Established in 2006, TATA Africa Services (Nigeria) Limited operates as the nodal point for Tata businesses in West Africa. TATA Africa Services (Nigeria) Limited has a strong presence in Nigeria with investments exceeding USD 10 million. The company was established in Lagos, Nigeria as a subsidiary of TATA Africa Holdings (SA) (Pty) Limited, South Africa and serves as the hub of Tata’s operations in Nigeria and the rest of West Africa.

What About Us

Theory in Practice: Increasing Professional Effectiveness

How the combination of Circular Economy and Industry 4.0 can contribute towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals

David Coghlan and Teresa Brannick (2009): Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation Sage, London 2010, (3rd edition), $ 44.95, euro 27.99 (amazon), pp. 184, Paperback ISBN: 9781848602168 Reviewed by Richard Ennals This new edition of a popular text, used by researchers and practitioners, focuses attention on central issues in Action Research. David Coghlan has been an active participant in many of the separate traditions of Action Research. Both he and his co-author Teresa Brannick teach in University Business Schools in Dublin, moving Action Research into the mainstream. This new edition takes the opportunity to refer to the latest literature in a fastgrowing and diverse field. It provides a valuable foundation for new researchers in the field. There has been a separate literature, for example dealing with Educational Action Research (Noffke/Somekh 2009; McNiff/Whitehead 2009), with a focus on the individual reflective practitioner. By contrast we can point to work on Action Research and Organisational Renewal, which has included consideration of major managed programmes (Gustavsen et al. 2001; Levin 2002; Fricke/Totterdill 2004) which have deployed Action Research in order to pursue policy objectives. This has raised questions as to how Action Research is itself to be defined (Greenwood/Levin 2007). At this point we may have concluded that what different instances of Action Research have in common is that they are cited as instances of Action Research. There are family resemblances. However, readers of earlier editions of works in the field (e.g. Reason/Bradbury 2001) will have noticed limited cross-citations of literature from other traditions. Coghlan and Brannick have made a welcome contribution, both in the breadth of their referenees, and in the platform which they provide for further debate and development. The title of the book deals with Action Research in one's own organisation. The implication is that such research is not necessarily part of a larger scale managed programme. Reliance is not to be placed on research expertise from outside. The authors define Action Research as "an approach to research which aims at both taking action and creating knowledge or theory about that action. The outcomes are both an action and a research outcome, unlike traditional research approaches which aim at creating knowledge only". They set out the cyclical process of planning, taking action, and evaluating. They emphasise the collaborative dimension, whereby the members of the system which is being studied participate actively in the cyclical process. They highlight the diversity of approaches. The focus is on the combination of organisational roles with the additional demands of a role of inquiry and research. This raises practical challenges such as the selection of a research question, attaining some sense of objectivity, and choice of frameworks for viewing and understanding the data. Action Research work can be undertaken for different reasons, including securing academic qualifications, with some expectation of benefit for the organisation. Action Research can involve dealing with emergent processes, and leading radical change, which requires a capacity for self-reflection, realistic expectations, self-containment and an ability to learn. The book is intended to complement books exploring the theory and practice of action research (Greenwood/Levin 2007; Reason/Bradbury 2008; Shani et al. 2008). The three sections of the book cover "Foundations", "Implementation", and "Issues and Challenges in Researching Your Own Organisation". The book ends with discussion of closeness and distance with respect to the organisation under study, contexts of politics and ethics, and hints on writing an Action Research Dissertation. The style of the book is clear and non-dogmatic, making good use of diagrams and summaries. Researchers and research students will have encountered scepticism about Action Research, and arguments that more traditional approaches are "safer", in the context of the need for academic recognition. …

Doing Action Research in Your Own Organisation

Recent shifts in education and labour market policy have resulted in universities being placed under increasing pressure to produce employable graduates. However, contention exists regarding exactly what constitutes employability and which graduate attributes are required to foster employability in tertiary students. This paper argues that in the context of a rapidly changing information- and knowledge-intensive economy, employability involves far more than possession of the generic skills listed by graduate employers as attractive. Rather, for optimal economic and social outcomes, graduates must be able to proactively navigate the world of work and self-manage the career building process. A model of desirable graduate attributes that acknowledges the importance of self-management and career building skills to lifelong career management and enhanced employability is presented. Some important considerations for the implementation of effective university career management programs are then outlined.

The graduate attributes we've overlooked : enhancing graduate employability through career management skills

This study evaluated the factors influencing environmental sustainability (ES) performance of construction projects from the perspective of construction industry professionals working in the Free S...

Evaluation of Factors Influencing Environmental Sustainability Performance of Construction Projects in South Africa

Performance Indicators for Lean Construction in South Africa: Lessons from the Port Elizabeth province

Construction Cost Management Techniques

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of an assessment aimed at evaluating potential drivers for the adoption of environmental economic practices in the construction industry, with a view to enhancing sustainability of construction projects, using the Nigerian construction industry as a case study. This study utilized a post-positivist philosophical approach and a quantitative research design to collect data from construction professionals in the Nigerian construction industry through a well-structured questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed using various statistical tests, including the Kruskal–Wallis H test, Kendall's coefficient of concordance (W), Chi-square (χ2), and exploratory factor analysis. Five major clusters of drivers for the adoption of environmental economic practices were derived in this study. These are (1) operational drivers, (2) stakeholder drivers, (3) market and financial drivers, (4) regulatory and policy drivers, and (5) technological drivers. The findings of this study offer valuable insights into the potential drivers for the adoption of environmental economic practices in the construction industry, particularly from the perspective of a developing country such as Nigeria. Overall, this study contributes to the promotion of environmental sustainability in the construction industry, particularly in developing countries, which can have significant implications for global sustainability efforts. 

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/sd.2612

A quantitative assessment of key drivers for environmental economic practices adoption for sustainable development

The contribution of the construction and infrastructure (C&I) industry to society’s unsustainable consumption patterns remains legendary. The potential of sustainability assessment and rating systems to make significant contributions towards reversing this trend has been elucidated. Several variants of such systems have become prevalent in the C&I industry for deployment to projects and assets. Yet, it appears that they have focused mainly on developed countries, certain sustainability dimensions, and certain phases of the infrastructure asset’s lifecycle. This observation makes this study a necessity considering the quest of countries within the developing country context such as South Africa to bridge the attendant infrastructure deficit therein. Adopting a desktop research design, an extensive review of literature was conducted to unravel the current situation concerning these systems. Relevant keywords were used to source literature from established databases such as Scopus. Accordingly, articles and conference papers pertaining to the subject matter were culled from these databases and analyzed through qualitative content analysis. Findings from the emergent data lend credence to the initial propositions concerning the paucity of sustainability rating and assessment systems for civil infrastructure projects in developing countries. Furthermore, other postulations concerning the inability of the extant systems to cater adequately for the three sustainability dimensions in an integrated manner as well as the overt concentration on certain phases of the infrastructure asset lifecycle were affirmed. Based on these findings, the study proposed the adoption of an all-encompassing methodology – the life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) methodology – in the development of sustainability assessment and rating systems for developing countries like South Africa.

Bankole Awuzie

Papers

Evaluation of Factors Influencing Environmental Sustainability Performance of Construction Projects in South Africa

Performance Indicators for Lean Construction in South Africa: Lessons from the Port Elizabeth province

Construction Cost Management Techniques

A quantitative assessment of key drivers for environmental economic practices adoption for sustainable development

Sustainability performance of infrastructure projects: the case for life cycle sustainability assessment methodology