TD: 2018 Volume 14 No 1http://hdl.handle.net/10394/285122024-03-28T14:47:00Z2024-03-28T14:47:00ZUncovering the strengths and weaknesses of outsourcing core business deliverables: the case of selected state-owned enterprises in South AfricaMagagula, MarciaZondo, Robert W.D.http://hdl.handle.net/10394/306192018-08-01T10:18:45Z2018-01-01T00:00:00ZUncovering the strengths and weaknesses of outsourcing core business deliverables: the case of selected state-owned enterprises in South Africa
Magagula, Marcia; Zondo, Robert W.D.
Background: The outsourcing phenomenon is one of the extensive areas of business in the world. It is a practice among both private and public organisations and an important element in business strategy. Consequently, the execution of maintenance and repairs of equipment are core business deliverables of the power plant maintenance (PPM) department of the selected state-owned enterprise (SOE). Whilst internal employees normally perform such functions, the PPM department outsources them to external service providers. Objective: This study explored the contributing factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables. Method: The study was conducted in the PPM department of the selected SOE. Of the 152 individuals located across eight of the provinces in South Africa, identified for participation in the study, 135 participated. It was cross-sectional in nature and included participants from the management of the PPM department as well as its technical officials. Descriptive, correlation
and regression analysis were used to test the three objectives, namely to assess the contributing factors influencing outsourcing of core business deliverables, to establish the effect of outsourcing core business deliverables on business performance and to examine the risks of outsourcing core business deliverables. Results: Outsourcing core business deliverables provide flexibility to the PPM department by enabling it to meet unexpected demands. However, it results in the leaking of confidential information to external service providers. Conclusion: Organisations that decide to outsource, must consider the benefits and risks carefully and take measures to mitigate the related risks.
2018-01-01T00:00:00ZGenopolitics: the dormant niche in political science curriculum in South African universitiesHlatshwayo, Mlamuli N.Fomunyam, Kehdinga G.http://hdl.handle.net/10394/285472018-07-18T16:01:51Z2018-01-01T00:00:00ZGenopolitics: the dormant niche in political science curriculum in South African universities
Hlatshwayo, Mlamuli N.; Fomunyam, Kehdinga G.
South African higher education institutions have been grappling with the challenges of transformation and decolonisation as a result of the 2015–2016 student protests calling into focus issue of access (both formal and epistemological), belonging, social justice, transformation and others. One of the key sites for this struggle for transformation has been curriculum and the notion of relevance in responding to the development of social reality. Political Science as a discipline has increasingly been confronted with an ‘existential crisis’ with scholars in the field asking critical questions on whether the discipline has reached a point of irrelevance to social reality. Three key critiques of political science as a discipline are discussed in this article – firstly, the critique that political science is obsessed with what has been termed ‘methodological fetishism’ in being unable to embrace new knowledge. Secondly, that political science tends to construct universal theories and concepts that assume global homogeneity and de-emphasise the importance of context and locality in knowledge, knowledge production and its experiences. Thirdly, and the central point of this article, the social disconnection between political science as a field and its [in]ability to make a socio-economic contribution to society. This article suggests that genopolitics allows us to critically reflect on and respond to the above notions of relevance in political science by looking at the role of genes played in political behaviour and genetic dispositions to see and analyses how people, communities and societies behave in the ways that illuminate our understanding of social reality.
2018-01-01T00:00:00ZThe poetics of peace: from aesthetic knowledge to reconciliationVelthuizen, Andreas G.Ferguson, Kate D.http://hdl.handle.net/10394/285462018-07-18T16:02:10Z2018-01-01T00:00:00ZThe poetics of peace: from aesthetic knowledge to reconciliation
Velthuizen, Andreas G.; Ferguson, Kate D.
This article is inspired by the need for research methods that would discover the interrelationships of reconciliation and culture, specifically analysing the behaviour of field researchers originating from different lifestyles or culture, observing and participating in the artful expressions of research subjects. The purpose of this article was to present an overview of research into poetics as a source of information that contributes to existing bodies of knowledge and the finding of practical solutions related to peace-building in African communities. The authors argued that knowledge could be discovered from various forms of poetics through sensuous participation
and intellectual interpretation and could be applied to the process of reconciliation. In support of this argument, the research was conducted with the San, the First People of southern Africa, in the context of a broader research project that aims at finding and publishing theory for dispute resolution in Africa. The discussion contains a conceptual framework of philosophy and theories that elucidates the concepts of poetics, the aesthetic domain and its relevance to peace and reconciliation in Africa. The transdisciplinary research methodology borrows from ethnographic methodologies including sensuous scholarship and participant observation of ritualistic experiences. The authors conclude that the creative, ritualistic and artistic lifeworlds of communities, in or recovering from conflict situations, are deeply relevant to any real motion towards reconciliation and healing.
2018-01-01T00:00:00ZThe taming wicked problems framework: a plausible biosocial contribution to ‘ending AIDS by 2030’Burman, Christopher J.http://hdl.handle.net/10394/285452018-07-27T07:27:12Z2018-01-01T00:00:00ZThe taming wicked problems framework: a plausible biosocial contribution to ‘ending AIDS by 2030’
Burman, Christopher J.
In 2014, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) published the Gap Report, which states that a new biosocial response to the HIV and AIDS epidemic is required to reinforce the biomedical strategy – Vision 90:90:90 – which is designed to end AIDS by 2030. This article provides a descriptive account of how a community–university partnership developed and piloted an innovative, transdisciplinary approach to HIV and AIDS management that could represent a nascent biosocial candidate to reinforce the biomedical strategy. The biosocial strategy has been labelled as the Taming Wicked Problems Framework that is influenced by ontological perspectives associated with complexity theory. The article focuses on how the Taming Wicked Problems Framework was developed by co-opting and repurposing management techniques associated with complexity into an action-oriented HIV and AIDS combination intervention. Three years after the pilot began, the Taming Wicked Problems Framework continues to provision the partnership with opportunities to ‘tame’ non-linear, biosocial aspects of the HIV and AIDS epidemic in rural South Africa. However, with the benefit of hindsight, there are some improvements and caveats that are highlighted so that future applications will be more robust. It is suggested that the Taming Wicked Problems Framework could represent one localised biosocial response that could contribute to ending AIDS by 2030.
2018-01-01T00:00:00Z