<p>In South Africa, governance structures in the form of clinic committees, hospital boards and district health councils are intended to provide expression to the principle of community participation at a local and district level. They are meant to act as a link between communities and health services and to provide a conduit for the health needs and aspirations of the community to be represented at various local, districts, provincial and national levels. This study aimed to assess the functioning of health governance structures in the form of clinic committees. Specifically, the study sought to ascertain the number of clinic committees associated with public health facilities in three provinces in South Africa namely the Eastern Cape, Free State and KwaZulu Natal and to identify the factors that are perceived by clinic committee members to either facilitate or impede the effective functioning of clinic committees.</p>

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Esta dissertação tem o objetivo de estudar os órgãos técnicos e consultivos da sociedade anônima, em sua configuração mais contemporânea, segundo a qual são mais conhecidos como os comitês da sociedade anônima. Para isso, serão avaliados os movimentos internacionais que têm exercido influência na criação desses órgãos nas companhias brasileiras. Esses movimentos estão intrinsecamente ligados às forças de convergência dos padrões internacionais de governança corporativa, tema que também é apreciado no decurso do trabalho. Após, a dissertação cuidará de avaliar as medidas externadas em âmbito nacional, que demonstram a tendência à adaptação dos referidos padrões internacionais de governança corporativa, com recomendações, e também algumas determinações, para que as companhias criem os comitês nas suas estruturas. Ao final, serão avaliadas algumas consequências jurídicas da implantação dos comitês no Brasil, conforme a concepção moderna que se tem para esses órgãos. / This master\'s degree dissertation aims to discuss the technical and advisory bodies of corporations, contemporarily known as corporate committees. In order to achieve its goals, the study will take into consideration the international trends that have influenced the creation of these bodies in Brazilian companies. These trends are closely linked to an international effort towards the convergence of corporate governance standards, which will also be analyzed in this dissertation. Furthermore, this dissertation will explore the measures taken to substantiate and adapt these international standards of corporate governance to a domestic setting. Such measures include both recommendations and mandatory provisions to create corporate committees. Finally, this dissertation will analyze certain legal consequences of the deployment committees in Brazil, taking into consideration the modern understanding of these bodies.

M.Cur. / With the changes in health care occuring in South Africa, new concepts and functions concerning the community health nurse are being presented. The role of the community health nurse is altering, and with his/her grassroot involvement with the community, the researcher was concerned about what contribution he/she should make on health committees. The goal of the study was to explore and describe the role of the community health nurse on health committees. The objectives were to: - explore and describe the role the community health nurse should play on health committees; explore and describe the role the community health nurse is playing on health committees and - to develop guidelines to describe the role of the community health nurse on health committees. The study was conducted in three phases: PHASE 1: After conducting a literature study, six categories were identified as the role of the community health nurse on health committees. Thereafter a questionnaire was presented to community health nurses to find out what their perceptions were about the role of the community health nurse on health committees. The results of Phase One were used to develop a central question. Individual categories relevant to the role of the community health nurse on health committees were identified and an interview schedule was drafted for presentation to selected members of health committees. ii PHASE 2: Personal interviews based on the results of Phase One were conducted with selected health committee members to find out their perceptions of the same. PHASE 3: ' Guidelines describing the role of the community health nurse on health committees were developed based on the findings of the study. It was found that the literature, the community health nurses and the health committee members all concured as to what the community health nurse should be doing on health committees. This study stresses the importance of the community health nurse's involvement on health committees. It should lead to the implementation of community health nurses being allowed to accept their rightful role on health

Magister Public Health - MPH / In South Africa, governance structures in the form of clinic committees, hospital boards and district health councils are intended to provide expression to the principle of community participation at a local and district level. They are meant to act as a link between communities and health services and to provide a conduit for the health needs and aspirations of the community to be represented at various local, districts, provincial and national levels. This study aimed to assess the functioning of health governance structures in the form of clinic committees. Specifically, the study sought to ascertain the number of clinic committees associated with public health facilities in three provinces in South Africa namely the Eastern Cape, Free State and KwaZulu Natal and to identify the factors that are perceived by clinic committee members to either facilitate or impede the effective functioning of clinic committees. / South Africa

