This PhD study centres on analysing the changing employment service portfolios available to disadvantaged people out of work in Britain and Germany. Looking at the recent wave of comparative studies on ‘activation’ reforms, it springs to mind that the question of the changing portfolio of ‘active’ labour market policy (ALMP) measures has received only little attention in the sense of a rigorous comparative analysis. In order to address that gap, this study develops a novel normative and analytical perspective for the study of ALMP, which then is applied to the empirical cases Britain and Germany. I first develop the concept of personalisation as the normative and analytical framework for the analysis of ALMP. I show that the diversity of ALMP portfolios, which is a precondition for a personalised service provision, can serve as a proxy for measuring personalisation. Equipped with this analytical tool, the analysis subsequently focuses on the changes to ALMP portfolios over the past 15 years in terms of diversity. It is shown that during this period both Britain and Germany reformed working-age benefits in a way that led to a closer integration of the benefit system at an institutional level. Taking the policy rhetoric that closer integration will lead to more ‘personalised’ (UK) or more ‘tailor-made’ (Germany) services as a starting point, I analyse whether these developments at an institutional level have indeed led to a more personalised, or more diverse, provision of employment services. This study looks in particular at the situation of those groups in the two countries who have been most affected by recent integration reforms. These have primarily been claimants of second-tier working-age benefits, namely incapacity related benefits in the UK, and ‘Sozialhilfe’ (SH, social assistance) and ‘Arbeitslosengeld II’ (ALGII, Unemployment Benefit II) in Germany. I find that in both countries, employment services for claimants of these second-tier benefits have become more diverse in the wake of the integration reforms of the past 10 to 15 years, thereby increasing their personalisation potential. However, the two countries have each followed very specific reform trajectories. While the volume and coverage of ALMP have increased in both countries, the portfolio of services for second-tier claimants today is much more diverse in Germany than in Britain. This is primarily due to the existence of a large volume of services directed at claimants more distant from the labour market that follow a social integration & employability approach. These services are more marginal in Britain, where measures that follow a work-first approach are dominant. This divergent development is indicative of major and persistent differences in terms of ideational context as well as institutional (operational) factors. New Public Management reforms have influenced operational policy to different degrees in the two countries, effectively limiting the diversity of employment services in Britain more than in Germany.

Research investigating women-owned businesses has developed considerably over the past two decades. There are, however, few British studies that have specifically focussed on growth oriented women-owned businesses. The current study aims to fill this gap. Its purpose is to explore the effect of social capital and human capital on the growth of women-owned enterprises in the UK. The research contributes to the knowledge of women's entrepreneurship as the first to study the moderating role of human capital in building and using social capital in the UK. It develops the theoretical premise that women entrepreneurs with higher human capital gain credibility and centrality in networks, accumulating social capital based on their importance for other network members and their business stakeholders. This mixed method study involves both collecting and analysing quantitative and qualitative data. Statistical analysis using SPSS was applied to analyse quantitative data collected through 517 on-line completed questionnaires from three different regions. The qualitative data collected through face to face interviews with 42 women entrepreneurs were also analysed and interpreted. The findings suggest that the social capital possessed by women entrepreneurs plays an important role in the growth of enterprises. Women entrepreneurs use different sources to build and use their social capital at different stages of growth and in different industry sectors such as manufacturing or services. Women entrepreneurs with higher human capital are more likely to identify opportunities, generate ideas and show creative thinking in introducing novel products, services, location, processes or systems, which makes their growth path exponential. There are implications of this study for women entrepreneurs to build and use their social and human capital for the growth of their enterprises. And there are also implications for politicians and business organisations, who must devise policies to develop opportunities for existing or potential women entrepreneurs for building their human based capital.

