The regulation of non-standard employment in Southern Africa : the case of South Africa with reference to several other SADC countries

This doctoral thesis deals with the regulation of non-standard employment in Southern Africa: the case of South Africa with reference to several other SADC countries. The growth and presence of non-standard employment since the 1970s has revealed an important concern in a number of countries, both at the global and national levels. The overall significance of non-standard employment has increased in recent decades in both developed and developing states, as its use has grown exponentially across economic sectors and employment. Non-standard employment is the opposite of the standard employment relationship, which is work that is full time and indefinite. Non-standard employment includes an unequal employment relationship between an employee and an employer. Some workers choose to work in non-standard employment, and the choice has positive results. Nonetheless, for the majority of workers, non-standard employment is associated with job insecurity, exploitation, and the absence of trade unions and collective bargaining. Non-standard employment can also create challenges for firms, the labour market and the economy, including society at large. Backing decent work for all entails a comprehensive understanding of non-standard employment and its ramifications. This study explores the regulation and protection of non-standard employment in Southern Africa with focus on South Africa. The study draws on international and regional labour standards, the South African Constitution of 1996, and the national experience to make policy recommendations that will ensure workers are protected, firms are sustainable and labour markets operate well. Social justice and the democratisation of the workplace cannot be achieved if workers in non-standard employment are excluded from the labour relations system.Mercantile LawLL. D

A system dynamics approach to health system transformation: a case study of tertiary services provision in the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Health.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.When staff attrition intensifies in a flagship hospital, which has been internationally benchmarked for its best practices, then health care provision is in crisis. Hospital managers are inundated by resource constraints and challenging priorities that make excessive demands on their time, energy, leadership practice, spirit of work and motivation. These leaders are consumed by operational matters such as attending meetings, resolving human resource issues, hospital management and administrative tasks, which leave them with limited time for coordinated strategic planning, monitoring implementation of services or reflection. Consequently, systemic tension exists between policy implementation and service delivery, resulting in escalating patient and staff complaints, dissatisfaction, and medical litigation, thereby producing instability and fluctuations in the health ecosystem organizational behaviour. In examining literature which proposes the value of a systemic approach to organisational behaviour, I decided to embark on this study to apply the qualitative system dynamics (SD) approach and the complexity theory methodology. I explored the dynamic complexities in the KwaZulu Natal (KZN) health ecosystem behaviour, the underlying systemic factors and their inter-relationships, the organisational messiness, and the uncertainties and policy processes that impact on effective service delivery in the one central and three tertiary hospitals. Focus group discussions (FGD) were among the research techniques used, whereby dialogue with participants identified the variables and verified the data collected. These conversations deepened our understanding of the research gap, that is, the sustained shortage of medical specialists over time; the supply and demand of specialists in KZN hospitals, and suggested changes to workforce planning, so as to diffuse these types of tensions within managed systems. While using the SD approach, our rational systems, critical and complexity thinking around issues and simulating circumstances and organisational behaviour; multidimensional social interactions, beliefs and paradigms, all became evident. Feedback loops in causal loop diagrams (CLD) co-constructed with the FG, facilitated our visualizing the ontological context; how the elements interconnect, interact and change over time. The significance of time delays, which cause tensions in policy implementation, governance and decision-making that affect dynamic system behaviour, was apparent. The CLD identified the leverage points for a complex, all-embracing, multi-level approach to organizational transformation. I discovered, through this study, knowledge and skills to effect profound transformation in my awakened leadership practice. This research contributes to emerging literature on applying the SD approach to health care leaders becoming effective and committed to enact integral ethical health care. It recommends paradigmatic deconstruction in reductionist thinking; shifting egocentric consciousness and limiting health care practices; constructing whole systems thinking, integrated participative consciousness, and a transdisciplinary integral team approach, through awakened integral leadershi

Local political leadership and administrative capacity for EU Structural Funds : the case of Cohesion policy in urban Romania

