Vol. 9 No. 1(J) (2017)

A structured questionnaire survey of randomly selected 229 patients in two public hospitals (maternity wards) in Cape Town, South Africa was done to explore post-natal patients’ perceptions towards the ethical behaviour of nurses in their wards. 150 questionnaires received were usable for descriptive, correlation, and exploratory factor analysis (principal component analysis). From the results, inadequate nurses’ number, negligence on the part of the nurses, and lack of detailed information to patients are the three clear issues that need to be addressed in these public hospitals to increase patient satisfaction and retention, should they wish to give birth again. Patients’ concerns with the nurses’ ethical behaviour is related to ‘empathy’ and ‘assurance’ dimensions. The importance of these two dimensions cannot be overemphasised in medical care, globally, as they are increasingly becoming the driving forces towards patients’ satisfaction and retention. Understanding the individual needs of the patients and showing them that the nurses do care through emotive individualised attention, and acts that raise the confidence levels of patients that the nurses and the hospital will deliver safe services, are recommended.

The global commitment to end HIV-AIDS is a bold one; requiring a multi-sectoral response strongly embedded within effective HIV-AIDS prevention efforts, patient advocacy and effective healthcare programme delivery. UNAIDS estimates that, of the 36.7 million individuals infected with HIV-AIDS globally, 19.1 million reside in South Africa (UNAIDS Gap report, 2016).In addition, approximately 2.1 million new HIV infections occurred in 2015 with almost 960 000 of those occurring in South Africa signalling that the rates of infections are not dropping as expected (UNAIDS Gap report, 2016). Given the unrelenting nature of this disease burden, even greater efforts are now required to turn the tide on HIV-AIDS globally, but more so in South Africa. These efforts entail more effective HIV-AIDS service delivery with combination prevention modalities, access to HIV-AIDS treatment and care, harm reduction of HIV-AIDS stigma and discrimination together with HIV-AIDS education, awareness and advocacy. Enhancing HIV-AIDS service delivery requires strong commitment with implementation of quality management systems in programme service delivery resulting in sustainable, effective and well run HIV-AIDS programmes. Quality management systems in HIVAIDS programmes allow programmes to successfully meet their objectives thus allowing optimal patient care through effective and efficient means. To date there has been minimal implementation of quality systems in healthcare especially in South Africa. The use of health quality tools and systems in HIV-AIDS programmes locally and globally will allow for efficient and cost effective benefits for the optimal wellbeing of all those affected and infected by HIV-AIDS. This article reviews available data on the prevalence of quality management systems in HIV-AIDS healthcare and identifies gaps and smart practises towards recommendations for comprehensive global HIV-AIDS standards development.

Arbitrage pricing theory (APT) is a testable theory based on the idea that in competitive financial markets arbitrage will ensure that riskless assets provide the same expected return. We sought to confirm the relevance of the arbitrage pricing theory in Nigeria. Guided by a good understanding of macroeconomic variables and stock price movements as found in the extant literature on arbitrage pricing theory (APT), we specified our APT equation for estimation. Having satisfied the integration and co-integration issues, we employ the error-correction (ECM) and the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) methods for the short-run and long-run regressions. Our short-run results seem to agree with existing theories on APT thus confirming that APT is relevant in Nigeria. However, the long-run relationship of stock returns and RGDP was found to be contentious. Even though our result runs contrary to predictions on the relationship between the two, we found peculiar events and circumstances within the Nigerian macroeconomic context that provides logical reasons for the deviation.

Construction industry is a major consumer of natural resources and this has a significant impact on the environment and socio-economic development of society. The result of this impact includes deforestation; climate change, air, water and land pollution; and the like. Ecological economics (EE) models are tools for assessing and understanding these issues with a view to enhancing green buildings and sustainable construction in general. As part of a continuous study, this research therefore examines the level of awareness of the concept of EE by construction professionals in a quest to adopting the principle of sustainable development. Data were collected through questionnaires administered on relevant and experienced construction professionals such as construction project managers, architects, engineers, quantity surveyors and construction managers. EE as an aid would help in mitigating construction impacts on the environment, thereby enhancing sustainability but it is barely practised in the construction industry. This is as a result of the fact that construction professionals have little or no knowledge of its existence in the local industry. Most professionals with knowledge of the concept in the study area obtained the information on sustainability through the media and short courses .. The basic influencing factors are related to professionals' levels of education, the economic development of the country and knowledge of the environment. Introducing EE through communicating new ideas to stakeholders (through environmental campaigns, conferences, and the like) as well as incentivising ideas for change relating to greener construction will assist in overcoming the barriers to the adoption of EE in the construction industry. Professionals also need to keep abreast of current sustainable practices, their benefits, challenges, barriers as well as the methods of overcoming these barriers in their quest for delivering sustainable projects.

In the present post-modern era, Generation Y female students are faced with a discerning process of selecting the optimum apparel retail store to be loyal to and from which to buy clothing products. Therefore, the active store choice decision is conceptualized as the difficulty of determining someplace and when and where to shop. The main objective of the study was to examine the relationship between social risk, buying behavior and store choice within the apparel retail industry. The study is positioned within a postpositivism quantitative paradigm and adopts a cross-sectional survey approach collecting data from 400 conveniently selected university students. Scale purification was done through pre-testing and pilot testing. Through multiple regression analysis, the results show that social risk and buying behavior significantly influences retail store choice in an apparel retail setting. The findings indicated that there is a positive and significant association between perceived social risk, buying behavior and retail store choice. Based on the outcomes of the study, recommendations were suggested to retail managers to develop retailing strategies that charm the female Generation Y consumers. In addition, limitations and future research directions are referred to.

