Background District hospitals are crucial in supporting primary health care and serve as a gateway to more specialist care through a referral system. Majority of South Africans access health care services through the public sector district health system. Given the enormous task assigned to the public district hospital within the country, this study examined factors influencing their technical efficiency. Method Data were collected for 38 public district hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal province from 2014/15 to 2016/17. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to determine the technical efficiency of the hospitals, adopting both the constant return to scale (CRS) and variable return to scale (VRS) models. Tobit regression model was used to determine factors related to the technical efficiency of the district hospitals. Results This study showed that a significant proportion of the district hospitals were technically inefficient. The Tobit regression model identified catchment population, the proportion of inpatients treated per medical personnel, the proportion of inpatients treated per nursing personnel and expenditure per patient day equivalent as factors influencing technical efficiency of the district hospitals. Conclusion Findings from this study suggest that the technical efficiency of the district hospitals can be enhanced through an effective referral system and improved peoples’ health-seeking behaviour. In addition, a standard mix of clinical staff toward efficient service delivery and periodic cost analysis of health services with the view to saving cost and maintaining the quality of health care should be considered.

Purpose-The conventional mode of teaching entrepreneurship in most of the Nigerian universities seems to not be sufficiently adequate to increase entrepreneurial action to decrease rates of graduates' unemployment. Design/methodology/ approach-Adopting primary and secondary sources of data, the article examined the influence of teaching and learning methods on perceived desirability for entrepreneurship. A total of 701 questionnaires were administered, of which 664 questionnaires were validly retrieved through combining stratified and systematic sampling techniques. The investigation yielded 94% response rate from the population groups of lecturers, postgraduate and final year students of three selected universities in Southwest Nigeria. Inferential statistics including Pearson's correlation, t-tests, and chi-square at p-value (0.05) level of significance were employed for the statistical analyses. Findings-The university-level entrepreneurship training demands cognitive and non-cognitive activities as the minimum benchmark for learning entrepreneurship. The operating curriculum predominately remains academics while performance assessments are written examinations which are mark driven. A significant positive correlation was established between the use of more theoretical learning patterns and the mind-sets for remunerative employment, as opposed desirability for entrepreneurship. Research limitations/implication-The content of information in this study limits the results of the research to the studied participants, which also limits the reach of the study to the three universities, where the study was conducted. Originality/ value-The value is a guiding framework that promotes paradigm shift from perspective highly curriculum content-based approach to a more inclusive outcome-based model, that is more of collaboration, partnership and engagement with key stakeholders in entrepreneurial development.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to use modeling and simulation to investigate the puzzling performance problems that plagued the project outsourcing in term of poor quality and delivery delay, and apply the appeal and power of system dynamics modeling as a managerial approach to improve learning and intervention in complex situations to South African context where little or no such attempt had been made. Design/methodology/approach -This work is based on exploratory use of system dynamics modeling to study a web of quality and productivity problems that plagued a company as a result of adopting outsourcing as a policy to bolster productivity and service delivery. Findings -A significant finding from this research is that outsourcing has the propensity to perpetuate any trend it dominantly generates as a result of strong positive feedback loops. It also made explicit the dynamic processes that lead to certain observations that have been made in conventional management literature about the effects of outsourcing.Research limitations/implications -The major limitation to this study is availability of information in form of certain operating data need for calibration thus imposing few aggregations on the model. Originality/value -The authors believe that this work has a degree of originality as it applies system dynamics modeling to public sector outsourcing which not being done before. It also made a significant finding by uncovering possible counteractive effect of outsourcing on internal staff.

Indigenous people often do not get the full benefits of economic development, regardless of their proximity to production factors. While many academics have recognised and investigated indigenous people's problems, relatively few have suggested entrepreneurship as a means to addressing them. In this paper, we explore Peredo et al. 's (2004) work, 'Towards a theory of indigenous entrepreneurship -a theory of entrepreneurship that accounts for indigenous people and sustainability'. Using Scopus and Google Scholar, a bibliometric analysis confirmed the impact of this work, first published some 16 years ago. The analysis reveals that the paper has been referenced over 300 times, with over 70% of these citations originating from online academic journal articles and books and 30% from different types of websites. The paper's substantial impact on future research in indigenous entrepreneurship indicates that it is and will continue to be a foundational work on indigenous entrepreneurship.

This paper examines how employee empowerment impacted the South African public sector. A qualitative research approach was utilised based on the narratives and stories of seven employees operating in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa from the Department of Economic Development, Environmental Affair Tourism (DEDEAT) and East London Industrial Development Zone (ELIDZ) gathered through the use of in-depth interviews. It was found that the concept of empowerment has not been fully institutionalised in the Public sector. The research suggests strategies that managers can adopt to assist instutionalise Employee empowerment in the Public sector. This study extends and advances the literature on employee empowerment and more particularly psychological empowerment. The study found employee empowerment to be a vital tool to improve service delivery in the Public sector. However, it was found that more personalised approaches like delegation and mentorship can be institutionalised for psychological empowerment purposes. In general, the findings indicated that Employee empowerment has a positive influence on organisational performance and service delivery.