Higher Education Institutions face an ongoing challenge to respond to many challenges that arise from their environment. Universities are affected by internal as well as external forces. They have to comply with the legislation of the country for example the South African Employment Equity Act No. 55 of 1998 and affirmative action, at the same time they need to retain motivated employees. In response to these challenges, Universities need to implement the laws of the government in order to be responsive, effective and efficient. This study has drawn heavily on secondary data, which has been treated in the chapter of literature review. Concepts and theories covering affirmative action and motivation have been considered. Information has been obtained from various books and respondents. Concepts such as affirmative action, employment equity, preferential treatment, designated group, non-designated group, motivation, recruitment, selection, communication, promotion, compensation, disciplinary procedure have been used in this study. The data for this study was collected by means of survey questionnaire. The survey questionnaire provided data on effects of affirmative action on the motivation of employees. Survey questionnaires were pilot tested among a sample of 10 employees composed of both academic and non-academic staff. This was followed by distributing one hundred questionnaires to the employees, who were willing to participate in this study as respondents. The data collected was subjected to statistical processes to ensure reliability and validity. The research findings of this study revealed the employees thoughts about the implementation of affirmative action and the motivation of employees at Durban University of Technology. The collected data also revealed that many employees were demotivated as they don’t see affirmative action being implemented effectively. Although the study highlighted the impact of affirmative action on the motivation of employees at Durban University of Technology, this study was limited by its sample size. Recommendations have been made for greater commitment of the top management team towards any change process.

There is a generally accepted view that organisations that perform well in any industry are able to do so because of their ability to attract, recruit and retain a workforce of high calibre. This research report has been necessitated by the impact of factors affecting talent management at higher education institutions. In this study, two variables are under scrutiny, i.e. organisational image and talent management. A quantitative research methodology was utilised to test the effect of organisational image on talent management using responses from 252 respondents to a self-administered electronic survey questionnaire. The research instrument was composed of four major sub-scales, i.e. Personal View, Job satisfaction and Career Path, General Image and Opportunities and Rewards. Statistical data analysis reveals that respondents differ on what they perceive to be important factors on talent management and their response is affected by matters relating to organisational image. Data was stratified and compared amongst different groups, i.e. gender, race, staff category, academic title, Peromnes grade, years of lecturing experience in this institution and total years of lecturing, Faculty and College/Division. These variables in personal/biographical data were examined in relation to how respondents responded in each of the four sub-scales. Whilst personal view and opportunities and rewards aspect of talent management matter, they do not take precedence on matters relating to general image and job satisfaction and career path. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

This thesis identified competencies required by the South African, entry-level library and information science graduate. It took into account the development of the information society and resultant proliferation of information and communication technologies and how these developments have given rise to new roles for the library and information worker. This thesis also looked at developments within the South African library and information environment and how these have affected the library and information science profession.

This dissertation adopts a realist meta-perspective on a body of the scholar's own research papers written between 2005 and 2011, all either published or in press and offered for reference in the Appendices. The six papers represent the point of departure for the thesis; they are the phenomenon for further investigation into 'what must be the case' for the research events to have emerged as they did. One aspect of this study, therefore, is an auto ethnographic account of conducting research in the field of Academic Development within varied settings and over a given time frame. But alongside this personal history it narrates cycles in the Academic Development movement in South Africa over 30 years. Margaret Archer's Social Realist principle of analytical dualism (1995) is used to disaggregate the emergent properties within these histories and to enable an analysis of the underlying mechanisms that generated them. It refers to three social domains. Firstly, it describes the material structures - the institutional environments, policies, roles or professional conditions - in which the projects were conceived. Secondly, it identifies the cultural registers that the profession was drawing on - such as theories, beliefs or discourses. Thirdly, it draws attention to the agency of individuals and communities in the field as they independently activated or mediated these various conditioning structures and registers. So the study is a systematic examination of the parts and the people in research stories, of the complex interrelationship of structural and agential elements, and of how together they have generated particular forms of knowing and kinds of knowledge in Academic Development. Drawing from this 'history-within-a-history', the study makes some claims for 'what must be the case' for substantial knowledge to flourish in a newly emergent, hotly contested and relatively unstable field. It argues that Academic Development has few shared epistemological foundations and boundaries, and its roles and functions are shifting and diverse. It describes the tensions in the field between those who have been inclined to understand it as primarily concerned with redress or equity in the postapartheid state, and yet others who have prioritised Academic Development as an efficiency project within higher education. But there is a third discourse emanating from those in the profession who have consistently argued that neither of these approaches can succeed without drawing on stronger theoretical foundations. This study endorses the view that Academic Developers need to identify more coherent ontological and epistemological frames for their research work. This has important implications for building the kind of substantial knowledge base that could be more influential in addressing the troubled terrain of South African higher education. The study refers extensively to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871) and to Mervyn Peake's 1946 illustrations of these children's stories, finding in these texts powerful analogies and metaphors for principles in realist philosophy and theory, and for describing a researcher's journey towards a more assured identity in the curious field of Academic Development.