Published Article / This article discusses the developments and factors that impact on the external audit function, and analyses the role that an effectively functioning audit committee can play in supporting the external auditor's independence and effectiveness. This is done through a literature review of external audit and audit committee developments, and is supported by empirical evidence obtained from assessing the annual reports and from questionnaires sent to the audit committee chairs of the Top 40 listed companies in South Africa. The main findings of the study are that audit committees at the largest listed companies in South Africa are taking responsibility for overseeing the external audit function, but that the disclosure thereof in annual reports was found to be lacking. These findings are of significance as they provide support for the recommendations of King III (effective from 1 March 2010) that all companies should form audit committees and that external audit should be given oversight responsibilities in this regard.

A dissertation submitted in partial compliance with the requirements for a Masters Degree in Technology, in the Department of Chiropractic at the Durban University of Technology, 2009. / Introduction: National Olympic Committees (NOCs) select medical personnel to support their athletes at the Olympic Games. To best support athletes the knowledge, perception and utilisation of all medical professions is assumed to be high, however literature seems to indicate that this is not so. Objective: To determine the knowledge, perception and utilisation of Chiropractic by NOCs in order to develop a better relationship so that more athletes can benefit from Chiropractic care. Methods: A questionnaire was emailed to the 205 NOCs worldwide. Respective executive committee and medical commission members were asked to complete the questionnaires. Results: 76 NOCs responded (37%), returning 27 questionnaires. 30% of the respondents were high ranking members. 93% were highly educated with a bachelor’s degree or higher and 33% had represented their country as an athlete. Both committees agreed on the importance of a post-graduate sports qualification and perceived the profession to be one of spinal care specialists. Overall knowledge of Chiropractic was poor. A trend was observed among the medical commissions in their choice of Medical Doctors or Physiotherapists over Chiropractors and other professionals. The executive committees in contrast seemed more open-minded in their choice of professionals. No association was found between the knowledge and perception of Chiropractic and use of Chiropractic Conclusion: There is confusion regarding the role and scope of practice of Chiropractic by NOCs. In order to achieve a greater level of acceptance and utilisation of Chiropractic in international sports medical teams the profession needs to clarify their role, better educate NOC members on the benefits of Chiropractic, and obtain sports specific post-graduate programmes that are recognised internationally.

This study is motivated by the numerous reforms to strengthen the efficacy of corporate boards and their oversight committees, in the wake of high profile corporate failures. The empirical question, however, is whether recent proposals would enhance board and their committee effectiveness and in this way, reduce the likelihood of firm`s failure. This study examines whether the composition, structure and functions of corporate boards and their interactions are related to the probability of corporate failure. Prior studies employ agency and resource dependency theories in isolation as theoretical lenses. This study, however, employs these aforementioned theories as theoretical lenses and argues that the board control and resource function affects the relationship between corporate board attributes and corporate failure. This study examines a sample of 358 UK listed firms, consisting of 95 failed firms and 263 non-failed firms during the period 1999-2011. This study also uses a unique hand-collected data set that measures the corporate governance attributes and functions of these 358 firms over a period of five years preceding failure or otherwise, resulting in 1748 firm-years observations. This study reveals that the probability of failure is lower in firms with large board size, former government officials, independent remuneration committee chairman and greater proportion of outside directors as well as effective audit and remuneration committees. This study also finds that the prospect of corporate failure is higher in firms with less than three independent NEDs on both the audit and nomination committees, without audit committee and where audit committee has no one with financial expertise. The results, however, suggest that the possibility of corporate failure is higher in firms whose boards have a female director and where the nomination committee meets often or where its membership is exclusively preserved for independent NEDs. On the interaction effects, the results show that frequency of board meetings as well as its interactions with presence of female directors, audit and remuneration committees effectiveness are positively related to the probability of corporate failure. The results also indicate that a number of interactions between corporate board attributes and functions are unrelated to the likelihood of corporate failure. These include the interactions between board composition measures (i.e. proportion of outside directors, presence of female directors and board size) and the board resource proxy (i.e. former government official). These associations, especially remuneration committee effectiveness, remuneration committee chairman independence, firm size and profitability, are not only statistically and economically significant but also robust to different specifications. Further, the Receiver Operating Curves indicate that the impact of corporate governance measures after controlling for firm size, liquidity, profitability, age, industry effects, and leverage is more profound in two years preceding failure. The implication of this is that corporate governance mechanisms alone are insufficient to rescue the firm on the verge of collapse. The findings are consistent with the idea that failing firms decline in size, managerial performance, corporate board attributes as well as their board`s ability to discharge it`s monitoring and resource roles. This study adds to the debate on the impact of corporate governance on corporate failure by developing, analysing and testing a robust UK corporate failure prediction model which is underpinned by a multi-theoretical framework: agency and resource dependency theories. This study also offers several recommendations for policy makers and firm-level corporate governance strategies in the mix of the numerous corporate governance reforms worldwide, this in particular makes this study unique.

