Thesis (M.M. (Public and Development Management))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, 2015. / Development aid plays a significant role on the African continent in a number of ways which include, but is not limited to, financing budget deficits, conflict resolution and humanitarian assistance. South Africa, China, India and Brazil are among the “four main South powers” emerging on the global scene with aid policies designed at providing development aid to African Countries [Tjønneland, 2013: 1]. This study has examined the establishment and implementation of the African Renaissance and International Co-operation Fund (ARF) by analysing the policy processes that led to its creation and operation, from 2000 to 2009. The principle behind the development of such an act was South Africa’s desire to show its commitment in assisting in resolving Africa’s socio-economic challenges that impede development in Africa. ARF has suffered inconsistency in policy making and implementation. The study has found that the challenges in ARF policy processes were attributed to governance issues, issues of accountability, temptation to be used as a state fund for political interest, weakness in the institutional framework, absence of autonomy in management, absence of monitoring and evaluation, political power and poor administration systems.

Organisational design, development and change management is about dealing with the effectiveness and efficiency of organisations. Organisational design, development and change management practitioners use systematic strategies and approaches to improve the productivity of organisations and the well-being of individuals. In order to do this, the organisational design, development and change management practitioner must be able to manage customers, competition, change, relationships and processes. There is a need to understand the impacts of successful organisational design, development and change management implementations as they influence the success of an organisation. The aim of this study is to explore practitioners’ knowledge and experiences of organisational design, development and change management implementation. The objectives included explorations of practitioners’ experiences working on organisational design, development and change management implementations. The study is qualitative, exploratory research. Data was collected by means of face-to-face interviews guided by a semi structured interview schedule. Participants’ were practitioners working in the field of organisational design, development and change management. The study used non-probability (non-random) purposive, snowball sampling. The data was analysed using thematic content analysis to identify themes and sub themes in the data. The findings indicate what organisational design, development and change management involves, what the benefits are and the successes and challenges practitioners have encountered during implementation. The macroeconomic environment in which organisations operate is ever changing and in order to keep up, organisations need to call on experienced practitioners to assist in managing the change. The implications of the results will assist the industry as well as organisations to understand the value organisational design, development and change management implementations in enabling business strategies and driving organizations to achieve its business objective thus promoting and growing the discipline and practice.These insights will also contribute to the discipline and the availability of such data will assist future practitioners to be more effective in their roles.

A general concern in science education is that change in the curriculum has had little impact on the classroom practice. Following the introduction of a new curriculum called the Botswana Government Certificate in Secondary Education (BGCSE) curriculum in Botswana senior secondary schools, this study set out to investigate issues relating to implementation of the proposed curriculum, that is, mapping teaching effectiveness intended to improve students’ learning of chemistry compared with teaching during the old curriculum. This thesis reports the extent to which some chemistry teachers in Botswana senior secondary schools are implementing classroom methodologies that focus on learner-centred and hands-on activities. This investigation involved working with eleven chemistry teachers in four secondary schools in Botswana. The case study research methodology included observations and semi-structured interviews. The sub-constructs from Rogan and Grayson’s (2003) theory were used to guide data collection as well as analysis and interpretation of data. From the categories, it was possible to identify level of operation for the schools as well as the Zone of Feasible Implementation (ZFI) which spelt possible routes for interventions in individual schools. There were common areas observed about the teachers and the schools, in that they · All possessed the right qualifications to teach chemistry at senior school level. · All were relatively young in the teaching field · According to Rogan and Grayson’s (2003) scale, the teachers are operating at a very low level in the science practical and contextualisation dimensions. · Classroom dimensions were characterized by patches of rich interactions for most teachers. These were evidenced by some teaching interactions at level 3 on Rogan and Grayson’s operational levels. Some teachers’ lesson activities were more interactive in that there were presentations that encouraged the use of various communication skills. Learners presented organised information to support their positions, showing there had been a search for information before presentations. The other teachers limited involvement by learners, as their focus was on articulating the content. · Otherwise teachers were generally operating at lower levels in Rogan and Grayson’s (2003) scale. This is a clear indication that to some extent the teachers are not doing much in implementing the teaching ideas intended by the new curriculum. Mind and hands-on activities are still limited. Though teachers possess the right qualifications, there seems to be little desire to try new things. According to the operational levels on classroom interaction, practical work and contextualisation, it was found that teachers generally operated moderately on Rogan and Grayson’ scale. Though interviews results showed that teachers saw the need to have practical work as a way to actively engage learners, classroom observations showed that it was not a favoured method. Classroom observations revealed that the lecture method was still the favoured approach. Some learner-engaging activities in the form of group discussions, group experiments and demonstrations were practiced. Contextualizing of science was still generally low in all schools. The study also looked at the construct of capacity to support innovation. The three sub-constructs which were investigated in this study were physical resources, teacher factors and ecology and management systems. These factors had a great impact on how the sub-construct on profile of implementation panned out. The three factors were found to be higher on the Rogan and Grayson’s (2003) scale than the profile of implementation. This was found to be linked with a great deal of improvement of infrastructure by the Botswana government soon after the curriculum implementation e.g. science related facilities (laboratories, apparatus, chemicals) and teacher qualifications. Though this was the case, it was found out that classroom implementation was not as inflated as the resources on ground seemed to suggest. Several influential factors were found to be linked to the unfolding of a curriculum inside the classroom such as departmental contexts. The contexts were found to relate closely with the nature of communities that existed in science departments, which were linked to how teachers were distributed within departments.

