Over the past two decades, the South African economy has witnessed a decrease in its capacity to recruit new entrants into the formal labour market. South Africa’s economy is not producing enough employment opportunities to accommodate the influx of annual new entrants into the labour market, such as school leavers. As a result of the inadequate ability of South Africa’s formal labour market to absorb new entrants, coupled with the rising youth unemployment, the South African government has prioritised the development of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) and entrepreneurship as a means to combat these challenges. Entrepreneurship, as a recognised intervention for the development and growth of an economy through the creation of jobs and poverty alleviation, is an important topic in business literature. Many countries around the world are increasingly recognising the significant contributions that SMMEs make to the employment and income generation aspects of the economy. Despite the contributions that SMMEs and small organisations (SOs), including small service organisations (SSOs), make to the economy, they have multiple difficulties to overcome. While SOs are viewed as powerful mechanisms that contribute to economic development and growth through increasing employment opportunities and wealth, they face certain obstacles that impede their growth potential and, sometimes, even lead to failure. Business incubators are organisations established to support SOs and SMMEs and are recognised as making a significant contribution to reducing business failure. South Africa and countries all over the world are beginning to appreciate the value of incubators as salient institutions that support small organisations. Various forms of business incubators have been developed, including university business incubators (UBIs) which provide support for potential entrepreneurs through ensuring that mentoring, financing, networks and business training is available. Business incubators offer incubation programmes, which include a variety of services and networking resources, to incubates. Whilst numerous studies have been done on the services that incubators offer incubates in the international context, limited research has been conducted on the services that entrepreneurs require from a UBI in the South African context. The primary objective of this study was to determine the essential incubator services that small service organisations require from UBIs within the South African context in order to guide the formation of policy objectives, marketing strategies and marketing procedures. The target population relevant to this study was defined as owners/managers of small service organisations situated in the Vaal Triangle region of South Africa. The sampling frame for the study comprised a list of small service organisations situated in the Vaal Triangle region, as obtained from the Vaal Triangle Info Business Directory. From this sampling frame, a non-probability judgement sample of 125 owners/managers of SSOs in the auto, estate agents and property management, health care and beauty, hospitality and accommodation, and professional service industry sectors was drawn. An unsolicited calling approach was followed, whereby the researcher personally visited each small service organisation individually to request permission to partake in the study. Thereafter, self-administered questionnaires were delivered for completion by the relevant owners/managers of each participating SSO, which were collected thereafter. In order to measure their perceptions of essential UBI services, participants were requested to indicate on a six-point Likert scale the level of unimportance or importance of 41 services. The owners/managers‟ perceptions of the importance of the six UBI service constructs over the business life-cycle phases were measured using multiple-choice questions, whereby the participants were asked to choose one of the five alternatives provided. The owners/managers‟ perceived value of UBI services was measured using dichotomous questions. In addition, certain demographical data were requested from the participants. The findings of this study indicate that the owners/managers of SSOs perceive UBI services as being important. They indicated networking and professional services as the most important UBI services, followed by management services, general business services, physical facilities and financial consulting services, of which university services were perceived as being the least important. The findings suggest that the UBI services were mostly required in the pre-start-up, start-up and growth phases of the SSO‟s business life-cycle phases. While UBI services were deemed important by both young and mature organisations, the owners/managers of young organisations perceived management services as more important than those of more mature organisations. In terms of the perceived value of UBI services, the findings reveal that although owners/managers perceived the UBI services to be important, they expressed minimal interest in utilising those services. Based on the participants‟ level of agreement concerning the perceived importance of UBI services, cluster analysis revealed two clusters, namely Cluster 1 and Cluster 2. The participants in Cluster 1, comprising more female participants and young organisations, perceived the UBI services as more important than those participants in Cluster 2. Since the idea of UBIs is relatively new in South African, and given that they have yet to prove their value to industry, getting stakeholders to buy into the concept remains a daunting task. Insights gained from this study will help business incubators, universities, government and other stakeholders understand current entrepreneurs‟ perceptions towards the important UBI services required by SSOs. This, in turn, will help guide UBIs in the formation of their policy objectives, marketing strategies and marketing procedures. / PhD (Marketing Management)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015.