There is a great deal of work on campaign finance at the national level, however, state level research is sparse. My dissertation fills this void in the literature by examining the motivations of contributors to state legislators. The literature discusses two major motivations of contributors universalistic contributors, who hope to influence election outcomes, and particularistic contributors who hope to influence legislative votes. The primary hypothesis is that proximity to the general election is the primary factor in explaining contribution patterns in state legislatures; however, proximity to a legislative vote of interest to the contributor will also be significant in explaining contribution patterns. Additionally, the dissertation examines the impact of session limits on contribution patterns. I use campaign contribution data collected by the National Institute on Money in State Politics and select twenty-five bills in nine states to test the primary hypothesis. I use a contributor fixed effects model to test for increased or decreased levels of contributions for each contributor, given the proximity to the election and legislative votes important to the contributor. The results indicate that contributions increase across all states in the two months prior to the general and primary elections, and that proximity to the election is the most important factor in explaining campaign contributions in state legislatures. In 32% of all cases in the study, there was direct evidence of interest groups attempting to influence the outcome of legislative votes. Additionally, an increase in contributions close to a major legislative vote occurred in 77% of the cases without session limits, indicating that interest groups are highly active in attempting to influence policy outcomes. An additional examination of contribution patterns indicates that PACs shift their contributions to the beginning of the legislative session when faced with session limits. My research contributes to our understanding of the motives of campaign contributors and their actions when faced with legal restrictions on their contributions. This research, therefore, allows campaign finance reformers to make better reform decisions.

The concept public participation as the bedrock of participatory democracy has the advantages of empowering civil society in decision-making skills and in legitimizing execution of programmes and projects. The vehicle driving public participation is the system of Ward Committees. legislations such as White Paper on Local Government and the Constitution obligate municipalities to involve communities in facilitating development. Participation is an essential part of local democracy and is a statutory prerequisite for the local community to be drawn into decision-making through processes such as the integrated development planning. The task of Mafube Local Municipality is not only to provide services that encourage sustainable living standards but, to also guarantee that the Mafube community is involved in council strategies and activities that affect the lives of local community. The study was undertaken to determine the effectiveness of ward committees in becoming partners in the developmental role of Mafube Local Municipality. For the purpose of the study, hypothesis was formulated that ward committees are necessary mechanisms for facilitating service delivery and yet social and administrative challenges confront their efficient functioning at Mafube Local Municipality which needs to be resolved. To test the hypothesis, empirical research method of open ended questionnaires and interviews was used to test attitudes and perceptions of councillors, ward committees and the community of Mafube Local Municipality on the effectiveness of ward committees. Amongst other findings, it was found that: * Ward committees as community structures are well known by the community of Mafube. * Ward committees need an on-going training with regard to their roles and responsibilities so that they are empowered to execute their duties as is required of them. * The literacy level among certain ward committee members poses a challenge in enabling them to understand municipal programmes or projects. * Public participation is viewed as consultation because there is minimal participation of the community during the planning and decision making of the municipal programmes or projects. * Majority of community members do not attend ward or public meetings. * Elections of ward committees are sometimes not fair and transparent, depending on political affiliation. The study concludes with recommendations for consideration and implementation by Council of Mafube Local Municipality in enhancing service delivery. / M Development and Management (Public Management and Governance), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014