The primary purpose of this study was to ascertain how senior government officials employed within the Department of Social Development in South Africa perceived the social development approach to social welfare. The study was confined to the national Department of Social Development and nine senior government officials were interviewed, all of them employed in different work streams but related to social development policy development. A semi-structured interview schedule comprising of open-ended questions was utilised to collect information. A deductive thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. The main findings that emerged from the study were that senior managers employed within the national Department of Social Development had a good understanding of the social development approach to social welfare. They were familiar with the key characteristics, goals, strategies and linkages between social and economic development. Senior government officials also noted progress with the implementation of the social development approach and identified that social policies were largely aligned to this approach. In terms of challenges, senior government officials identified a range of challenges impacting on the implementation of the social development approach and this ranged from the lack of a common understanding of social development within broader government, inappropriate social service workforce, poor coordination and integration, inadequate leadership and an inadequate monitoring and evaluation system to measure social development progress. Senior government officials identified a range of suggestions to improve on the implementation of the social development approach. One of the suggestions was the development of an overarching social development strategic framework to guide the social development approach and acknowledge it as government’s chosen approach to social welfare. Many suggestions related to enhancing the capabilities of social service professionals and this included the development of a social service policy framework, enhanced engagement between higher education institutions and the Department of Social Development to ensure relevant curriculum. The findings of the study recommends a series of interventions to be implemented by the national Department of Social Development such as the development of an overarching social development strategic framework as suggested by senior government officials, an audit of policies to assess alignment with the social development approach and a review of its’ consultation processes. The findings of the study identify a need to replicate this research at provincial level to ascertain how the social development approach is understood and implemented at the point of service delivery.

Thesis advisor: Rebecca Lowenhaupt / Thesis advisor: Lauri Johnson / This single case study examines how stakeholders of a local education agency (LEA) understand and implement state turnaround policy for its chronically underperforming schools. While there is ample research on how to improve chronically underperforming schools, a research gap exists specifically around addressing implementation of mandated turnaround policy. This qualitative study uses the theory frame of policy sense-making to identify how implementers come to understand turnaround policy and to explore how that sense-making impacts their implementation decisions. This study seeks to understand the role of central office in turnaround policy sense-making by collecting data on superintendent and central office administrator sense-making and its impact on policy implementation. While recent research on school improvement has focused on school improvement actions and responsibilities of principals and teachers, this study seeks to address the research gap of the essential role of school district offices in school turnaround. In seeking to understand how district leaders make sense of turnaround policy implementation to support school turnaround, the findings revealed that the superintendent and central office administrators identified strong superintendent leadership, monitoring and supporting schools, strategic distribution of resources, and management of human capital as key implementer actions and areas of influence. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: Robert J. Starratt / Despite its provision of sustained, targeted, job-embedded professional development to teachers, instructional coaching, which school districts across the United States have introduced in efforts to midwife instructional improvement, has occasionally suffered the same fate as countless other attempts at school reform. While programs of instructional coaching have endured and become institutionalized in many districts, they have been discontinued in others. Additionally, while the literature reports that instructional coaching in this country originated, and has remained popular, in urban school districts, it is all-but-silent about programs in suburban settings. The present, qualitative research study examined three suburban school districts in efforts to answer the following research question: How do suburban school districts' unique contexts impact the implementation, maintenance, and success of their instructional coaching programs? Case studies of three suburban school districts in Massachusetts were assembled from data collected during semi-structured interviews with twenty-two educators from across the three districts. Resulting data were analyzed across cases through the lens of complexity science, in order that the three school districts, and their programs of instructional coaching, could be explored - if not completely understood - in all their complexity. This investigation found that, while the roll-out of a district's instructional coaching program need not have been a grand event, it was nevertheless essential for faculty members to understand the rationale for the establishment of the program and the role to be played by their schools' coaches. It confirmed assertions in the existing literature that trust is an essential ingredient in any instructional coaching program. It also served to confirm that administrators contribute to the success of instructional coaching programs when they are actively engaged in supporting them. This investigation found, further, that instructional coaching programs, and the schools in which they function, demonstrate key aspects of complex systems. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Education.

