Browsing by Author "Peter, Camaren"

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    Bayesian participatory-based decision analysis : an evolutionary, adaptive formalism for integrated analysis of complex challenges to social-ecological system sustainability
    (2010) Peter, Camaren; April, Kurt; Potgieter, Anet
    This dissertation responds to the need for integration between researchers and decision-makers who are dealing with complex social-ecological system sustainability and decision-making challenges. To this end, we propose a new approach, called Bayesian Participatory-based Decision Analysis (BPDA), which makes use of graphical causal maps and Bayesian networks to facilitate integration at the appropriate scales and levels of descriptions. The BPDA approach is not a predictive approach, but rather, caters for a wide range of future scenarios in anticipation of the need to adapt to unforeseeable changes as they occur. We argue that the graphical causal models and Bayesian networks constitute an evolutionary, adaptive formalism for integrating research and decision-making for sustainable development. The approach was implemented in a number of different interdisciplinary case studies that were concerned with social-ecological system scale challenges and problems, culminating in a study where the approach was implemented with decision-makers in Government. This dissertation introduces the BPDA approach, and shows how the approach helps identify critical cross-scale and cross-sector linkages and sensitivities, and addresses critical requirements for understanding system resilience and adaptive capacity.
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    Exploring inclusive innovation: factors influencing interoperability adoption in South Africa's mobile money service provider sector
    (2025) Zheng, Wenbo; Peter, Camaren
    This study investigates the factors influencing the adoption of interoperability among Mobile Money Service Providers (MMSPs) in South Africa, focusing on the implications for financial inclusion and barriers to business-to-business collaboration. Despite the rapid expansion of mobile money platforms, the need for interconnectedness among these services hampers seamless transactions, thereby limiting the overall efficacy of mobile money systems. Using an interpretive philosophy, this research adopts an inductive approach utilising qualitative methodology. A single case study method was implemented, comprising twenty in depth interviews organised into three distinct cohorts to enhance the credibility of the findings. The analysis identified five prominent themes that significantly impact interoperability adoption: Size of the Footprint, User Needs, Degree of Risk and Control, Level of Strategy and Timing, and Profitability. Each theme was critically evaluated for its implications on decision making processes within the MMSP sector, revealing that profitability is a primary motivator for co-opetition among service providers. The findings indicate that although mobile money has the potential to catalyse inclusive innovation, there must be greater clarity between provider priorities and user needs. As such, this research underscores the necessity for greater alignment between academic insights and practical applications in fostering inclusive innovation within the sector. This study developed an inclusive innovation concept model as a potential tool to help refocus inclusive innovation towards a sustainability model.
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    Inclusive Innovation in a Time of Repression: The Case of the Wilvan School of Dance
    (2023) Barends, Zenariah; Peter, Camaren
    There has been minimal emphasis in scholarship in studying and understanding inclusive social innovation within smaller community-based organisations, its intersection with the performing arts, resistance and the struggle for social change in Apartheid South Africa. In identifying this gap, the objective of this study was to investigate whether a community-based dance organisation, the Wilvan School of Dance, was an inclusive innovation contributing to social change. The research focused on the period of Wilvan's existence between 1968, when it was formed and 1994, when the first democratic election in South Africa was held. This was simultaneously a period of extreme repression as well a period of mass resistance to Apartheid. The study used a qualitative research design focused on a case study, the Wilvan School of Dance, using hermeneutic phenomenology, an approach which made allowance for my subjectivity, as the primary methodology, given that I had been a student at this dance school over a period of 21 years between its formation in 1968 and 1989. This was supported by a grounded theory approach to the gathering of data, which was primarily through interviews with 20 plus stakeholders and associates of the Wilvan School of Dance. The value of the study is in its contribution to understanding how a micro-organisation interpreted and contributed to social change and how individuals involved with this community-based dance organisation acted as agents of social change catalysing an inclusive social innovation within marginalised communities during the repressive governance framework of Apartheid. In addition, the significance of the study lies in its contribution to scholarship on social innovation, social change and justice.
