The change from a politically-sanctioned racial segregation opened support of another popularity based administration which was an overwhelming procedure at all levels. In South Africa, the positive policies to turnaround the economy of the country came along with cadre deployment policy which advocates for ANC party loyalists to occupy a prominent position in the public sector. This political patronage via state jobs leads to poor institutional quality or performance of the nation as a whole. Focusing on the significant association between the demands of economic growth and expansion, this paper assesses the effects of the cadre deployment policy against performance management in the public sector. It presents a proposed framework based on the control theories illustrating how cadre deployment and performance management can contribute to the current knowledge of the African academic and administrative environment. The article adopted an extensive review of literature which was premised on various document sources that inform cadre deployment, Auditor General Reports, Annual Reports and relevant literature on the subject. Results of this study showed that cadre deployment exacerbated corruption, poor procurement systems and wasteful expenditure and the deteriorating State of Local Government.  The article calls for the review and the changes of the authoritative structure governing local municipalities in order to supplement Section (152) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa. The article further directs the ANC led government to revise the cadre deployment policy to combat the challenges of severe skills shortage and poor service delivery in various municipalities across the country as a result of nepotism, politicization and hiring unqualified labour.

Orientation: The relationship between psychological capital (PsyCap) and organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) is important to establish especially in the South African public hospitals where the quality of healthcare services have been reported to have deteriorated.Research purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between psychological capital and organisational citizenship behaviour among nurses in the public hospitals.Motivation for the study: There is crisis in the public nursing sector as nurses are reported to be working under pressure as a result of increased workload and responsibilities beyond their scope of practice (in terms of doing the work that they are not trained for and more work than they can handle), in addition to rapidly changing work environments.Research approach, design and method: The present study follows a quantitative cross-sectional design using a questionnaire on a sample of 228 nurses from public hospitals in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa.Main findings: The findings of the study confirm that psychological capital has a significant positive relationship with organisational citizenship behaviour.Practical/managerial implications: The study recommends management to recognise the area of OCB in the public hospitals and work in nurturing and retaining those nurses capable of displaying such behaviours.Contribution/value add: The study validates aspect of reciprocity of the Social exchange theory. Nurses with high levels of hope, self-efficacy, resilience and optimism showed reciprocity through the display of OCBs. The study also validates the aspect of job resources in eroding job demands from the Job demands resources model.

Orientation: Although researchers have discovered many of the beneficial and positive consequences of job engagement, little is known about the multitude of antecedent factors that lead to employee engagement such as personality.Research purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between the big five personality traits and job engagement among municipal workers.Motivation for the study: The motivation of this study is to examine the relationship between personality and psychological conditions. It was premised on previous research that personality is associated with many employees’ behaviours.Research approach/design and method: The present study employed a quantitative, cross-sectional research design by using a questionnaire on a sample of 403 district municipal workers in the Eastern Cape province, South Africa.Main findings: The study findings show that openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness had a positive relationship with job engagement, whereas neuroticism has a negative relationship with job engagement. Municipalities and educational qualifications had an impact of job engagement.Practical/managerial implications: The study recommends managers to switch from an intervention-based focus to a selection-based focus as municipalities can maximise their resources by being able to better predict job success early in the selection process as opposed to trying to maximise the performance on a continual basis through interventions.Contribution/value-add: This study adds to an understanding of the influences of personality on work outcomes such as job engagement, giving areas for exploration in coaching or feedback interviews based on personality assessment.

This study aims to investigate the influence of employee engagement strategies on organisational citizenship behaviour within the retailing banking industry. A survey design was used to realise the research objectives. The sample population was 180 employees of the retail banking sector in Amatole District. A self-designed questionnaire on employee engagement was used as a measuring instrument together with Gallup's workplace audit questionnaire and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour Measure designed by Podsakoff and MacKenzie (1994). Stratified sampling was used to select respondents. Data was analysed with the SPSS version 19.0. The study identified the chain relationship between employee engagement strategies and organisational citizenship behaviours using the social exchange theory. Results showed that employee engagement leads to increased display of organisational citizenship behaviour by employees. In addition, employee engagement was found to be in itself a form of behavioural transformation, which had effects on the employee involved. . Identified engagement strategies include working conditions, home life balance and wellness among others.