Thesis advisor: Joseph O'Keefe / This qualitative case study examined how, when faced with an externally driven policy, central office administrators worked as an internal team to interpret mandates, match mandates to current needs, and reorient the organization through professional learning opportunities. In order to comply with state mandates, in this case the Massachusetts Model System for Educator Evaluation (MMSEE), central office administrators had been called upon to interpret the requirements of the new system, thus impacting professional development, decision-making, relationships, and forcing COAs to consider how best to meet the needs of the mandate and constituents simultaneously. Through interviews with one district’s COAs and principals, in addition to a document review, findings revealed a district COA team committed to the full implementation of the MMSEE for teachers, but who were in the middle of figuring out how best to accomplish the mandate’s goals to support principal growth and development. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: David Scanlon / School districts have been attempting to implement the response-to-intervention (RTI) framework in an effort both to comply with federal legislation (i.e., IDEA 2004) and to improve teaching for all students. Extant research on this framework has focused on exploring assessment practices across tiers and the efficacy of specific interventions, providing an overly simplistic view of RTI and overlooking the complexities involved in sustainable school-wide implementation. In September 2010, a large urban school district in the eastern United States began implementation of a reform effort premised on the RTI framework that was intended to provide a systematic, research-based, and collaborative framework for teaching all students. Drawing on a theoretical orientation that situates reform as a co-constructed process (Datnow, Hubbard, and Mehan, 1998), this qualitative single case study explored how educators at one urban K-8 school interpreted and implemented a district reform effort premised on the RTI framework. This research employed a qualitative case study approach, utilizing interviews, observations and document analysis, to: a) chronicle the sequence of events and process of decision-making in the school's development of RTI; b) explore factors supporting and hindering implementation; and c) understand how school staff responded to the implementation. Findings revealed that although the school adopted the model developed by the district, its implementation at the school, and particularly across grade levels, reflected a co-constructed and evolving approach shaped mainly by the school culture and community, individual teachers' beliefs and practices, and the variable availability and use of technical infrastructures. Results may be useful to school districts and educator preparation programs as they consider how to prepare and support educators in implementing an RTI framework. In particular, several implications emerged related to schools' implementation of RTI: a) self-assessment is critical to promoting quality, fidelity and sustainability; b) school leadership should share power and encourage co-construction; c) resources matter; d) elementary and middle school implementation must occur differently; e) culture and beliefs matter; and f) RTI implementation must seriously attend to issues of educational equity. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Det här arbetets syfte är att utvärdera olika implementationer av grundläggande mekanismer inom området hierarkiska tillståndsmaskiner. De grundläggande mekanismerna, det vill säga representationerna för tillstånd och händelser, implementeras på fyra olika sätt, och de hierarkiska tillståndsmaskinerna utformas utifrån de möjligheter som de grundläggande mekanismernas implementation ger. I arbetet implementeras de hierarkiska tillståndsmaskinerna i programmeringsspråket C++. Dessa hierarkiska tillståndsmaskiners tidseffektivitet i transitioner per sekund mäts genom ett experiment. Utvärderingen av experimentet visar att den hierarkiska tillståndsmaskinen som använder arv i C++ för att koppla samman tillstånden och som utnyttjar objekttillstånd och medlemsfunktionshändelser kan utföra runt 780 000 transitioner per sekund. Den är därför den tidseffektivaste av de fyra hierarkiska tillståndsmaskinerna. Utvärderingen indikerar också att den hierarkiska tillståndsmaskinen som använder en artificiell trädstruktur för att koppla samman tillstånden och som används genom komposition är lättast att använda.

This report represents the next step of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)related research at the Department of Information Business at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Adminstration following previous work on the selection process. Based on 209 datasets originating from a primary, national and industry independent survey, it provides a descriptive oriented overview of main characteristics of ERP in all stages of the system's lifecycle, emphasising differences between small-to-medium sized and large enterprises (SMEs and LEs). The given research topics in particular comprise software diffusion, resources allocated, strategic project guidance, investment drivers, considered and chosen solutions, team structures, selection criteria, information gathering, methodical support, implementation approaches, acompanying business strategies, implementation problems, perceived utilisation of ERP benefits, firm level ERP impact, and the role of ERP systems as technology enabler. Future work based on the gathered data will document analytical projects undertaken in particular focusing on ERP success, enterprise integration, organisational fit of ERP, and BPR/BPI related questions. / Series: Working Papers on Information Systems, Information Business and Operations