Over the past two decades, the South African economy has witnessed a decrease in its capacity to recruit new entrants into the formal labour market. South Africa’s economy is not producing enough employment opportunities to accommodate the influx of annual new entrants into the labour market, such as school leavers. As a result of the inadequate ability of South Africa’s formal labour market to absorb new entrants, coupled with the rising youth unemployment, the South African government has prioritised the development of small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) and entrepreneurship as a means to combat these challenges. Entrepreneurship, as a recognised intervention for the development and growth of an economy through the creation of jobs and poverty alleviation, is an important topic in business literature. Many countries around the world are increasingly recognising the significant contributions that SMMEs make to the employment and income generation aspects of the economy. Despite the contributions that SMMEs and small organisations (SOs), including small service organisations (SSOs), make to the economy, they have multiple difficulties to overcome. While SOs are viewed as powerful mechanisms that contribute to economic development and growth through increasing employment opportunities and wealth, they face certain obstacles that impede their growth potential and, sometimes, even lead to failure. Business incubators are organisations established to support SOs and SMMEs and are recognised as making a significant contribution to reducing business failure. South Africa and countries all over the world are beginning to appreciate the value of incubators as salient institutions that support small organisations. Various forms of business incubators have been developed, including university business incubators (UBIs) which provide support for potential entrepreneurs through ensuring that mentoring, financing, networks and business training is available. Business incubators offer incubation programmes, which include a variety of services and networking resources, to incubates. Whilst numerous studies have been done on the services that incubators offer incubates in the international context, limited research has been conducted on the services that entrepreneurs require from a UBI in the South African context. The primary objective of this study was to determine the essential incubator services that small service organisations require from UBIs within the South African context in order to guide the formation of policy objectives, marketing strategies and marketing procedures. The target population relevant to this study was defined as owners/managers of small service organisations situated in the Vaal Triangle region of South Africa. The sampling frame for the study comprised a list of small service organisations situated in the Vaal Triangle region, as obtained from the Vaal Triangle Info Business Directory. From this sampling frame, a non-probability judgement sample of 125 owners/managers of SSOs in the auto, estate agents and property management, health care and beauty, hospitality and accommodation, and professional service industry sectors was drawn. An unsolicited calling approach was followed, whereby the researcher personally visited each small service organisation individually to request permission to partake in the study. Thereafter, self-administered questionnaires were delivered for completion by the relevant owners/managers of each participating SSO, which were collected thereafter. In order to measure their perceptions of essential UBI services, participants were requested to indicate on a six-point Likert scale the level of unimportance or importance of 41 services. The owners/managers‟ perceptions of the importance of the six UBI service constructs over the business life-cycle phases were measured using multiple-choice questions, whereby the participants were asked to choose one of the five alternatives provided. The owners/managers‟ perceived value of UBI services was measured using dichotomous questions. In addition, certain demographical data were requested from the participants. The findings of this study indicate that the owners/managers of SSOs perceive UBI services as being important. They indicated networking and professional services as the most important UBI services, followed by management services, general business services, physical facilities and financial consulting services, of which university services were perceived as being the least important. The findings suggest that the UBI services were mostly required in the pre-start-up, start-up and growth phases of the SSO‟s business life-cycle phases. While UBI services were deemed important by both young and mature organisations, the owners/managers of young organisations perceived management services as more important than those of more mature organisations. In terms of the perceived value of UBI services, the findings reveal that although owners/managers perceived the UBI services to be important, they expressed minimal interest in utilising those services. Based on the participants‟ level of agreement concerning the perceived importance of UBI services, cluster analysis revealed two clusters, namely Cluster 1 and Cluster 2. The participants in Cluster 1, comprising more female participants and young organisations, perceived the UBI services as more important than those participants in Cluster 2. Since the idea of UBIs is relatively new in South African, and given that they have yet to prove their value to industry, getting stakeholders to buy into the concept remains a daunting task. Insights gained from this study will help business incubators, universities, government and other stakeholders understand current entrepreneurs‟ perceptions towards the important UBI services required by SSOs. This, in turn, will help guide UBIs in the formation of their policy objectives, marketing strategies and marketing procedures. / PhD (Marketing Management)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2015.