The EU Structural Funds are instruments to support less developed regions, aiming to close the gap between Europe's least and most developed regions. Their implementation is essential for the EU's regional policy to achieve economic development. Empirical evidence indicates that the implementation rate of Structural Funds in Romania has been consistently low. However, at regional and local levels, a different pattern emerges. This thesis emphasises the critical roles of local political leadership and administrative capacity to explain the success of local authorities in securing EU resources in a context unfavourable to such an outcome. Through an empirical analysis of thirteen municipalities during the 2014- 2020 programming cycle, this study assesses the ability of local elected leaders to leverage EU funds to address local needs and evaluates the administrative capacity in each municipality. It finds that political leaders affect implementation through the strategic decisions and actions they take in the early stages of the process (formulation), through the measures they undertake to mobilize resources and enable the public administrations to attract funds (mobilization) and the assistance offered during implementation. While administrative capacity is an essential and necessary condition for attracting resources, it remains insufficient without political drive. The findings confirm the intertwined nature of politics and administration in the implementation of EU Structural Funds, highlighting the significant role political leaders play alongside administrative capacityThe EU Structural Funds are instruments to support less developed regions, aiming to close the gap between Europe's least and most developed regions. Their implementation is essential for the EU's regional policy to achieve economic development. Empirical evidence indicates that the implementation rate of Structural Funds in Romania has been consistently low. However, at regional and local levels, a different pattern emerges. This thesis emphasises the critical roles of local political leadership and administrative capacity to explain the success of local authorities in securing EU resources in a context unfavourable to such an outcome. Through an empirical analysis of thirteen municipalities during the 2014- 2020 programming cycle, this study assesses the ability of local elected leaders to leverage EU funds to address local needs and evaluates the administrative capacity in each municipality. It finds that political leaders affect implementation through the strategic decisions and actions they take in the early stages of the process (formulation), through the measures they undertake to mobilize resources and enable the public administrations to attract funds (mobilization) and the assistance offered during implementation. While administrative capacity is an essential and necessary condition for attracting resources, it remains insufficient without political drive. The findings confirm the intertwined nature of politics and administration in the implementation of EU Structural Funds, highlighting the significant role political leaders play alongside administrative capacit

A commitment to professional reform: an administrative history of executive development and training in the Singapore Public Service, 1959 to 2001

The Singapore Public Service, acknowledged internationally as highly-efficient and one of the least corrupt in the world, has often been overlooked by literature. Yet, the strategic vision and political leadership of founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and his People’s Action Party government, often attributed for Singapore’s success, still needed to be translated into practicable policies and implemented into programmes by the bureaucracy. A comprehensive examination into the role of the bureaucracy in Singapore’s modernisation is beyond the constraints of this doctoral thesis. This study, using archival research and oral interviews to construct an administrative history of executive development and training in the Singapore Public Service, plugs a gap in the literature and lays the foundation for a future holistic examination of the Singapore bureaucracy. This thesis argues that the Singapore Public Service used executive development training and as a medium of change to introduce reforms across the bureaucracy. In so doing, the bureaucracy was able to constantly adjust itself to help modernise Singapore. In the 40 years between decolonisation in 1959 and 2001, when the training arm of the Singapore bureaucracy became a statutory board, training and development had been used firstly, to socialise the bureaucracy away from its colonial-era organisational culture to prepare it for the tasks of state-formation and nation-building. Subsequently, civil servants were mobilised, through training and development, into an ‘economic general staff’ to lead the Singapore developmental state in the 1970s and 1980s. The modus operandi in all this was to prioritise the training of the bureaucracy’s leadership corps, to groom an élite Praetorian Guard, who would then disseminate reforms across the bureaucracy. The Public Service for the 21st Century reforms in the 1990s was the epitome in harnessing development and training for reforms across the bureaucracy. The study concludes, not be asserting a template for replication but, offering points of reference for bureaucracies aspiring reforms. The thesis is not an end in itself but offers a basis to start a conversation on scholarship in the fields of history, public administration and Singapore

