Browsing by Faculty "Graduate School of Business"

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
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    Academic freedom and the university: Fifty years of debate
    (Stellenbosch University, 2006) Hall, Martin
    Contemporary debates about academic freedom and institutional autonomy in South Africa's 'liberal' universities began in the 1950s, stimulated by the policies and legislation for racial segregation. While the form that these debates had taken has differed from university to university, the University of Cape Town stands as a good case study for the arguments and counterarguments that have been made through the years. In this essay, I trace these arguments from the middle of the last century through to the present, and show that different positions remain unreconciled, suggesting in turn a lack of consensus about the role of the university in contemporary South African society.
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    Auctions and mechanism design for decentralized marketplaces
    (2021) Maree, Christopher; Georg, Co-Pierre
    Those that come up with commercially viable ideas are often not the best suited to implement them. This can lead to allocational inefficacy in the deployment of good ideas. The transfer or licensing of patents is a means of commercializing ideas. However, in the current patent market, the idea seller and the idea buyer often don't match which results in the proliferation of adverse selection. This thesis examines the existing patent market and finds many examples of opacity. Pitfalls abound for both sellers and buyers which result in inefficiencies when attempting to find the best fit for seller and buyer. Improvements in allocating ideas to the best implementers would help inventors and companies alike. Brilliant ideas are frequently generated from universities. This thesis presents a means to commercialize these ideas by issuing licenses on the blockchain in an innovative marketplace for ideas. This commercialization of ideas generates funds that support the institution that originally conceived the ideas and indirectly supports foundational research. The marketplace for ideas is based on sealed bid auctions which ensure that the company that values the idea the most is allocated the license. An optional Harberger Tax system is included to generate constant revenue for the universities from the licensed ideas. This mechanism decreases information asymmetries, increases market liquidity and provides representative license pricing. Smart contracts deployed on the Ethereum blockchain are used to eliminate auction corruption through trustless sealed bid auctions. Smart contracts also automate license issuance, payments and act as a public ledger of license ownership and provenance. A full front-end web application is presented to interface with the marketplace for all users.
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    Chinese business negotiations: South African firm experiences and perspectives
    (2008) Horwitz, F; Hemmant, R; Rademeyer, C
    South African business joint ventures in China are increasing. Successful negotiations are a key component when establishing a gateway into the Chinese market. This research is undertaken to establish South African business negotiators’ understanding of Chinese business negotiation styles and behaviours and determinants of cross-cultural negotiation. Primary data was obtained through quantitative ranking style questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with selected South African business people who have had business negotiations with Chinese firms. The research revealed that perceptions held by South African business negotiators do not differ substantially from that of Westerners with regards to aspects such as trust relationships, hierarchical decision making, long-term decision making, networks and the concept of ‘face’.
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    Concentration in the South African equity market and its implied restrictions on the long only equity fund manager's opportunity set
    (2010) Raubenheimer, Heidi
    South Africa‟s Equity market provides a large (in terms of volume) but concentrated investment environment. Domestic pension funds are restricted from diversifying globally and are thus faced with a restricted set of investment opportunities. This article describes and quantifies the extent of the concentration on the JSE historically and at present. The article describes the consequent limitations on long-only equity portfolio construction and the implications for the domestic long-only fund manager subject to various active weight limits. The analysis shows that the higher the allowable active bet sizes, the less consistently asset managers are able to implement their views and the less symmetric their response to forecasted excess returns can be. Consequently, the less competitive a long-only fund manager can be alongside hedge funds and similarly constrained long-short managers.
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    Developing a systemic disaster prevention paradigm
    (2010) Maree, Hein
    This research project's objective was the development of a systemic disaster prevention paradigm. Disasters can generally be classified as either natural or man-made, although hybrid disasters also do occur. The research effort focussed on man-made disasters and numerous past disasters in all spheres of life were investigated. Man-made disasters are complex, systemic phenomena that can only be understood by adopting a holistic and systemic view. This high stakes world constituted the situation to be dealt with in there search project. The research work started off with a fixation on disasters in the mining industry. It was however soon realised that in all man-made disasters there are factors and dynamics in force that are industry and context insensitive.
