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The relationship between flexible working hours, organisational commitment and employee engagement at a South African retailer
(University of the Western Cape, 2019) Huckle, Robyn Jessica
In the twenty first century, the traditional roles in a nuclear family have changed. In the majority of modern families, both partners have careers and full-time jobs. Burnett, Gatrell, Cooper and Sparrow (2010) explain that the approach to working life is changing, both men and women want to find a balance between work, family and caring responsibilities. Guest (2002) also elaborates that work-life balance has always been a concern for those interested in the quality of working life and the relation to broader quality of life. Due to the challenges which employees are currently facing, flexible work arrangements have become an increasingly popular business practice around the globe as a means to reduce work-life conflict. Many organisations offer flexible work arrangements with the goal of facilitating positive outcomes for both organisations and employees (Joiner & Bakalis, 2006). However, other organisations are still resistant to introducing flexible work arrangements as they fear it might impact negatively on productivity (Johnson, 2004; Martinez-Sanchez, Perez-Perez, Jose Vela-Jimenez & de-Luis Carnicer, 2008). While literature on flexible working hours has increased in recent times, no study has been found on the relationships between flexible working hours, employee engagement and organisational commitment in the retail sector in South Africa. Therefore this study focused on the relationship between flexible working hours, employee engagement and organisational commitment. The study followed a quantitative approach and the questionnaires were completed by 161 respondents. The two statistical approaches used to draw conclusions for this study are descriptive and inferential statistics. The study found significant relationships between flexible working hours, employee engagement and organisational commitment. The study also found a significant relationship between different age groups and flexible working hours as well as male and female and their use of flexible working hours. In conclusion, if retailers want to remain competitive in the retail industry where international competition is rife, they will have to ensure that they have the best talent. In order to acquire top talent, they will need to implement policies that will attract and retain them. Based on the findings and results, flexible working hours could substantially assist by increasing their employee engagement and organisational commitment and thereby attracting and retaining the top talent in the South African retail industry.
The importance of time: modelling network intrusions with long short-term memory recurrent neural networks
(University of the Western Cape, 2024) Staudemeyer Ralf Colmar; Omlin Christian W
We claim that modelling network traffic, as a time series with a supervised learning approach. using known genuine and malicious behaviour, improves intrusion detection. To substantiate this, we trained long short-term memory (LSTM) recurrent neural networks with the training data provided by the DARPA KDD Cup 99 challenge. After preprocessing all features. to improve information gain, we applied a number of intuitive steps to extract salient features, which resulted in the creation of a number of minimal feature sets that could be used for detecting attack classes. The preprocessed KDD Cup 99 data was then used to test the perfomance of five very common and well-known classifiers: Decision trees. naive Bayes. Bayesian networks. feedforward natural network, and support vector machines. Our results show a performance comparable to the winning entries of the KDD Cup 99 challenge. Finally. we applied the LSTM recurrent neural network classifier to the preprocessed data using the minimal feature sets. Our results show that the LSTM classifier provides superior performance in compc1 rison to other strong static classifiers trained. This is due to the fact that, LSTM network learns to look back in time and correlate consecutive collection records. For the first time ever we have demonstrated the usefulness of LSTM networks to intrusion detection.
Assessment of the implementation of business process re-engineering in the public sector in Ethiopia: The cases of the Ministry of Trade and Industry and The Ministry of works and urban development
(University of the Western Cape, 2024) Hussein Ibrahim Mamma
The modem public sector and system of administration in Ethiopia began at the time of the imperial period, in the early 1960s. But this sector and the tradition of administration itself, compared with other countries, is not yet strong enough to play its role as a catalyst in the development and growth of the country. This study explores the wide array of public sector administration and reform practices in other countries and compares them with Ethiopia. More specifically, it looks into Business Process Re-engineering, a recently adopted type of reform, which originated in the private sector. Commonly termed BPR, Business Process Re-Engineering is a reform mechanism to uproot age-old systems of thinking and functioning in any organization and replace them with new paradigms and more efficient and lean systems that will lead to visible results. The literature reveals that it has had mixed results of improvement, both in the private sector and in the public sector in many countries. This study sets out to analyse whether this is just another fad of reform being adopted in order to fulfil a completely different objective of political reform, or whether it is a real effort to bring about changes in the way the public sector conducts its business. From its wide application in the country, two varying sectors have been chosen for this analysis. One is a service-giving institution in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, which has frequent interaction with citizens and, most importantly, investors and business organizations
A comparative legal approach to mining rehabilitation funding schemes in South Africa and Western Australia
(University of the Western Cape, 2024) Agyemang Fredua; Ashukem Jean Claude N
Despite the environmental and social challenges posed by historically abandoned mine sites to host communities, little effort has been made by the mining industry and governments to rehabilitate the environment. Mine rehabilitation projects are typically costly. In many instances, mining companies do not have a specific stance on funding sources for rehabilitation once the economically productive phase of the mine has concluded. Moreover, there is a lack of clearly assigned responsibilities and an absence of criteria and standards of rehabilitation for abandoned mines. South Africa is not exempt from the plague of abandoned mines because, for many years, environmental liabilities relating to mine closure have not been managed appropriately. As such, most mines have been simply abandoned. South Africa is believed to have around 6,000 deserted mines. Legislation has been enacted to address this issue. These include the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA) of 1998, the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (MPRDA) of 2002, and the Regulations pertaining to the Financial Provision for Prospecting, Exploration, Mining, or Production Operations, including National Environmental Management Act: Regulations: Financial provision for prospecting, exploration, mining or production operations (GNR1147). These legislative measures are designed to promote the polluter pays principle (PPP), which requires mines to bear the financial burden of environmental damage they cause. However, enforcing mining rehabilitation poses a challenge in South Africa, with the state often bearing the financial burden.
Stakeholder perceptions on the factors influencing corporate governance at the Greater Tzaneen Municipality, Limpopo Province, South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2023) Ramatsoma, Phetole Emanuel
Municipalities are mandated by the South African Constitution, enabling Acts of Parliament and legislated structures to deliver public services. Research highlights under-performance in service delivery at local and municipal governance levels. The qualitative study examines the stakeholder perceptions of the factors influencing corporate governance at the Greater Tzaneen Municipality, Limpopo Province. Semi-structured interviews and self-completion questionnaires were used to obtain data from a purposive sample of 120 respondents. Findings numerous factors that compromise corporate governance processes and underlie the poor and non-delivery of public services in the Municipality. Municipal-level factors include delays in the appointment of key executives which paralyse municipal operations and harm non-accountability organisational cultures. Non-existent managerial skills and poor organisational communication with key stakeholders, corruption, and malpractices in procurement and tender procedures. The study conclusions are that political interference and lack of consequence management by legally mandated structures have eroded corporate governance at the Municipality level. The study recommendations include the need for the national government and relevant bodies to enforce the governing Acts of Parliament such as the Public Finance Management Act, Municipal Finance Management Act, Municipal Structures Acts, and Municipal Systems Act the recommendations of the Kings Report.