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    Leading without greed: A Vedantic lens on wholeness toward cultivating spiritual intelligence in leadership
    (2023) Maharaj, Nerisha; Peter, Camaren
    As the current civilisation grapples with existential grand challenges, it is suggested that old leadership paradigms furthering social injustice and environmental crises through greed, be examined. Greed was theorised in the literature as arising from a material ‘incomplete self' predicament of constant want. Vedānta posits such never-ending desiring to be consequential of a lack of spiritual intelligence. Systematic reviews into workplace spirituality studies identified a need for qualitative leadership research, specifically recommending Eastern spiritual lenses, due to rising interest. Wholeness is central to spirituality, considered fundamental to human flourishing, yet remains nascent. This study explored whether wholeness, as conceptualised from a Vedāntic lens, could be meaningful for cultivating spiritual intelligence in leadership outside a Vedāntic context. Applying a Vedāntic lens, three essential constructs of wholeness were identified, namely, Being, consciousness, and joy. Hermeneutical phenomenology was applied through semi-structured interviews with twentyfive purposively sampled leaders across diverse sectors and spiritual orientations. The findings were triangulated across two different focus groups comprising fifteen participants, thus totalling forty study participants. Data analysis was conducted through transcript coding and thematic categorisation. Wholeness, as conceptualised, was found both meaningful and relatable outside a Vedāntic context by both spiritually active and not so spiritually active leaders, who expressed cognitive and emotional resonance with the constructs in relation to wholeness. Moreover, the findings showed such wholeness to be holistically meaningful for spiritual intelligence in leadership, encompassing leadership of both self and others, with positive organisational and social macro-implications. Leaders felt that wholeness through Being, consciousness, and joyful contentment would evoke less greed in leadership, greater virtues-orientation, holistic consciousness in decision-making, and a more human-centric approach to leadership, since a sense of inner completeness evokes fewer desires and greater contentment. Potential societal and organisational macro-implications included holistic business models and kinder, equitable societies. The findings offered a practical way to cultivate spiritual intelligence toward addressing greed and the incomplete self, contributing toward the nascent concept of wholeness whilst encouraging the inclusion of multi-cultural perspectives. The study contributed three novel, meaningful wholeness constructs with phenomenological insights on leadership import, a Vedāntic Leadership Model of Wholeness incorporating a Whole Self theory, and epistemological findings on the processual interplay between the Whole Self and incomplete self.
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    The red clump stars as a distance indicator : review and application
    (2002) Peter, Camaren; Menzies, John
    The intention of this project was primarily to determine the distance to the Galactic Centre using a new technique pioneered by Paczynski and Stanek (1998) that uses the red clump stars as a standard candle. This was made possible by the large number of stars simultaneously observed by the OGLE microlensing project which yields well-defined red clump structures in their colour magnitude diagrams. We have used data obtained at Sutherland in July 1997, in collaboration with the PLANET microlensing project. It was hoped that the observation of a number of lensing events occurring in fields in the Galactic Bulge region would reveal information about the Galactic structure in that region and perhaps yield information about the lens masses. The red clump technique is reviewed and applied to several 3x 3 arcminfields observed at low galactic latitude and longitude in the Galactic Bulge. The derived distances to the fields show consistency with the E2 bar model proposed by Stanek, and indicate that the distance from our sun to the Galactic Centre is 7.97± 0.4 kpc. Furthermore, an attempt is made to apply the derived individual distance to each field to calculate the possible lens mass associated with each event.
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    Social Innovation for Sustainable Urban Developmental Transitions in Sub-Saharan Africa: Leveraging Economic Ecosystems and the Entrepreneurial State
    (2021-06-30) Peter, Camaren
    This study theorizes social innovation-based transitions to sustainable urban development from the perspective of the African urban condition, highlighting that large infrastructure and service provision deficits, poverty, inequality, heavy import dependence and the prevalence of dual formal–informal sector systems are key factors to account for in a just, sustainable urban African developmental transition. It identifies an opportunity space that can be leveraged for urban and broader transitions to sustainability on the continent by leveraging “economic ecosystems” for local scale social innovation-based development interventions. It theorizes that multi-level transitions to sustainability can be engendered by adopting an entrepreneurial state led approach at local scales by using economic ecosystems as the framework to (1) stimulate social innovation-based entrepreneurship that meets local and local–regional demands through decentralized, low cost, small-scale infrastructures, technologies and services, (2) leverage social innovation-based economic ecosystems for catalyzing multi-scalar transitions to sustainability, (3) recast the role of the entrepreneurial state, specifically in relation to social innovation and sustainable urban development (SUD) in Africa and (4) bridge formal–informal sector dualism. This framing prioritizes local economic development over centralized, state-led interventions that involve grand-scale masterplans, wholly new satellite cities and bulk infrastructure deployments in conceptualizing sustainable urban development transitions in Africa.
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    The impact of work seeker support platforms on the development of South Africa's unemployed youth
    (2022) Peinke, Simone; Peter, Camaren
    Youth unemployment remains an enduring and significant challenge in South Africa, with 43.2 % of people aged 15-34 and 59% aged 15-24 remaining unemployed, respectively. Similarly, economic discouragement among young people is on the rise. Micro-level barriers contribute significantly to the inability to access employment opportunities. These include the low skills levels of many young South Africans, the high costs of job-seeking, a lack of social capital, a lack of access to relevant job-seeker information, as well as the adverse mental health impacts of alienation, poverty and unemployment. With the rise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the rise of ICT for Development (ICT4D) interventions, several digital solutions have been developed in South Africa. These attempt to provide low-cost, scalable solutions to youth unemployment by addressing some of the barriers that young people experience. Despite the increased prevalence of such digital interventions, the degree to which they are capable of engaging and transforming the lives of the unemployed youth they target remains unclear. With increasing investments into 4IR interventions to address youth unemployment, closer examination is required. Accordingly, this study appraises one digital work seeker support platform in South Africa that provides skills matching and development opportunities to unemployed youth. The study focuses specifically on their experience of the platform. It uses post phenomenological constructs to analyse how young unemployed South Africans interpret the digital intervention and examines how these interpretations promote or inhibit their sense of agency and wellbeing. The findings suggest that digital youth employment interventions can inadvertently exacerbate some of the existing barriers, while also providing insight into how ICT4D interventions may be reimagined to address some of the factors that drive economic discouragement among young people.