The goal of the study is to identify the contribution of psychological capital in the prediction of entrepreneurial intention using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) as a theoretical lens. South Africa needs young entrepreneurs, not job seekers. However, in order to adapt, graduates must rely on psychological resources to succeed in their entrepreneurial ventures and pursuits. Using the TPB and Psychological capital (Psycap), the researchers explored the influence of planned behaviour and Pyscap on entrepreneurial intention of 270 final year students in the Management and Commerce faculty at a selected university in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data as the researchers opted for a survey design. Results of hierarchical multiple regression modelling showed that entrepreneurial intentions is positively influenced by perceived behavioural control (β1 = 0.367; p = <0.0001) attitudes towards becoming an entrepreneur (β2 = 0.316; p = <0.0001) and resilience (β3 = 0.130; p = 0.009). The resultant model revealed that resilience (ΔR2 = 0.016; R2 = 0.392; df = 266; p = 0.009) was the only significant psychological capital construct that added unique variance in predicting entrepreneurial intention above and beyond, which is predicted by the theory of planned behavior variables among the prospective graduates. Findings of the study are helpful to policy makers as they try to optimise strategies for entrepreneurial success in the South African context and the developing world.

Industrialization is still viewed by many countries as a tool for achieving economic growth and development (Sampath, 2016). Almost all countries that have attained growth have followed an industrialization trajectory (Xu & van Leeuwen, 2016; Szirmai, 2012). Britain— with the introduction of the industrial revolution— and other countries that followed suit experienced unprecedented economic growth. This research explored the structure of Mpumalanga, a South African provincial economy, which was found to be inhibiting growth. Its aim was to suggest mechanisms for industrializing the province in order to attain growth and economic development. The methodology employed in this study involved interviews with members of the Mpumalanga Industry Sector Forum, representatives from big industry, business chambers, all three spheres of government, including State Owned Entities and Development Funding Institutions (FDIs). A total of 20 respondents were selected for the study. The method used was convenient for obtaining first-hand information on the state of industrialization in the province and for soliciting a new set of ideas, resulting in the recommendations of this study. The study discovered a number of factors that inhibited industrialization, including the unavailability of industrial infrastructure, the cost and difficulty of doing business and lack of skills and support for SMMEs. The study proposes the use of an Industrial Centres of Competence model that concentrates on certain industrial sectors with a suite of support services for industry, incubation and supplier development centres for small businesses, research and development, as well as innovation centres for industry.

Given the challenge of retaining the research knowledge of an aging, experienced professoriate at South African Universities of Technology, institutions with a nascent tradition of scholarly research, this paper explores the feasibility of a technology-enhanced knowledge management framework for generating, sharing and retaining tacit research knowledge to leverage research outputs at the Central University of Technology (CUT), Free State, South Africa. Since digital trails of established-novice researcher interactions are left behind whenever they interact in online platforms, an examination of such interactions can provide insights into the sharing and transferring of tacit research knowledge from senior researchers to novices. This theoretical study draws on Nonaka and Takeuchi’s Theory of Organisational Knowledge Creation, an emerging technology platform, SharePoint, mainstream literature and the authors’ reflective experiences to develop a technology-enhanced knowledge management model. The paper argues that tacit knowledge can be assimilated from a comprehensive examination of the knowledge production interactions between senior academics and novices enabled by low threshold technology and collaborative sharing of content. This study’s insights are relevant to Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) struggling to create a sustainable culture of scholarly research and grow a new generation of competent researchers amid the attrition of senior academics and the prevalence of systemic blockages in knowledge transfer processes.

The primary objective of this study was to come up with a bank failure prediction model for Zimbabwe. The research sample comprised five failed commercial banks that were operational in 2003 as well as five non-failed commercial banks that were operational during that same period. The model developed in this research was applied to each of these banks and a failure classification awarded. Out of a sample of ten banks, the model misclassified one bank as failed instead of non-failed and this signified a strong predictive power. Results revealed a distinct pattern of owner managed banks being predicted to fail while those banks run by professional managers, divorced from ownership, were getting high passes, a sign of stability. Some owner managed entities were predicted as non-failing and this was interpreted as emanating from a strong presence of institutional and other outside shareholders with a significant shareholding in the banks and thus eliminating shareholder concentration. The findings from the research showed that owner managers were more likely to commit corporate governance abuses than professional managers. It was concluded that corporate governance factors significantly contributed to the bank failures experienced in Zimbabwe between 2003 and 2004. As a result, banks need to focus more on corporate governance factors to avoid failures in the future.

Generation Y becomes the main pillar of workforce around the world. This generation enters the workplace with different values and characteristics from their counterparts of other generational workforces. In Malaysia, generation Y employees are well known of their high job mobility. Human resource managers are in dilemma of how to retain this new workforce? This paper serves the purpose to respond to such queries by investigating the factors contributing to Generation Y employees’ Turnover from a complementary fit perspective. This study was conducted in Malaysian Business Process Outsourcing Sector (PBO). The total sample was comprised of 318 respondents belong to generation Y employees. The data was analysed in Amos using two steps approach. Extrinsic, freedom and demand abilities fit were the predictors of Generation Y employees’ intention to quit in Malaysian BPO sector.Using cross sectional method limits our understanding to whether the predictors of turnover intention were due to career effects or generational effects. This study provides empirical evidences to Malaysian HR Managers to what makes generation Y employees leave the organization. This is a better surrogate of the existed anecdotal information. Furthermore, this study informs HR Managers that stereotyping the findings from Western context may be treated with caution.