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Public Governance

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Browsing Public Governance by Author "Dassah, Maurice Oscar."

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    Employees' knowledge, attitudes and experience of ethics : a case study in the Ilembe Health District.
    (2014) Moodley, Sarojini.; Dassah, Maurice Oscar.
    This study was conducted within the Ilembe Health District which is situated within Kwa Zulu-Natal, South Africa. A lack of ethical behaviour and recent scandals involving employees of the district which included assaulting each other, insulting patients because of their HIV status and instructing a mother to carry her dead baby home three kilometres away within an hour of delivery. These appalling scandals have created an interest in ethics. This research project was necessary as episodes of unethical behaviour have increased and are disconcerting. The objects of the research were to assess the knowledge and attitude of employees toward ethics, identify barriers related to employees behaving in an ethical manner and to determine current ethical stance amongst employees and understand employee perception on whistle-blowing. A quantitative cross sectional case study design involving a survey was applied for this study. Questionnaires were administered to employees at their workplace over a period of two weeks. Respondents were requested to rate the items that they believed contributed to unethical behaviour using a four point Likert-scale measurement tool. Attached to the questionnaire was a consent form was stating that the participants’ details were confidential and that they may withdraw from the survey at any time. The quantitative data was analysed by a statistician using the SPSS statistical procedures. The analysed data was utilised to interpret the participants’ views in relation to knowledge of and attitudes towards ethics. More than 80% of the respondents had more than 5 years of service, with nearly a quarter (24.0%) having more than 20 years’ service. This was a useful statistic as it indicated that the respondents had a fair amount of experience and would have responded from an experienced viewpoint. A quarter (25.3%) of the respondents felt that whistle blowing does not curb unethical behaviour and just over one quarter (27.7%) of the respondents felt that whistle-blowers should not be protected. More than 80% of the respondents felt that ethical conduct should be made a key performance area.
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    Sustainable development in South Africa through research in the National System of Innovation.
    (2014) Gachie, Emily Wanjiru.; Dassah, Maurice Oscar.; Penceliah, Yoganandee.
    This research examined the role of research commercialisation for Sustainable Development (SD) in South African National System of Innovation (NSI) within the context of public administration. The introduction has provided the research objectives, problem statement and the research questions. It should be noted that the theoretical perspective served as a ‘reference dictionary’ that informs the rest of the research, the literature has also examined the role of research commercialisation for SD in the African region from an international perspective. Further, the pragmatic research design adopted provides the basis for undertaking mixed-method research, namely: quantitative followed by qualitative, supplemented by secondary documents and the methodological data analysis triangulation technique has facilitated the achievement of a ‘whole greater than the sum of the parts’. In addition, the research methodology assessed the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) research commercialisation for SD. The findings identifying the HEIs as an important source of research for SD resulting in the findings showed that the HEIs face considerable constraints that hinder research commercialisation for SD, which include human resource capacity gaps, infrastructure and funding. The findings also identified HEIs-private sector collaboration as an important alternative avenue for research commercialisation for SD as a consequence the recommendations proposed that improving research commercialisation for SD should be high among the triple helix policy agenda. Finally, the recommendations also emphasised the importance of consolidating NSI gains, including efficiency in disseminating research results, efficient exploitation of new knowledge and technology transfer, leveraging the central role of the private sector in the NSI, effective application of intellectual property rights, broadening NSI actors’ participation, simplification of policies and procedures and efficiency of allocation of funding.