Performance Management and the Integrated Development Plan of the Msunduzi Municipality in South Africa

Poor local government performance has been detrimental to South Africa’s development. The study explores the challenge(s) the Msunduzi Local Municipality is facing in ensuring good performance necessary for achieving its planned development. The study argues that flaws in the management of performance lead to poor performance. This research was interpretivist, used a case-study strategy and adopted a qualitative design / approach. Secondary data in the form of municipal publications and primary data in the form of interview information was collected and analysed. The findings demonstrated that there is a lack of alignment between the planned development and the necessary performance to achieve it in the Msunduzi Local Municipality. The Key Performance Areas of top managers were not aligned to the Integrated Development Plan goals; Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were internally rather than externally focused; some of the KPIs were too vague to be measurable, and there was no agreement on the top five strategic objectives of the Municipality. This research investigation sought to contribute to the limited understanding of municipal performance and development policy alignment by improving municipal service delivery in developing countries. Lessons have been learnt on the need for policy alignment based on holistic thinking.

Sustainability, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation: Building from the Bottom Up – A South African Perspective from the Small-scale Fisheries Sector

This chapter explores the vulnerability context of coastal fishing communities, including the various factors that shape their capacity to cope with and adapt in the face of poverty and increasing threats associated with climate change and natural and human-induced disasters through the lens of small-scale fisheries (SSFs) in South Africa. South Africa has developed a suite of policies, strategies and laws to deal with commitments to sustainable development and address and manage climate change challenges and disaster risks. These national policies, however, are not well aligned or implemented in a coordinated and integrated manner. Nor are they attuned to the realities facing local communities. This chapter reports on work in coastal communities in South Africa that reveals the lack of policy alignment and limited coordination across government departments at all levels charged with oversight responsibilities for these endeavours. Findings suggest that incorporating local knowledge into local development and sector plans, as well as into sustainable development and sector-specific policies, strategies and plans at the national level, would enhance understanding of the realities on the ground and lead to policies, strategies and plans that are more harmonised and more likely to be supported and implemented. How this knowledge gets integrated both vertically and horizontally into formal government planning and decision-making processes, however, and leads to implementation of projects and plans that yield tangible results, remains a challenge.

Mission statement effectiveness: investigating managers' sensemaking role

PurposeThis study highlights the instrumental role of the mission statement as a tool used by managers to shape value congruence to achieve enhanced employee performance levels.Design/methodology/approachA variance-based structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data obtained from a sample of 123 managers working in private organisations in Malaysia.FindingsThe management sensemaking approach is useful in mission statement research. Managers' involvement in clarifying the mission statement to various firm stakeholders, especially employees, is the strongest predictor of value congruency between employees and the firm, leading to improved levels of employee behavioural performance. Managers can influence value congruency through two processes: (1) guiding and shaping employees' values and (2) adapting the mission statement's contents.Research limitations/implicationsFuture studies can consider the impact of managerial role modelling on employees' value alignment with the firm in longitudinal studies. Other aspects of alignment offer further research opportunities, for example, HR policy alignment and alignment of marketing and operation strategies with the mission statement.Practical implicationsManagers should move beyond treating the mission statement as a management tool. Instead, it is a firm philosophy that reflects managers' words and deeds and exemplifies their philosophical ideals.Originality/valueDespite three decades of research into the relationship between the mission statement and performance, the results have been mixed. Therefore, this study adopts a sensemaking approach to research the mission-performance relationship underpinned by the resource-based view (RBV) theory.

"Good Politicians'': Experimental Evidence on Motivations for Political Candidacy and Government Performance

How can we motivate `good' politicians -- those that will carry out policy that is responsive to citizens' preferences -- to enter politics? In a field experiment in Pakistan, we vary how political office is portrayed to ordinary citizens. We find that emphasizing pro-social motives for holding political office instead of personal returns -- such as the ability to help others versus enhancing one's own respect and status -- raises the likelihood that individuals run for office and that voters elect them. It also better aligns subsequent policies with citizens' preferences. The candidacy decisions are explained by social influence, and not information salience -- we find that social versus personal messaging matters only when randomly delivered in a public setting but not in private. Results also show that changes in political supply, not citizen preferences or behavior, explain policy alignment. Taken together, the results demonstrate that non-financial motivations for political entry shape how politicians perform in office.