Pay at Risk: Compensation and Employment Risk in the United States and Canada

The contributors to this book investigate the compensation and employment risks for U.S. and Canadian workers. They examine both wage and nonwage aspects of compensation, and whether workers in the U.S. or Canada face more job-related risks. They also seek to identify trends in risk bearing and whether they differ by country.https://research.upjohn.org/up_press/1182/thumbnail.jp

Critical Reflections on Australian Public Policy

This collection of ‘critical reflections’ on Australian public policy offers a valuable contribution to public discussion of important political and policy issues facing our nation and society. These essays are important not only because of the reputation and position of the various contributors, but because they are incredibly ‘content rich’ and brimming with new ideas

European Union: identity, diversity and integration

This publication also contains the papers of the PhD Candidates, National School of Political and Administrative Studies, Bucharest, Romania, beneficiaries of the “Doctoral Scholarships for a Sustainable Society”, project co-financed by the European Union through the European Social Fund, Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development 2007-2013. Contents: Mircea BRIE, István POLGÁR, Florentina CHIRODEA: Cultural Identity, Diversity and European Integration. Introductory Study. I. Identity and elements of anthropology in the European space - Roxana Maria DASCĂLU: Insights Into the Concept of European Identity; Horia MOAŞA: Voice and Silence in Relation to Identity; Andreea MOLOCEA: To See Things in Another Perspective: Feminist Influence in Epistemology, a New Way of Regarding Social and Political Science; Ileana SĂDEAN: Anthropological Representations of the Foreign Rural Development Model "Leader" in Romania. II. Education and communication - Ioana CIUCANU: Making Diversity Work in European Higher Education the Interplay Between Performance and Diversification; Mirela VLASCEANU: Impact of Quality-Based Funding in Romanian Higher Education: 1999-2010; Andra-Maria ROESCU: Studying Causal Inference in Political Science. The Case of Experiments; Paul PARASCHIVEI: Political Communication in Romania from a New Perspective: the Online Voter; Andreea Elena CÂRSTEA: Mass Media and the Reconfiguration of the Public Sphere. III. European Union zone: the institutional dimension - Bogdan BERCEANU: The Dimension of Emerging Institutions in the European Union Member States; Adina MARINCEA: Who are the Olympians? A Cross-Country Analysis of People’s Trust in the EU; Monica OPROIU: Case-Study in Third-Party Intervention: the EU Mediation in the Russia-Georgia War of August 2008; Vasile ROTARU: The Neo-Finlandization – a Theoretical Review. IV. European policies and management models - Vicenţia Georgiana DUŢESCU: Policy Cohesion of the European Union a Perspective on the Management Authority for the Sectoral Operational Programme on Transport 2007-2013; Maria-Magdalena RICHEA: Models of Human Resources Management in Nonprofit Sector Organizations; Anca-Adriana CUCU: Performance Management of Health Care System in Romania: Realities and Perspectives; Cristinela-Ionela VELICU: Cross-Border Mobility of Health Professionals: an Exploratory Study of Migration Flows and Retention Policies in the CEE Region. V. European zone: social demographic perspective - Dragos Lucian IVAN: As the Population Clock Winds Down or Speeds Up? Demographic Stories: Apocalyptic, Opportunistic and Realistic; Andra Maria POPA: The Constitutionalization of the European Economic and Social Model; Cristina SANDU: New Paths of Social Services Through Social Entrepreneurship; Mihaela TUCĂ: Corporate Social Responsibility as a Supporting Framework for Country Competitiviness

Transforming central government: The Next Steps initiative

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DX180663 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Australian federalism and the use of tied grants: case studies of public hospitals and schools

Tied grants are a contentious feature of Australian federalism. This study evaluates the policy making dynamics and performance of tied grants using case study evidence on public hospital and school grants from 1975 to 2008. The study finds that policy control has wavered between the Commonwealth and States. Further, the study argues that provided the Commonwealth acts as a strategic and refined player, the tied grant and co-operative federalism can offer distinct performance advantages