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South Africa has a well defined, highly complex private healthcare services industry with a high reliance on the use of intricate IT systems to ensure its sustainability. The required competitive advantage through better decision making and improved outcomes measures may be facilitated by an agile, IT aligned Enterprise Architecture, which is rapidly becoming a basic ideology of IT. This research project presents the findings of an investigation conducted to assess maturity levels of Enterprise Architecture and the associated challenges to its evolution in the South African private healthcare service industry. In fully exploring this, both quantitative and qualitative approaches are used to address the respective research questions. A quantitative approach in the form of a survey and Enterprise Architecture maturity assessment served to determine the IT demographics and Enterprise Architecture maturity levels respectively. A qualitative approach, facilitated by in-depth interviews, served to identify the emergent themes highlighting the challenges facing the implementation and evolution of Enterprise Architecture. The collected data was analysed by thematic analysis Key findings for this research conclude that IT is of vital importance to sustaining day-today operations and long term strategic objectives of these organisations; Enterprise Architecture maturity is low, assessed as being ‘under-development”, which is related to elements of the Enterprise Architecture being omitted, due to their associated costs and perceived poor return on investment. The prevalent challenges to the implementation and evolution of Enterprise Architecture, is summarised as being; the need for skilled resources and resource time; the need system standardisation; the need for a positive return on investment; the need for a business understanding of Enterprise Architecture; removal of existing legacy systems; and the industry related legislation. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

A key challenge for urban facilities management (UFM) is to identify ways to promote sustainable urban development at a community/precinct level. One potential approach is via the application of sustainable community assessment/rating tools which have seen increased popularity amongst urban planners and developers over the past decade. This study investigates the efficacy and applicability of this approach to urban sustainability, particularly within the "developing country"context of South Africa. Furthermore, the paper suggests that the deployment of UFM in creating a management platform for urban precincts, one that focuses on the process of achieving urban sustainability within a specific locale, will deliver improved strategies for operationalising urban sustainability. Using soft systems methodology (SSM), the study aimed to establish the fundamental requirements for sustainable community development frameworks in both "developing" and "developed countries". Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 11 key stakeholders who consisted of two main categories. Firstly, participants from private and public sector engaged in the management and development of sustainable urban precincts. Secondly, participants from NGO's that develop sustainable community rating tools. The tools included: Leadership in Engineering and Environmental Design for Neighbourhood Development (LEED-ND), Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology for Communities (BREEAM-C), Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency for Urban Development (CASBEE-UD), EcoDistricts, Green Star Communities (GSC), and the Living Community Challenge (LCC). Interviews were conducted in both Cape Town and Vancouver; representing the "developing" and "developed"contexts respectively. It was found that the prescriptive and outcomes-based nature of assessment tools excludes "developing countries" from the sustainable community development conversation. The logical next step is to develop frameworks that offer sustainable solutions appropriate to these contexts. Findings also highlighted a need for a more robust procedural framework to manage relationships between various professionals and interest groups involved in the development of sustainable communities/precincts. This in turn provides a unified method to facilitate the achievement of urban sustainability. This research concludes that urban sustainability needs to draw upon the management principles of facilities management (FM), and more specifically UFM, to develop and assess the sustainability of communities and cities within a specific locale. Without a process-orientated method such as this, cities will continue to fall short of their sustainable imperatives.

<p> Our study is concerned with the problem of locating public facilities. We suggest that public facilities and the services therein generate locational impacts which can be best elicited through a behavioral approach and more particularly through attitude theory.</p> <p> In this framework of analysis, we postulate two alternative hypotheses in an attempt to circumscribe the essential dimensions of impact of public facilities and services. We suggest that either different kinds of externalities are imposed upon the users and the non-users of public goods or the impacts generated by public goods are essentially the same. In the latter case, they are evaluated differently and given different psychological weights. The attitudes developed through the evaluation of public goods are found to be the best indicators of the extent and intensity of their impacts. While attitude formation is a multidimensional process involving tangible and intangible elements we show that the resulting attitudes are largely dependent upon locational factors and distance relationships.</p> <p> In order to evaluate the attitudes of users and non-users we develop a Semantic Differential scale relating the characteristics of public services to the attitude system of individuals.</p> <p> Finally, we give the attitude score a "utility" interpretation placing the analysis in a planning context: that of environmental satisfaction and conflict situations due to the location of public facilities.</p> / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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The purpose of this study is to examine the issue of planning for technology in existing, new, or renovated school facilities. The focus is to provide educators a technology profile to help with planning issues regarding school design and the integration of technology in school facilities. Very few counties in the Commonwealth of Virginia have a facility planner on staff. It is the intent of this author to provide support for those involved with planning for technology in school facilities. Principals can use this tool to help align school technology goals with the division long-term plan as well as the technology standards. Reviewing the components of the Virginia Educational Technology Alignment Report, the CEO Forum STAR indicators, the Florida Technology Resource Survey, as well as the TAGLIT survey tool provided insight to the technology profile. This tool was used throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia to assess current conditions and the perceptions of principals, teachers and division support staff in an attempt to assess current and long-range planning for technology in school facilities. The literature reviewed clearly identifies that a continued commitment to long-range planning and effective statewide integration of educational technology into teaching and learning is essential. A close examination of the results of this study will assist those planning for and assessing schools readiness for technology and its impact on school design to ensure the accommodation of future technological needs of school facilities. As a result of the data collected a user technology profile can be created for each participating school. This tool can help in a variety of ways. Possibilities include setting benchmarks and goals, applying for technology grants, determining funding priorities, and creating individualized assessment tools. The intent here is to provide a technology user profile for each school by participant. This would enable the principal to review the data separately or by comparison of principal and teacher. / Ed. D.