Providing a socio-legal analysis of the issues, expert evidence and judgment in Reay and Hope v BNFL plc., the thesis offers an insight into the complexity of the toxic tort. Starting with an overview of the history of Sellafield, the thesis reflects on the scientific and epidemiological concerns surrounding the link between childhood cancer and nuclear installations. Drawing on scientific knowledge and epistemological considerations, the thesis moves on to the difficulties of verifying causation in science and the problems of establishing causation in law. Outlining the role of the expert witness and scientific expert evidence, the thesis proceeds with a case analysis, before broaching the thorny issue of judicial decision making and in particular, the difference between the 'discovery' and 'justification' process. Moving on to the Judgment in Reay and Hope, attention is given to the potential application of probability theory to the judicial decision making process. Lasting just short of one hundred days and including the testimony of numerous scientific experts, Reay and Hope marked new ground in a number of ways; it was the first personal injury claim to test the concept of genetic damage from radiation; the only time that a Queen's Bench Division Judge had been allocated a full-time judicial assistant; and one of the first trials to endorse a satellite video link for examination of international expert witnesses. As far as judicial management is concerned, the case was a forerunner in having Counsels' Opening Statements in writing in advance of the trial, as well as having written daily submissions of key issues from plaintiffs and defendants upon conclusion of oral evidence. The circumstances that led to the trial relate to events in excess of thirty to forty years ago when the fathers of Dorothy Reay and Viven Hope were employed by the Defendants and their predecessors (the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority) as fitters for the Sellafield Plant. Intrinsic to the litigation was whether paternal preconception irradiation caused or materially contributed to a predisposition to cancer leading to Dorothy's death from leukaemia and Vivien Hope's non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. As a consequence of the various statutory provisions, the Plaintiffs did not need to prove negligence on the part of the Defendants. In order to succeed the Plaintiffs had to prove on the balance of probabilities that radiation from Sellafield was a material contributory cause of the Plaintiffs' disease. The fundamental issue therefore was causation. In addition to the case analysis, two pieces of empirical research were conducted for the purposes of this thesis. The first, a Social Survey (consisting of thirty four questions) was circulated to 160 members of the Academy of Experts (quantitative research); the second, a letter, involved written communication with sixty five judges from the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court (qualitative research). Underlying this socio-legal case analysis are fundamental questions with regard to existing legal principles, liability and judicial decision making.

Despite of the sociality of TV viewing, advertising researchers have traditionally studied the solitary viewer. The study of the social uses of advertising has been limited, and the reception of advertising in a naturalistic setting has practically been ignored. As a consequence, contextual factors of time, space, and everyday life have received only scant attention in the advertising literature. This thesis adopts the ethnographic method to investigate within a naturalistic setting the phenomenon of the consumption of commercial breaks. Eight households in Northwest London varying in age, socio-economic factors and other variables were filmed during a two-week-period and later interviewed. The videoethnography led to the identification of a set of cultural themes, which are illustrated in the thesis by behavioral episodes and interview excerpts from the participating households. In addition to the identification of archetypical behaviors, the thesis underlines a set of contingencies that have implications for behavior of potential audiences for television advertising, such as audience composition and time-of-day effects. As a scholar or practitioner with an interest in advertising, it is easy to overplay the role of advertising in people’s lives. However, the everyday life of the consumer consists of a myriad of demands and choices. For the consumer who needs to prioritize among countless information sources and competing demands for her attention, advertising is at best of minor importance. The results of this thesis highlight that advertising watching is merely one of many behaviors – and by no means the default one – that consumers engage in during commercial breaks and demonstrate the importance of balancing prevailing advertising-centered approaches to the study of television advertising consumption with an audience-centered approach. / <p>Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, 2007</p>

The provision of consular services is an obligation of every government to its citizens who are living abroad. In providing such services, efforts must be made to ensure that they are accessible to all citizens, wherever they may be. Under the current economic climate, maintaining an extensive network of embassies and consulates around the world is an expensive venture. It is against this background that governments must be innovative in providing services by ensuring that private and third sector organizations are involved, in order to complement their work of ensuring that consular services reach their citizens at affordable costs - wherever they are. Besides rendering consular services to South African (SA) citizens, consular offices can be a vital investment vehicle of the government abroad, by ensuring that much-needed investment is obtained. Furthermore, the consular services can serve as the first line of defence of a country, by ensuring that people who can cause harm to the country do not enter it. Despite the daunting challenges facing the post-apartheid government in SA, a number of changes have been undertaken to ensure that consular services are modernized. However, those changes have been inadequate and have fallen short of meeting the expectations of most South African citizens who are living abroad. This study makes a vital contribution on the concept of using partnership and outsourcing as tools for increased access to consular services in one of the critical missions of SA abroad - the United Kingdom, by showing that the traditional way of rendering consular services from a diplomatic mission is inadequate to reach potential customers scattered in parts of the host country. The study concludes with significant recommendations that, inter alia, include even using post offices and the internet to ensure that consular services reach all parts of the United Kingdom, where South Africans live. Given that consular services have inherent security implications, the study also notes that among factors that must be taken into account before outsourcing consular services, or even setting up a partnership, the chosen service providers must, amongst other things, be able to maintain and protect the confidentiality of their customers. / Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

