and will be self-administered. These will be administered to the community which get services from these centres and officials working for the municipality. The collected data will be statistically analysed to obtain meaning, using SPSS. The empirical data will be the responses from community members who visit the Sizakala Customer Service centres and people who are responsible for the functioning of these centres. The findings of this study showed that the tangibility dimension achieved the highest average score (3.78) in the perceptions section and the assurance dimension achieved the highest average score (4.38) in the expectations section. When comparing the customers „expectations of service quality in the Sizakala Customer Centre to customer perceptions of service quality, it was evident that that gaps occurred in all 5 of the service quality dimensions. It was found that Sizakala Customer Centre needed to improve most on their responsiveness dimension which had the highest (-0.73) average gap score, in order to enhance the quality of service that they provided. It was indicated from the results obtained in this study that the major recommendations for improvement were with regards to Sizakala Customer centres insisting on providing error free service and ensuring that the centres‟ service levels are kept at the same standard all the time. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2010.

The South African Tourism Board (SATB) is the official tourism authority for South Africa; its mandate includes the domestic and international markets. SATB launched its domestic tourism growth strategy in 2004. The focus of this strategy is to grow the current infant domestic tourism market within South Africa and influence consumers to travel more within the country. Using the principles of marketing, SATB segmented the domestic tourism market into three segments, namely the established, the emerging and the untapped segments (SATB, 2004). The emerging market has been further segmented into three sub segments namely the young and upcoming, striving families and well off homely couples. The young and upcoming market segment has been chosen for this research. This study seeks to research the impact of the Sho't Left marketing campaign on the young and up coming consumers. SATB has identified that the young and upcoming reside in Soweto, and other previously disadvantaged regions. Due to time and financial constraints this research has chosen Orlando West, a suburb of Soweto as the target population. The findings of the research indicated an awareness of the Sho't Left campaign, yet the campaign failed to do more than create awareness. Some respondents were aware of the packages on offer yet only 1.25% of respondents booked the package deals being promoted through the Sho't Left campaign. This research also suggests a lack of the young and up coming segment in Orlando West. The research findings motivate further research into the defined target market segments to ensure that SATB promotions are aimed at the correct targeted segments. / Thesis (MBA)-University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, 2006.

Evaluating the environmental performance of a university is important in order to identify more sustainable options for reducing the environmental footprints. The study was conducted at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). The aim of the study was to assess the current greening status at UKZN, and then evaluate staff support to facilitate greening. The objectives of this study were to determine the current greening initiatives by staff and the university, staff support for greening and whether there were demographic differences in attitudes towards greening. The questionnaire was designed to obtain demographic information about the respondents, whether or not they contributed to greening, the nature of their contributions, reasons for apathy and suggestions to facilitate greening. Staff were also asked about current and possible future modes of transportation to the workplace, and about extending the computer replacement period. Seeing as no previous greening studies were conducted at UKZN, it was decided to obtain information from as many staff members as possible, through a web-based survey using the on-line software programme QuestionPro. Greening was considered to be important by the majority (97%) of the survey respondents, but only 67% of them actually contributed towards greening UKZN. In this respect, switching off lights was most practised (14.7%), followed by switching off computers after work (12.9%) and writing notes of scrap pieces on paper (12.3%). Other greening practices in order of popularity included the collection of used paper for re-cycling, the reporting of leaking taps, printing on both sides of the paper, and returning printer cartridges. Least selected greening practises were printing of the final copy only, indigenous gardening and animal care. There were numerous suggestions which covered mechanisms to save electricity, paper, and water, to facilitate greening at UKZN. The pursuit of management support and an established strategic environmental plan to steer and guide greening at UKZN, was considered urgent. The importance of awareness campaigns, better communication and facilitated recycling were emphasized. The vast majority of the staff (79.2%) travelled to work by means of their own transportation. Sharing of transport occurred in 11.6% of the sample. Public transportation, walking and cycling were used less frequently. Overall, the staff regarded intensified re-cycling, awareness and teaching programmes and the election of a dedicated team to manage greening projects as priority. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2010.

The term in-house brands refers to products that are sold to retail outlets where the store name appears on the packaging instead of the manufacturer’s name or brand name (Brickman, 1988:24). The introduction, presence and behaviour of such brands, has added a significant dimension to the marketing of food products. In-house food brands have been around in South African supermarkets for almost fifteen years and consumers long regarded such products as “cheap and nasty generic substitutes for the real thing rolled out by retailers during recessions and discarded once the economy picks up again; however, times have changed and so has the quality standards of such products. High quality in-house brands are now found in retail outlets some of them commanding premium prices. Some market observers still attribute the growth and success of in-house food brands to hard economic times whilst others believe that this growth trend is here to stay and will continue to grow because in-house food brands now provide acceptable quality at reasonable prices. Consumers are giving less importance to manufacturer brands and retailers are becoming more proficient at managing their in-house brands. In this study, research was conducted to investigate consumers’ perceptions of in-house food brands in Durban’s major food retailers. To evaluate how consumers perceive the prices, and quality of in-house food brands. To evaluate the influence of in-house brands positioning on consumers’ purchasing decision, to determine market factors which are influencing consumers in respect of in-house brands, to investigate consumers’ loyalty to such products as well as the categories which consumers prefer and finally to investigate if there is any relationship between consumers’ disposable income and their loyalty to consume in-house brands. The literature review assisted in placing this study into context and preparing for the collection of primary data to answer the research questions. Consumers around Durban’s Commerce and Business District participated in this study and responded to a questionnaire that focused on the consumers’ perceptions regarding the areas mentioned above. The findings from the analysis of data show that consumers are drawn to purchase inhouse brands because of the low prices, the quality of in-house food brands has been raised to acceptable levels, in some cases retailers are offering premium quality in-house brands, favourable positioning of in-house brands has an influence on consumers’ decision to purchase in-house brands, consumers no longer see in-house food brands as substitutes because the quality of such products is now very good, and finally, the study found that there is no relationship between consumers’ income levels and their loyalty to in-house food brands. The recommendations that were made to in-house brands retailers were that: in-house brands retailers should invest more in innovation, research and development, they must come up with attractive packages, they should compete with manufacturer brands on both quality and prices and not just on prices alone and they must increase product visibility through creative product positioning. It was also recommended that future studies should be undertaken to study the factors that need to be taken into consideration before in-house food brands are introduced so as to avoid in-house brand failure. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.