Research conducted during 2009
The value and importance of Business and Executive coaching
The purpose of the study is to identify the importance and value of business and executive coaching to recipients/ end users of coaching services in South Africa. Very little quantifiable empirical research has been conducted in this area in South Africa. The field of Business and Executive Coaching is growing and considerable investment made into this field(Grant 2003). Organisations are not able to quantify the value of coaching to the individuals and to the organisation. This research would assist in providing a framework of concepts that were important for the individual in the coaching process.
Why State policies that undermine HIV lay counsellors constitute retrogressive measures that violate the right of access to health care for pregnant women and infants
- Journal Title: South African Journal on Human Rights
- Volume: Volume 25
- Issue: Issue 1
- Publication Date: 2009
- Pages: 102 - 125
- Authors: Stu Woolman; Courtenay Sprague; Vivian Black;
- ISSN: 02587203
Abstract: The authors make two distinct, but related, arguments. First, their empirical studies - conducted in three antenatal clinics in inner-city Johannesburg - demonstrate a strong correlation between (1) the government's failure to provide adequate remuneration to and secure employment of lay counsellors for the provision of HIV counseling and treatment ; and (2) the failure of many women and children to receive timely medical interventions. The data show that late payment of HIV lay counsellors has a devastating impact on HIV testing in these three clinics. The evidence also demonstrates that such timely HIV prevention and treatment is required for the survival of pregnant women and their neonates. Lay counsellors - through no fault of their own - are often unable to make these timely interventions. Second, the authors contend that the government's conscious deployment of inadequately remunerated and institutionally marginalized lay counsellors instead of health care professionals (who had previously undertaken counselling and testing) constitutes a retrogressive measure in terms of s 27 of the Constitution. In short, despite the government's commitment to an expanded, more efficacious ART rollout, it is currently delivering less health care - not more - and less access to adequate health care - not more or better - to this cohort of patients with HIV. Such retrogressive measures offend the Court's own understanding of the delivery of this constitutionally-mandated public good to pregnant women with HIV and their infants. The failure of the government to provide adequate and timely remuneration and secure employment to lay counsellors rises to the level required for finding an unjustifiable limitation of s 27's right of access to health care services. As the authors show, the violation flows from the improperly remunerated, insufficiently trained and generally marginalized manner in which lay counsellors are (mis)managed by a public health system that has chosen to supplant well-trained professionals with well-intentioned non-professionals in the delivery of essential components of now constitutionally-mandated ART and PMTCT programmes.
The research question could be framed as The research proposes to understand what the value and importance of business and executive coaching is to the end users, the receivers of coaching services . This knowledge would aid in identifying the strengths and gaps within the coaching services provided by business and executive coaches in South Africa. It would provide an answer to the question is business and executive coaching meaningful, important and valued by the end users of coaching, and if yes why and if not, why not?
Fedderke & John Luiz. The Political Economy of Institutions, Stability and Investment: a simultaneous equation approach in an emerging economy the case of South Africa. Journal of Development Studies. 44(7): 1056-1079
Summary: The modern theory of investment identifies the importance of uncertainty to investment. A number of empirical studies have tested the theory on South African time series, employing political instability measures as proxies for uncertainty. This paper verifies that political instability measures are required in the formulation of the investment function for South Africa. It also establishes that there are distinct institutional factors that influence the uncertainty variable such as property rights and crime levels. We find that rising income and property rights lower political instability, and that rising crime levels are positively related to political instability. The inference is that political instability in South Africa may not represent uncertainty directly, since it is systematically related to a set of determinants. Instead, uncertainty would have to be understood as being related to a broader institutional nexus that in concert may generate uncertainty for investors. The paper highlights the significance of getting institutions right to ensure that uncertainty is kept to a minimum by providing a predictable long term environment. Stability at a systemic level appears crucial if investment rates are to rise in South Africa and this paper demonstrates that stability in turn is driven by a sound institutional environment that has multiple dimensions.
Fedderke & John Luiz. Does Human generate Social and Institutional Capital? Exploring Evidence from South African Time Series Data, 1917-2001. Oxford Economic Papers. 60: 649-682
Summary: This paper presents an analysis of the interaction of human capital investment and the development of social and political institutions. We find that human capital matters for growth through its quality dimension; for distributional conflict by raising political aspirations. But human capital does not stand alone either. The level of economic development (output) matters, distributional (instability) conflict as well as the rights dispensation can come to influence human capital investment decisions in their own right. Social, human capital, political as well as economic dimensions are densely interwoven in webs of association.John Luiz. Institutions and Economic Performance: Implications for African Development. Journal of International Development. 21: 58-72, 2009.
Summary: The economic performance of Sub Saharan Africa has been very disappointing. Its poverty has many dimensions and causes, both internal and external. This paper focuses on the role of institutions in promoting or hindering economic development in Africa and the implications for doing business on the continent. It questions our understanding of institutions and how they develop and warns against simplistic assumptions in this regard. It examines how it is that institutions come to affect economic growth and the characteristics of what makes for good institutions.
