During the period 1994 to 2004, the Registrar of Co-operatives, situated in Pretoria (South Africa), considered applications and subsequently de-registered 102 agricultural and non-agricultural South African co-operatives, which then converted to alternative business forms. This research was conducted to determine the strategies driving co-operatives to convert to alternative business forms in South Africa, and to evaluate the level of success achieved in a specific case. During the research, the changing legislation relating to co-operatives was identified as one of the main drivers to convert, although during pilot testing, the respondents submitted capital forming or growth restrictions as main drivers for conversions. The main concerns about the impact of changing legislation were about voting rights changing to a one-person-one-vote, which, according to the respondents, could affect control within the co-operative. Financial ratio analysis to determine liquidity, debt management and profitability of a specific converted case was conducted by disseminating and processing data by means of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. In the selected case the conversion did not guarantee success, and the financial figures showed that a conversion did not have immediate impact, although the last three years of the 10-year period analysed showed signs of a positive growth on the return on total assets (ROA). External influences, especially legislation in the broad sense, and specifically regarding Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE), Employment Equity and Labour practise may have serious impact on the choice of business form the prospective entrepreneur decides upon, or the existing enterprise bases its decisions on as to its future business form.

1 Abstract: Termination of the Existence of a Cooperative and Its Legal Forms The purpose of my thesis is to analyze termination of the existence of a cooperative and its legal forms. The thesis is composed of four chapters. Chapter One is introductory and defines basic terminology used in the thesis as the term cooperative and principles of cooperatives. The chapter is subdivided into two parts. Part One describes cooperatives and relevant Czech legislation. Part two explains principles on which are cooperatives based on. Chapter Two examines the process of termination of a cooperative. The chapter consists of three parts. Part One focuses on the termination of a cooperative. Part Two investigates process of liquidation of a cooperative. Part Three addresses the issue of dissolution of a cooperative. Chapter Three is subdivided into eleven parts and it is focused on the change of legal form of a cooperative. Part One outlines relevant Czech legislation. Part Two looks at principal articles for the change of legal form. Part Three concentrates on the project of the transformation. Part Four describes approval of the transformation. Part Five refers to the report on the transformation. Part Six deals with interim and final accounts. Part Seven is about asset pricing. Part Eight describes obligation to pay...

M.Ed. / While there is a new vision and direction as set out in the new education policy frameworks, human resources management in schools is still shaped by disempowering autocratic ethos, systems and procedures inherited from the apartheid era. Consequently, the management styles required to rehumanize the staff in schools, especially black township schools, is absent. Capacity building for service delivery is lacking. In this study, the researcher uses a qualitative research based on multiple selected sites to explore what barriers stand in the path of employees at school level with regard to the delivery of the expected learning outcomes and also to suggest ways and means to remove or limit these barriers. Research findings from this study suggest that managers in schools should not limit employees through their managerial actions, but rather empower their school staff by means of anchored freedom and enhance their performance through managing the environment surrounding them.

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A performance evaluation of CSTC (Cooperative Space Time Coding) with spatially cor-related fading and imperfect channel estimation in Gaussian as well as impulsive noise is presented. Closed form expressions for the pairwise error probability conditioned on the estimated channel gains are derived by assuming the components of the received vector are independent given the estimated channel gains. An expurgated union bound using the limiting before averaging technique given the estimated channel gains is then obtained. Although this assumption is not strictly valid, simulation results show that the bound is accurate in estimating the diversity order as long the channel estimation is not very poor. It is found that CSTC with block fading channels can reduce the frame error rate (FER) relative to SUSTC (Single User Space Time Coding) with quasi-static fading channels, even when the channel gains for each user are strongly correlated and when the channel estimations are very poor. A decision metric for CSTC with spatially correlated fading, imperfect channel estimation, and impulsive mixture Gaussian noise is derived which yields lower FERs than the Gaussian noise decision metric. Simulation results show that the FER performance of CSTC with mixture Gaussian noise outperforms CSTC with Gaussian noise at low SNR. At high SNR, the FER performance of CSTC with Gaussian noise is better than the FER performance of CSTC with mixture Gaussian noise due to the heavy tail of the mixture Gaussian noise. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Electrical and Computer Engineering, Department of / Graduate