Community service organisations play a crucial role in the delivery of many social services while functioning from a strong values base often associated with a particular religion. They attempt to respond to the needs of multiple stakeholders. This creates a complex and sometimes ambiguous set of accountability relationships. Government contributes significantly to the funding of most community service organisations, and often this is reflected in close working relationships between public servants in funding departments and managers of community service organisations. The nature of this relationship was changed as a consequence of a wave of public sector reforms beginning in the 1980s. These reforms aimed to increase the efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of government departments. Strategies adopted included funder-purchaser-provider models of service delivery, leading to the contracting out of some services previously provided by government and the adoption of more contract-like agreements with existing external service providers. This led to the development of additional mechanisms for measuring and monitoring performance. These were directed both internally towards public sector staff and externally to funded programs. The community services sector’s concern about the impact of reform on their functioning and survival provided the impetus for undertaking this qualitative study of the management of accountability in community service organisations in South Australia. Data were collected in 2000-2001 through interviews with community service organisation and public service staff, and through analysis of organisational documents related to accountability. Staff from twelve community service organisations, and state and federal public servants participated. While the analysis shows the costs to community service organisations and the damage to their relationship with government resulting from reform, it also identifies improvements to the management of accountability in some organisations. Governments at both state and federal levels have since adopted the language of partnership and collaboration. This occurred partly in recognition of the negative impacts of an over-zealous emphasis on distanced purchaser-provider relationships and partly from an increasing recognition of the failure of existing systems to resolve complex social issues. Follow-up data were collected in 2004 that identified changes in the relationships between the community service organisations and funding departments, and in the community service organisations’ management of their own accountability. Analysis of these data found a significance increase in formal relationships between community service organisations but limited change in the relationship with government. Through an analysis of the impact of public sector change on community service organisations in South Australia, this thesis contributes to the understanding of inter-sectoral relationships and the management of accountability in community service organisations.

This research investigates how public service organisations (PSO’s) use public procurement, referred to as the acquisition of goods and services by PSOs, to analyse the processes through which a PSO acquires innovative goods and services in order to improve public services. Despite a number of success stories from the literature (Phillips et al, 2007; Uyarra, 2010; Yeow et al, 2011), PSOs struggle to procure and implement innovation (e.g. Uyarra et al, 2014a). One major reason for this lack of innovation procurement and adoption is the nature of governance of the procurement process in the public sector (Rolfstam, 2009).Drawing from the public sector and organisational governance literature, this research develops a conceptual framework to investigate how internal, managerial and external governance affects the willingness and ability of PSOs to procure innovative goods and services. External governance refers to overarching bodies of organisations and institutions situated outside the PSO which influences policy and organisational arrangements of PSOs. Managerial governance refers to organisational actors and other stakeholders brought together to form governing boards which directly control and support the PSO leader. Internal governance refers to the day-to-day operations and delivery of a public service. This research adopts a positivist approach with a deductive inquiry process. Using the English secondary education system as the PSO under investigation this research utilises a mixture of quantitative (survey to two types of secondary schools in England) and qualitative methods (four case studies). The findings of this research indicate that these three governance levels influence PSOs procuring innovation in a number of ways. External governance can determine the decision-making process and what can and cannot be procured to improve the service and how budgets are used for innovations. External governance can also act as a source of expertise and knowledge, create opportunities and incentivise PSOs by establishing conditions, mechanisms and access to large scale programmes and initiatives. Similarly, managerial governance entails actors to act as gatekeepers in the decision making process, assisting in procurements by leveraging expertise from other positions and improving the chances of procuring innovation through partnership arrangements with internal governance actors. At the internal governance level, procurement of innovation is greatly improved when ‘champions’ support innovative solutions and when staff responsible for the delivery of the service (i.e. teachers) specify requirements. This research makes three contributions. Firstly, it develops a conceptual framework for public procurement of innovation (PPI) with governance at the centre. Secondly, it adds to the growing body of literature of PPI practice and the barriers faced by PSOs. Finally, this research pays attention to education, a public service sector that has been overlooked by previous studies. Consequently, this research may help policy-makers and practitioners to better understand the governance of PPI.

The purpose of the study was to gain a greater understanding of how the amount of stress and workload that exists in Swedish social services affect the clients. The study was based on interviews with socialworkers responsible for childcustody enquiries. I chose to interview socialworkers in two different cities that resembled eachother. One of the interviews was individual and two was in focusgroups. The socialworkers were interviewed with a semi structured interview manual. The results showed that one of the cities social services, the socialworkers had a more difficult worksituation than the other city. The reason to why one city was more well functioning than the other depended on how the organization had handled the past years amount of workload. Both differences and similaritis was found. In the city that had a more difficult work situation the socialworkers had to prioritize with their time more and their clients were more affected than in the other city. Prioritizing time is something that was found in both cities but the city with more difficult worksituation had to prioritize more with their time and that lead to less time with their clients. It also lead to lower quality enquiries.