In South Africa there is an increasing concern regarding retention among Black students (who constitute the majority of the population) in general and in particular regarding the costs of student failure to both the students and for the institution. This thesis endeavours to obtain an understanding of the socio-educational experiences which led to Black Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting Students in 2009 dropping out of Accounting III at the University of Fort Hare. In a field in which much of the literature is quantitatively orientated, a phenomenological investigation offered a unique way of understanding the experiences of the students as it allowed their voices to be heard. Insights contained in the data were synthesised and integrated into a consistent description of the essential nature of the experience, the primary endeavour of the phenomenologist being to transform naïve experience into more explicitly detailed conceptual knowledge. The use of in-depth interviews with three students, all of whom had dropped out of Accounting III at UFH, allowed the researcher interaction on a personal level with people not viewed as experimental objects but as human subjects. The findings revealed that the students‘ social and educational background, together with the language of teaching and learning not being their mother tongue, caused students great difficulty. Interaction between lecturers and students and the subject content proved very challenging due to the language barrier. The introduction of General Accounting III in the same class as Accounting III in 2009 compounded the students‘ confusion and this ultimately led to students feeling demotivated. These findings contributed significantly to an understanding of why these three students dropped out of Accounting III in 2009, and at the same time provided an answer to the research question relating to how Black students who dropped out of the Accounting III programme in 2009, experienced the course.

Using social realist theory and particularly the morphogenetic/morphostatic methodology advocated by Margaret Archer, this study offers a critical examination of the emergence of a formal academic staff development programme at a small South African university (SSAU). Archer’s morphogenetic approach enabled an investigation of the interface between culture, structure and agency (at macro, mezo and micro levels) in order to theorize about the material, ideational and agential conditions that obtained and which in turn enabled the emergence of the Postgraduate Diploma of Higher Education (PGDHE) at the SSAU. The study therefore advances concrete propositions about the cultural, structural and agential conditions for transformation which existed at a particular time in the history of higher education (and the subfield of educational development) which enabled the introduction of the PGDHE. Analysis of the data suggests that what occurred at SSAU was a disruption of the morphostatic synchrony between structure and culture brought about by new discourses and structures emanating from the broader international and national higher education context. In particular, it seems that attempts at reconciling the constraining contradictions between the discourses and structures related to quality assurance on the one hand and educational development on the other resulted in a conjunction between transformation at the levels of both the cultural system and social structure. This conjunction, along with the actions of key Institutional agents and the morphogenesis of the staff of the Educational Development Unit, created sufficiently enabling conditions in the Institution for the introduction of the PGDHE. The research adds to knowledge through insights into the contribution that the ideas, beliefs, values, ideologies and theories about higher education broadly and about educational development specifically make to enabling or constraining conditions for the professionalization of academic staff in higher education institutions. It uncovers how relevant structures at the international, national and institutional levels can shape the practice of educational development and specifically staff development. It has generated insights into how the relevant people and the positions they hold can impact on staff development practices. In summary, the research could contribute towards emancipatory knowledge which could be used by SSAU and educational development practitioners elsewhere to inform future planning and decision making in relation to educational development and more specifically staff development practices in their contexts.

Verandering vind voortdurend op alle gebiede van mense se lewens plaas. Ten einde met 'n veranderende wereld te kan tred hou en aan die behoeftes van die land en sy mense te voldoen, vind daar ook op onderwysgebied in Suid-Afrika, groot veranderinge plaas. Inrigtings betrokke by onderwysersopleiding het oo k die afgelope paar j aar ingrypende herstrukturering ondergaan. Volgens wetgewing moet aile tersiere onderwysinrigtings by die Hoeronderwys-sektor inskakel, wat inkorporering by 'n universiteit oftechnikon beteken. Hierdie studie fokus daarop om vas te stel hoe die dosente verbonde aan 'n tersiere onderwysinrigting die veranderingsproses beleef. Die navorser maak van die k:walitatiewe navorsingsmetode gebruik deur individuele onderhoude met 'n aantal dosente te voer. Hierdie inligting is met behulp van 'n oudio-bandopnemer opgeneem en verbatim transkripsies is daarvan gemaak. Na die ontleding van die transkripsies is faktore geidentifiseer wat emstige stres by die deelnemers veroorsaak tydens die veranderingsproses. Ten slotte is aanbevelings in hierdie verband gemaak. / Change is a constant in all sphere of people's lives. To keep abreast of the changing world and to meet the needs of its people, vast changes are also being implemented in education in South Mrica. Institutions involved in teacher training have also undergone far-reaching restructuring over the past few years. Legislation requires that tertiary education institutions be incorporated into the Higher education sector, which means incorporation into a university or technikon. This study focuses on establishing how the lecturers employed at a tertiary education institution " experience this process of change. The researcher has used the qualitative research method by conducting individual interviews with a number oflecturers. This information was taped and verbatim transcriptions were made of the interviews. Analysis of these transcriptions made it possible to identify factors that have caused serious stress in participants during the process of change. In the end recommendations were made concerning these factors. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Onderwysbestuur)