This thesis analyses a diversity of Christian understandings of the Kingdom of God in relation to the church’s mission for social justice. Its central argument is that the Christian praxis of the eschatological reality of the Kingdom is the church’s alternative to philosophical and ethical theories for social justice. Through an in-depth analysis and evaluation of previous scholarship, this study examines secular philosophical and ethical theories of both ancient and modern times as means of transforming the systemic injustices of society, and affirms their inadequacy to attain the highest good for humanity without a true knowledge of the justice of the sovereign God. Through a hermeneutic approach to the biblical material, the study finds the fundamental concept of God’s justice in narrative and thematic form throughout the Bible. God is the source of love, power, righteousness and justice, and practising justice is a divine mandate for believers. Critical analysis of the diversified concept of the Kingdom of God finds that each view of eschatology, whether premillennialism, postmillennialism, or amillennialism, has its unique characteristics and insights, but without a comprehensive, coherent and integrative conceptual framework for the Kingdom, any one view of eschatology poses difficulties and jeopardizes the advancement of the Gospel of the Kingdom. The study finds that the two-kingdom doctrine of Luther and Calvin, together with Barth’s doctrine of Law and Gospel, support an understanding of the universal Lordship of Christ over both the church (the spiritual realm) and the world (the civil realm), that Ladd’s ‘inaugurated eschatology’ appropriately synthesises the views of ‘consistent eschatology’ and ‘realized eschatology’ as ‘one redemptive event in two parts’, and that E. Stanley Jones’ ‘total Kingdom’ concept effectively summarises God’s comprehensive plan for human life. For the last century, however, the evangelical church has been preoccupied with an overemphasis on individual pietistic experience, vertical relationship with God, personal conversion and over-reaction to the social gospel movement. The relative non-participation of the evangelical church in action for social justice evidences an uneasy conscience; their narrow interpretation of the Kingdom of God has resulted in the church’s withdrawing from social involvement as well as obscuring the horizontal relationship between humanity and creation. The study concludes that Christianity is not an abstract concept but is concerned with the eschatological hope of the Kingdom of God and with its embodiment through the church on earth, which implies the formation of a renewed socio-political reality. The church is thus the prototype of the Kingdom of God, with a mandate to display God’s justice as the divine redemptive plan that will culminate in the restoration of the communion of all humanity in God. In seeking a balance between this concept of the Kingdom and the church’s mission of evangelism and social justice, the study finds that there is a need to call the evangelical church to incarnate the Word of God in proclamation and action – an integrated mission of evangelism and social justice. / Thesis (PhD (Ethics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus in association with Greenwich School of Theology, U.K., 2013.

The provision of consular services is an obligation of every government to its citizens who are living abroad. In providing such services, efforts must be made to ensure that they are accessible to all citizens, wherever they may be. Under the current economic climate, maintaining an extensive network of embassies and consulates around the world is an expensive venture. It is against this background that governments must be innovative in providing services by ensuring that private and third sector organizations are involved, in order to complement their work of ensuring that consular services reach their citizens at affordable costs - wherever they are. Besides rendering consular services to South African (SA) citizens, consular offices can be a vital investment vehicle of the government abroad, by ensuring that much-needed investment is obtained. Furthermore, the consular services can serve as the first line of defence of a country, by ensuring that people who can cause harm to the country do not enter it. Despite the daunting challenges facing the post-apartheid government in SA, a number of changes have been undertaken to ensure that consular services are modernized. However, those changes have been inadequate and have fallen short of meeting the expectations of most South African citizens who are living abroad. This study makes a vital contribution on the concept of using partnership and outsourcing as tools for increased access to consular services in one of the critical missions of SA abroad - the United Kingdom, by showing that the traditional way of rendering consular services from a diplomatic mission is inadequate to reach potential customers scattered in parts of the host country. The study concludes with significant recommendations that, inter alia, include even using post offices and the internet to ensure that consular services reach all parts of the United Kingdom, where South Africans live. Given that consular services have inherent security implications, the study also notes that among factors that must be taken into account before outsourcing consular services, or even setting up a partnership, the chosen service providers must, amongst other things, be able to maintain and protect the confidentiality of their customers. / Thesis (M. Development and Management)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013