Most African Universities are faced with the challenge of motivating and retaining highly qualified staff, particularly lecturers and researchers. These challenges have triggered a more calculated approach to human resources management across the higher education sector in South Africa (Kubler and DeLuca 2006) Backer (1982). Higher education institutions must therefore take the issue of recognition of performance seriously starting from the simple techniques such as "splendid work" and "thank you" to more complex ones like the use of research incentives and awarding best staff annually or quarterly to stimulate performance. . The present study investigates the impact of recognition on performance as a motivation strategy at an institution of higher learning in the Eastern Cape region of South Africa. Descriptive statistical tools where used to measure research variables. A total of 63 employees or 30% of the academic staff at of the University were sampled out of a population of 209 academic staff. The results indicated that academic employees are most satisfied and motivated through recognition of performance and achievement. This is also in support of the Herzberg theory of motivation in studies by

School-based peer groups have been identified as a popular and effective method   of providing health education and psychosocial support in schools. Children in developing countries as well as some of the poorest children in developing countries like South Africa face daily risks related to poverty, street crime and violence, poor health, lack or low-quality housing, inadequate and ineffective schools. These children and their families live in crisis which render them vulnerable. Thus, this study noted that there is an increase in social and emotional challenges and several risk factors for vulnerable learners globally and South Africa is not an exception. The incidence of child vulnerability and psychosocial support services have not been studied thoroughly in South Africa yet it is recognized widely that there is an increase in child stress and depression. Much of the psychosocial support services are provided by children themselves in terms of peer education groups. However, much of the research that is currently available on children relies on the reports of teachers and parents. This study learnt from literature that adults consistently underreport the effectiveness of these peer led groups in schools. Following this, the study took a qualitative approach using multiple case studies of 4 secondary schools with children as part of the participants.  Pre-coded research instruments were administered to 4 teacher coordinators, 4 peer leaders, 1 district official and 1 learner support agent supervisor. Documents were also analyzed in the form of minutes of the meetings held, learner support agents report and registers. The study found that shortage of resources such as, counselling rooms, transport, attitudes of teachers and parents towards peer led programs, lack of training and cooperation of parents still hampered the progress of peer led programs. The study therefore concluded that there were still a lot of challenges faced by vulnerable children in schools because they were not accessed by their peers due to lack of resources, training, shortage of time and negative attitudes from adults towards children’s lives attitudes from adults towards children’s lives. The study recommends that peer led groups be part of the large school curriculum with a specific budget to sustain the needs of the peer led groups. The study indicated that there were no networking opportunities amongst peer-led groups due to lack of time, yet this is very important to all successful organizations of a peer group nature. The participants also revealed that peers are better placed if they had counselling rooms, time tabled services, positive attitudes from parents and long-term  training on peer counselling.

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Orientation: Increasing job engagement in a sustainable way remains a challenge and the question remains as to why employees, when working under comparable conditions display signs of job engagement whereas others display a few or no signs of job engagement.Research purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate the linear relationships and establish usable models for the big five personality traits and psychological conditions on job engagement amongst municipal workers.Motivation for the study: The motivation of this study is to examine the relationship between personality and psychological conditions on job engagement.Research approach/design and method: The study employed a quantitative, cross- sectional research design using a questionnaire on a sample of 403 district municipal workers in the Eastern Cape province, South Africa.Main findings: Findings show that conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, intellect and all psychological conditions had a positive relationship with job engagement while neuroticism has a negative relationship with job engagement. Hierarchical regression models revealed that psychological conditions add unique variance in predicting job engagement above and beyond that which is predicted by the personality traits.Practical/managerial implications: Job engagement can be enhanced through the hiring employees with certain personality traits and enhancing meaningfulness, safety and availability of psychological resources in the workplace.Contribution/value-add: The study findings support a relatively rich literature which suggests that employees with certain personality traits such as conscientiousness, agreeableness, intellect and perceives that all psychological conditions are being met tend to be more engaged in their job.