Current socio-cultural and technological changes world-wide and their epistemological consequences in educational discourse form the study's backdrop. It is hypothesised that changes in our surroundings, globally and locally are inevitable. To make sense of evolving realities, our conceptual schemes should change. The latter problematic was investigated as part of analytic-philosophical research within the qualitative paradigm. This comprises an extensive literature study, disciplined subjectivity and consistent argumentation. A small scale document analysis of selected study material was conducted to ascertain the prevalent epistemology in the local context, the Faculty of Education, Unisa. Major findings emerged: In the field of Education, particularly in an Afrikaner research tradition, an essentialist and foundationalis! epistemology has prevailed. The latter assumptions of knowledge are typical of the Enlightenment paradigm and a Newtonian worldview. Furthermore these views were exacerbated by the academic isolation of the apartheid years and the limitations posed by distance education. Lecturers are often impoverished by their unfamiliarity with their students' life worlds, and a lack of exposure to the Other or 'difference'. A close link" between epistemology and the ability and willingness to participate in transformation processes exists. A transformed educational discourse is essential and should be reflected in a living educational theory, whereby assumptions of knowledge should exhibit integrity and wholeness. A relational ontology and a participatory worldview replace e substantialist ontology and a correspondence theory of tru!h. Assumptions of knowledge require ongoing contestation, whilst thinking modes and metaphors of an emerging paradigm can facilitate conceptual transformation in a postmodern, postindustrial world. Complexity theory yields alternative metaphors and modes of thinking conducive to a dynamic surrounding. Mechanistic metaphors should be replaced by an organic and dynamic discourse. A position, wherein humankind is regarded as 'opposite' of the world, is no longer useful. The metaphor of the hologram is appropriate. Emphasis is given to wholeness and ethical responsibility instead of prediction and control which led to the earth's exploitation. Scientific certainty gives way to nonlinearity and unpredictability within boundaries of patterns. Simultaneously this creates hope, because small inputs can eventually make a difference to an interconnected world. / Comparative Education / D. Ed. (Comparative Education)

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Technology: Business Administration in the Faculty of Business at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2013 / In this research study, emphasis is placed on the progression of women to senior management positions in higher education. The main purpose was to determine whether there were any barriers that women experienced in progressing to senior management positions in higher education. This study specifically focused on a South African university in the Western Cape. Normative criteria, which were derived from the literature survey included relevant books, academic journal articles, legislation, policy directives, conference papers and the Internet in order to extract relevant standards against which current practices could be measured. The themes in the literature search for this study included organisational barriers that women might have experienced in their places of work, gender stereotypes, organisational or institutional cultures, and the importance of career planning. The South African labour legislation was explored in terms of providing a framework for the transformation of the workplace with regard to equity and skills development. The data was submitted for professional statistical analysis, which was predetermined in collaboration with a registered statistician. A questionnaire was designed by using the Likert Scale, and was submitted to the registered statistician for analysis. The results of this study showed that, firstly, in most instances, men and women had different views of the current situation; that the institution had made strides in terms of transformation, but that emphasis should still be placed on gender equity. The research study provides evidence that women might still be facing barriers, whether hidden or not, in order to progress to senior management positions in higher education. The researcher has provided recommendations that could assist the institution in this respect.

Dissertation prepared in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Magister Technologiae (Quality) CAPE PENINSULA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY 2008 / The aim of this research is to identify criteria for the evaluation of support systems applicable to public higher education institutions from a limited international and national perspective. The objectives of the research are to identify the criteria available from existing and related fields through a literature review and to validate the evaluation criteria using an empirical study. The existing literature describes the relevant academic processes, but very little has been written on criteria for evaluating support systems. The research for this study attempts to address this deficiency. The criteria from the Coetzee Model were used as a basis for this research and other models in the existing literature were also referred to, including the Baldrige National Quality Program for Education Criteria, ISO 9001:2000, European Foundation Quality Model and the South African Excellence Model. This research also draws on information deemed important by the Higher Education Quality Committee and the South African Qualifications Authority. Both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were used in the investigation. The research instruments used included questionnaires and interviews. Questionnaires were distributed to all public universities, universities of technology, and one technikon in South Africa. The results of the study revealed that most respondents agreed with the generic criteria against which units should be evaluated; namely “leadership”, “strategic goals and performance indicators”, “resourcing and funding”, “policies and procedures” and “self-evaluation guidelines”. Statistical analysis was done on the criteria. The two main findings of the research showed that the first five generic criteria were valid and reliable and that there was good internal consistency among the items in each of these criteria, which confirms that the results were valid. It is recommended that for future research, the study should be expanded to support units in higher education not included in this study. The suitability of generic criteria and the development of further specific criteria should be determined. Quality-related arrangements for community engagement, where appropriate, should be adequately resourced and monitored for each unit. Once evaluations and surveys have been conducted on support units using the criteria, the process of benchmarking should be used for preventing potential problems and improving results. KEYWORDS Administration, audit, core processes, criteria, customer, evaluation, higher education, key performance indicators, principles, quality, support processes, systems