This thesis attempts to give an equitable and just answer to the problem of subjecting the earnings of co-operative associations to the federal income tax. The first three chapters discuss the nature of a co-operative per se, the development of the co-operative movement in Canada, the financial and business methods of Canadian co-operatives and the effect which the accumulation of tax-free reserves had had upon co-operative plant values. Chapters IV and V trace the Canadian history of the controversy over co-operative income taxation, and explain the particular application of the Income War Tax Act to co-operative associations before the 1946 amendments. The next two chapters examine the recommendations of three government bodies - two in Great Britain and one in Canada - which have wrestled with the question of subjecting co-operative earnings to income taxation. Chapter VIII explains the present Canadian tax law as it applies to co-operatives and compares it to the laws found in Great Britain and certain foreign countries. Chapter IX consists of an examination of the chief arguments advanced by both the advocates of co-operative income taxation and the defenders of co-operatives from such taxation. It will be noted that the problem is dealt with statistically, historically and theoretically. Such a three sided attack is necessary if just conclusions are to be set forth. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

Housing co-operatives consist basically of people joining together as a corporation to provide housing through group action for themselves. The corporation owns the housing project and each member owns stocks in the corporation which entitles him to live in a unit and share management of the project together with the other members. Housing co-operatives, when supported by adequate education, comprehensive organization and governmental assistance, can provide housing at lower costs than those of equivalent housing in the private market. They are a widely-developed sector of housing in Latin American and European countries. They also exist in the United States Housing, Cooperative |z British Columbiaand various provinces of Canada. Their manifestation in British Columbia is very limited and this constitutes the main concern of this thesis. Such concern focuses on the hypothesis that the formation of housing co-operatives in this province has been retarded by the lack of specific provincial or municipal policies regarding such co-operatives. This hypothesis is supported by various cases, in foreign countries and some Canadian provinces, where legislation for such type of housing caused definite and unprecedented activity in the field. It is thus the conclusion of this thesis that the field of housing co-operatives in British Columbia would develop if specific governmental legislation for such co-operatives were adopted and combined with improvements in education and organization in the field. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

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Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOs) are voluntary associations of people with the common goal of encouraging savings and granting credit to members as a means to their economic improvement. For a long period of time, SACCOs have been seen as a way of ensuring savings and investments, especially by the middle and lower economic classes. In Kenya, these institutions have managed to accumulate funds running into billions of shillings, and many members have benefited from them. However, in the last few years, many of these institutions have experienced serious financial challenges that have led to some of them winding up or becoming dormant, resulting in a loss of funds for members. The primary objective of this study was to determine the factors that influence the financial sustainability of SACCOs in Kenya. The study explored the influence of financial outreach, financial regulation, corporate governance, size and age on financial sustainability. A sample of 166 SACCOs was drawn for the study, and generalised least square technique was used to analyse the data. Empirical findings of the study reveal that financial outreach, as measured by the number of members, exerts a significant influence on financial sustainability. Similarly, financial regulation, SACCOs' governance, SACCOs' size and SACCOs' age were found to exert a significant influence on the financial sustainability of SACCOs. The study has contributed to theory by applying both monetary and non-monetary measures to profitability theory of financial sustainability. While contributing to empirics, the study has delineated the relationship between the study factors and their financial sustainability status (FSS), as well as documenting the FSS of SACCOs in Kenya. In terms of methodology, the study applied the GLS analysis technique. Finally, the study provides useful information to SACCO policy makers and opens avenues for future research, thus contributing to practice. The recommendations of the study provide insights into how to rescue ailing SACCOs in Kenya and ameliorate the existing situation.