South African higher education institutions are facing increasing competition from both local and global competitors. This increasing competitive pressure has forced them to become aware of the importance of building and sustaining a suitable competitive advantage. Adding to this, South Africa’s economy, together with the world economies, has witnessed changing circumstances in relation to consumers’ needs, tastes and preferences. In this light, service quality has been recognised as a means to meet these challenges. As service industries play an important role in many economies around the world, the significance of providing an adequate level of service quality has emerged. Higher education institutions too are now being called upon to account for the quality of the services they provide. As service quality is a key strategic issue and a pervasive strategic force, the methods deployed in measuring service quality is of concern. Traditionally, higher education institutions used measures to account for the academic standards they provide, together with accreditation and performance indicators of teaching and research. However, from the viewpoint of their primary consumers, higher education institutions need to put measures in place to account for their students’ perceptions of service quality as well. Higher education institutions need to concentrate their attention on what the students feel is important in delivering the service. In measuring service quality from the perspective of the students, higher education institutions will be able to improve their service delivery processes, which will help to create consumer loyalty and, in the long-term, build a competitive advantage. The primary objective of this study was to provide a comparative view on the undergraduate students’ perceptions of the service quality delivered by two South African higher education institutions. The study comprised a literature review and an empirical study, and a descriptive research design was employed. The literature review focused on service quality. The literature review did not focus specifically on examining service quality from higher education institutions perspective but rather looked at service quality from the perspective of general service industries. In addition, in order to shape the literature on service quality, an introduction to services and services marketing was provided. Within the empirical portion of this study, quantitative research was applied using the survey method. Two South African higher education institutions formed the two sample groups in this study. A self-administered questionnaire was administered on the relevant first-, second- and third- year business and marketing management students of each sample’s respective faculties. The findings obtained from the main survey questionnaire are discussed in order to provide insights as to how students’ evaluate the service delivery of higher education institutions. Given the limitations and scope of the study, a balanced view of the two sample groups is provided in that the sample groups were split representatively. The recommendations provided in this study provide guidelines regarding the possible ways in which higher education institutions can market themselves in order to build a sustainable competitive advantage. / MCom, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

Our understanding of what factors contribute to the success of human service organisations is limited. Social workers often occupy leadership roles in such organisations, and so research is needed on how leadership influences success. This study explored how staff at a care home for older people perceive factors important for creating success, and the function of leadership. A case study design was adopted employing a qualitative approach, with data collected using semi-structured interviews. A care home identified as something out of the ordinary was chosen as the field site and three care staff and the care home manager selected as participants. A qualitative analysis indicated that a work environment characterized by solidarity generated resilience and satisfaction among staff. A focus on the residents, an innovative work approach and a visible, honest and accommodating manager were factors perceived as vital for creating success. / Vår förståelse för vilka faktorer som bidrar till framgång för människobehandlande organisationer är begränsad. Socionomer innehar ofta ledande roller inom dessa organisationer, därmed behövs forskning om hur ledarskapet påverkar framgång. Denna studie undersöker hur personal på ett vård- och omsorgsboende för äldre beskriver faktorer som är viktiga för att skapa framgång, samt funktionen av ledarskap. En fallstudiedesign användes vilken utgick från en kvalitativ ansats där datamaterialet samlades in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer. Ett vård- och omsorgsboende vilket utmärkt sig som något utöver det vanliga valdes som plats för studien och tre ur vård- och omsorgspersonalen samt enhetschefen valdes som deltagare. Kvalitativ analys visade att en arbetsmiljö som kännetecknas av solidaritet genererade motståndskraft och tillfredsställelse bland personalen. Fokus på de boende, ett innovativt arbetssätt och en synlig, ärlig och tillmötesgående enhetschef var faktorer som uppfattades avgörande för att skapa framgång.