This thesis analyses a diversity of Christian understandings of the Kingdom of God in relation to the church’s mission for social justice. Its central argument is that the Christian praxis of the eschatological reality of the Kingdom is the church’s alternative to philosophical and ethical theories for social justice. Through an in-depth analysis and evaluation of previous scholarship, this study examines secular philosophical and ethical theories of both ancient and modern times as means of transforming the systemic injustices of society, and affirms their inadequacy to attain the highest good for humanity without a true knowledge of the justice of the sovereign God. Through a hermeneutic approach to the biblical material, the study finds the fundamental concept of God’s justice in narrative and thematic form throughout the Bible. God is the source of love, power, righteousness and justice, and practising justice is a divine mandate for believers. Critical analysis of the diversified concept of the Kingdom of God finds that each view of eschatology, whether premillennialism, postmillennialism, or amillennialism, has its unique characteristics and insights, but without a comprehensive, coherent and integrative conceptual framework for the Kingdom, any one view of eschatology poses difficulties and jeopardizes the advancement of the Gospel of the Kingdom. The study finds that the two-kingdom doctrine of Luther and Calvin, together with Barth’s doctrine of Law and Gospel, support an understanding of the universal Lordship of Christ over both the church (the spiritual realm) and the world (the civil realm), that Ladd’s ‘inaugurated eschatology’ appropriately synthesises the views of ‘consistent eschatology’ and ‘realized eschatology’ as ‘one redemptive event in two parts’, and that E. Stanley Jones’ ‘total Kingdom’ concept effectively summarises God’s comprehensive plan for human life. For the last century, however, the evangelical church has been preoccupied with an overemphasis on individual pietistic experience, vertical relationship with God, personal conversion and over-reaction to the social gospel movement. The relative non-participation of the evangelical church in action for social justice evidences an uneasy conscience; their narrow interpretation of the Kingdom of God has resulted in the church’s withdrawing from social involvement as well as obscuring the horizontal relationship between humanity and creation. The study concludes that Christianity is not an abstract concept but is concerned with the eschatological hope of the Kingdom of God and with its embodiment through the church on earth, which implies the formation of a renewed socio-political reality. The church is thus the prototype of the Kingdom of God, with a mandate to display God’s justice as the divine redemptive plan that will culminate in the restoration of the communion of all humanity in God. In seeking a balance between this concept of the Kingdom and the church’s mission of evangelism and social justice, the study finds that there is a need to call the evangelical church to incarnate the Word of God in proclamation and action – an integrated mission of evangelism and social justice. / Thesis (PhD (Ethics))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus in association with Greenwich School of Theology, U.K., 2013.

Based on the missional experiences of the Wolaita Zone Kale Heywet Church (WZKHC) in Southern Ethiopia, this dissertation argues the indispensable nature of the holistic approach to mission in order to fulfil the missional responsibility of the church effectively. Balance must be kept between the two aspects of mission (evangelism and social concern) and they need to be integrated as working towards a single goal of proclaiming the Kingdom of God. In other words, neither of the two aspects of mission may to be magnified at the expense of the other nor should they be dichotomized as two unrelated parts. Mission emerges from the nature of God. Ever since the creation of the universe God has been at work and the church takes part in what he is doing. God's mission is holistic. Through Jesus Christ, He is working towards the redemption of the whole creation to its originally intended state. The research attempts to give attention to this concept as the Kingdom-oriented (Messio Dei) mission versus church-centered mission in light of holistic approach. To weigh the experience of the church (WZKHC) from the perspective of the Scripture, OT and NT analysis will be done in detail. Furthermore, the eschatological views pertinent to the final state of the creation and millennium will also be assessed in order to find out their contribution as a root of imbalance or polarization between evangelism and social concern. The aim of the study is to find out the factors that contribute to the imbalanced and non integrated approach to mission in the WZKHC in order to help the church regain the holistic perspective. This would be done mainly through qualitative research method, although quantitative approach is also employed rarely. / Thesis (M.A. (Missiology))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.

The aim of this work is to show that criticisms of Kantian ethics from the field of virtue ethics misfire because they rely on a widespread reading of Kant which centers on the Groundwork and the Formula of Universal Law as the key elements in his moral philosophy. This reading, I argue, is susceptible both to charges of “empty formalism” and moral “rigorism” as well as the complaint voiced by virtue ethicists that Kantian ethics lacks a full-blooded account of the virtues, along with the attendant desiderata of sociality, character and the emotions. In response, I defend the proposal that the Formula of Humanity and the Doctrine of Virtue in the Metaphysics of Morals represent the final form of Kant’s ethical thought. If this is accurate, a rich and novel ethical theory emerges, and many of the criticisms from the field of virtue ethics are subsequently disarmed.