Industrial Ecology for Optimal Food Waste Management in a Region

Despite numerous discussions between scholars and policymakers, food waste (FW) remains a great concern. European Union alone discards 88 million tons of edible food annually, and when energy, inputs from technosphere and nature, labour, waste management of edible as well as inedible parts are assessed, it amounts to significant environmental and economic impacts. Additionally, food waste is considered a social problem and a matter of food security. Since food waste is a problem of the whole foodstuff supply chain, a holistic approach for its management must be taken. For this reason, an industrial ecology (IE) concept can provide a systemic approach that might be an interesting solution for tackling issues associated with such a biogenic food waste stream. The application of IE brings novelty to the research, because the IE approach is typically used for heavy industry that is concentrated in close proximity. The idea behind the IE approach is to prevent as much food waste as possible, then exploit homogenous sub-products for value added product (either food product or not), and, eventually, to obtain energy (or value added products) via fermentation and produce organic fertilizers of a great agronomical value. The results of investigation showed that numerous prevention and technological solutions can be applied to reduce environmental impact, and when available practises are coupled with IE elements, it brings the management approach close to natural ones. The key IE elements in the model are dematerialization and industrial symbiosis; however, other elements, such as restructuration of energy systems and policy alignment, are also present. As a result of the model application, an economically sound, zero food waste management could be obtained in a region

Bringing Onco-Innovation to Europe’s Healthcare Systems: The Potential of Biomarker Testing, Real World Evidence, Tumour Agnostic Therapies to Empower Personalised Medicine

Rapid and continuing advances in biomarker testing are not being matched by uptake in health systems, and this is hampering both patient care and innovation. It also risks costing health systems the opportunity to make their services more efficient and, over time, more economical. The potential that genomics has brought to biomarker testing in diagnosis, prediction and research is being realised, pre-eminently in many cancers, but also in an ever-wider range of conditions—notably BRCA1/2 testing in ovarian, breast, pancreatic and prostate cancers. Nevertheless, the implementation of genetic testing in clinical routine setting is still challenging. Development is impeded by country-related heterogeneity, data deficiencies, and lack of policy alignment on standards, approval—and the role of real-world evidence in the process—and reimbursement. The acute nature of the problem is compellingly illustrated by the particular challenges facing the development and use of tumour agnostic therapies, where the gaps in preparedness for taking advantage of this innovative approach to cancer therapy are sharply exposed. Europe should already have in place a guarantee of universal access to a minimum suite of biomarker tests and should be planning for an optimum testing scenario with a wider range of biomarker tests integrated into a more sophisticated health system articulated around personalised medicine. Improving healthcare and winning advantages for Europe’s industrial competitiveness and innovation require an appropriate policy framework—starting with an update to outdated recommendations. We show herein the main issues and proposals that emerged during the previous advisory boards organised by the European Alliance for Personalized Medicine which mainly focus on possible scenarios of harmonisation of both oncogenetic testing and management of cancer patients.

Water governance assessment at different scales: a reservoir case study in the Brazilian semiarid region

ABSTRACT This article analyses the application of OECD water governance principles to the semiarid region of Brazil. Between 2012 and 2017, the Paraíba River basin (macroscale) and its Epitácio Pessoa reservoir – EPR (microscale) suffered a severe drought. The reservoir came close to collapse in 2017, which led to water use conflicts that were aggravated due to water mismanagement. Four evaluation criteria were considered: policy alignment to the OECD principles, its implementation, on-ground results, and policy impacts. The outcomes indicate water management fragilities, even after 24 years of the Brazilian National Water Resources Policy enactment, and the need for a better water management integration at different scales: National, State, and River Basin. By considering a smaller scale (a basin and its main reservoir), it was possible to observe water governance failures that lead to water crises since the best practices performed by the national agency, at the national scale, have not been verified at the local scale.

EU–Turkey Energy Dialogue: Moving Beyond the Accession Negotiations Framework

Energy has long been perceived as a policy field where mutual strategic interests could lead to progressive policy convergence and enhanced cooperation between the EU and Turkey. This chapter evaluates the evolution of energy relations between the EU and Turkey, starting from early 2000s, paying specific attention to the key energy policies and the main bilateral dynamics in place in the energy domain. It analyzes the energy profiles and interests of Brussels and Ankara in order to evaluate whether or not the EU and Turkey have adopted mutually beneficial initiatives that foster convergence between the parties. Despite Ankara’s attempt to link energy cooperation primarily to the accession negotiations process, the EU has been able to keep the two tracks separated through the launch of parallel institutional initiatives which led to progressive policy alignment as long as the bilateral political conditions allowed it to maintain a structured dialogue. In recent years, the stalemate in accession negotiations and the rising tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean brought EU–Turkey energy dialogue to its historical low. Bottom-up technical and regulatory collaboration represents the most effective way to progress in bilateral energy cooperation, by decoupling energy dialogue from the formal accession negotiation process and underplaying the effects of high level political conflicts.