South African higher education institutions are facing increasing competition from both local and global competitors. This increasing competitive pressure has forced them to become aware of the importance of building and sustaining a suitable competitive advantage. Adding to this, South Africa’s economy, together with the world economies, has witnessed changing circumstances in relation to consumers’ needs, tastes and preferences. In this light, service quality has been recognised as a means to meet these challenges. As service industries play an important role in many economies around the world, the significance of providing an adequate level of service quality has emerged. Higher education institutions too are now being called upon to account for the quality of the services they provide. As service quality is a key strategic issue and a pervasive strategic force, the methods deployed in measuring service quality is of concern. Traditionally, higher education institutions used measures to account for the academic standards they provide, together with accreditation and performance indicators of teaching and research. However, from the viewpoint of their primary consumers, higher education institutions need to put measures in place to account for their students’ perceptions of service quality as well. Higher education institutions need to concentrate their attention on what the students feel is important in delivering the service. In measuring service quality from the perspective of the students, higher education institutions will be able to improve their service delivery processes, which will help to create consumer loyalty and, in the long-term, build a competitive advantage. The primary objective of this study was to provide a comparative view on the undergraduate students’ perceptions of the service quality delivered by two South African higher education institutions. The study comprised a literature review and an empirical study, and a descriptive research design was employed. The literature review focused on service quality. The literature review did not focus specifically on examining service quality from higher education institutions perspective but rather looked at service quality from the perspective of general service industries. In addition, in order to shape the literature on service quality, an introduction to services and services marketing was provided. Within the empirical portion of this study, quantitative research was applied using the survey method. Two South African higher education institutions formed the two sample groups in this study. A self-administered questionnaire was administered on the relevant first-, second- and third- year business and marketing management students of each sample’s respective faculties. The findings obtained from the main survey questionnaire are discussed in order to provide insights as to how students’ evaluate the service delivery of higher education institutions. Given the limitations and scope of the study, a balanced view of the two sample groups is provided in that the sample groups were split representatively. The recommendations provided in this study provide guidelines regarding the possible ways in which higher education institutions can market themselves in order to build a sustainable competitive advantage. / MCom, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012

Abstract The purpose of this study is to describe customer-related knowledge utilisation in the collaborative relationships of professional service organisations. Within this specific context, knowledge transfer capabilities are emphasised as an important prerequisite in the utilisation process. Effective organisation-level knowledge utilisation is crucial in collaborative relationships of professional service organisations. In order to formulate a coherent service offering across different areas of expertise, for instance, it is beneficial to transfer customer knowledge between professionals, business units and functions. Knowledge utilisation across different expertise areas may also be an important prerequisite for an organisation's innovativeness and proactiveness in customer cooperation. Customer-related knowledge utilisation and related knowledge transfer processes are in this study approached from a relationship management perspective, and literature from organisation research, resource-based view and knowledge management is used as a theoretical basis. Empirically this study is based on a descriptive case study of two professional service firms in the field of business-to-business education and consultancy services. In the first case, an in-depth analysis of an organisation developing a collaborative relationship in the outsourcing situation is described. In the second case, additional views are given on organisational practices potentially facilitating customer-related knowledge transfer. Empirical results show that internal fragmentation in the professional service organisation seems to be, to a large extent, inherent in this type of organisation, and may cause many problems in customer-related knowledge transfer and thus in effective utilisation of that knowledge. These knowledge transfer inhibitors rise from an organisation's characteristics; its dominant logic, culture, structure and systems. These organisational characteristics are bound to the characteristics of knowledge itself: its tacitness, non-observability and complexity, and can have an inhibiting influence on knowledge transfer. However, in spite of the inherent forces causing internal fragmentation and inhibiting knowledge transfer, moderating practices of a well-planned relationship coordination system, customer knowledge and expertise codification, and cooperative working practices among the experts seem to help to maintain customer knowledge transfer and utilisation, and thus also continuity and value creation in the long-term relationships. This value creation can be seen to be based on accessing and integrating a wide variety of knowledge resources in order to create innovative, flexible and multifaceted service offerings. Value creation can also be based on organisational ability for generative learning in order to change prevailing organisational assumptions and to develop the operations model needed in collaborative relationship.

The resource-based view (RBV) of competitive strategy emphasises the importance of unique firm resources and associated capabilities to the formulation of competitive strategy. This cross-sectional study seeks to determine whether or not the pattern of usage of competitive methods related to marketing, information technology and flexibility in the Portuguese service sector aligns with the resource-based view. Fifteen service-related competitive methods are identified. Surveyed firms were asked to indicate the degree of relevance of these competitive methods to their competitive strategy. Exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modelling indicates that these methods represent four underlying strategy dimensions that reflect some of the dynamic capabilities suggested by the resource-based view. In addition, cluster analysis revealed that each of the responding firms could be classified into one of three capability orientations. Some implications of these findings for strategy development in the Portuguese service sector are discussed. Limitations of the study and areas for future research are also presented.