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    Do managers in South Africa manufacturing firms make optimal capital investment decisions?
    (2003) Gilbert, E
    Managing the deployment of a firm’s assets in the form of capital goods is a vital determinant of a firm’s ability to successfully compete over time. Corporate finance theory clearly prescribes a rule to ensure the optimality of these decisions: all capital investment decisions should be evaluated through the use of the net present value (NPV) rule while project specific risk should be incorporated through the adjustment of the discount rate used in the NPV analysis. This paper presents the results of a survey of the capital investment evaluation practices of South African manufacturing firms. The results indicate that the majority of firms surveyed do not use the NPV evaluation technique when making their capital investment decisions. Furthermore, those firms that do use this technique use it in combination with other, theoretically deficient (and redundant) techniques. Finally, they do not adjust for project specific risk as prescribed.
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    Monitoring and evaluation practice to discern meaningful change in community-based early childhood development centres
    (2017) Sikobi, Thembeka; Hall, Martin
    After 23 years of democracy South Africa still faces poor education quality, a class-based education system and poor academic performance. These issues are exacerbated by South Africa’s apartheid history and perpetual inequality. Access to quality Early Childhood Education (ECD) is recognised as a solution that can improve education outcomes and overcome poverty and inequality in the country. However, challenges remain in the effective implementation of ECD programmes. This study seeks to investigate the quality of ECD centres in rural communities in order to gain a deeper understanding of the context in which they operate and be in a better position to inform public funding policies and investment decisions. The main research question asks how the quality of ECD that is delivered through community-based ECD centres can be improved either through the use of public funding other funding sources? Approaches to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) and impact considerations are examined in community settings. From this, theoretical and practical lessons are drawn to form the basis for analysis of the research findings. The study adopts a predominantly qualitative approach using interviews with parents and teachers, as well as observations and questionnaires. A total of 40 ECD centres were surveyed and 21 interviews conducted in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province in South Africa. The study areas are three rural communities, namely Vulamehlo, Izingolweni and Msinga. Based on quality definitions explored in this dissertation, the study finds that the need to improve the quality of ECD service delivery remains pertinent and that there is a gap in parental ECD knowledge and practice.
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    Network diversity structure closeness and innovation of South African micro-entrepreneurs
    (2014) Griffin-EL, Eliada
    This study qualitatively explores the embeddedness of the innovation process of South African microbusinesses by investigating how small local entrepreneurs in the Greater Johannesburg area utilise their social networks to source entrepreneurial value. A comparative grounded theory analysis enabled the original conceptualisation of Network Diversity Structure and formulates the central proposition that the network dimensions of diversity and closeness enable the innovation process among manufacturing microbusinesses more so than in service microbusinesses. Furthermore, the study proposes that both a structural and relational/experiential dimension of closeness, enables micro-entrepreneurs to create meaning and knowledge collaboratively with other entrepreneurs and actors. This socially facilitated process of exchanging ideas, information, and resources is central to the innovation process of firms traditionally limited by both their size and historical social institutions.
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    Securitisation in South Africa: 2000-2007
    (2008) Moyo, Z; Firer, C
    This paper tracks the development of the securitisation market in South Africa since the first securitisation in 1989. It gives a chronological account of securitisation issuance activity on the Bond Exchange of South Africa and identifies factors that have led to the development of the market. It also records some of the topical issues market participants face. Listing data from the Bond Exchange of South Africa was sorted and analysed. The views of market participants were captured through interviews and by attendance of the 2007 annual securitisation conference. The results show that the South African securitisation market has grown exponentially over the last seven years. Market participants expect this market to continue to grow, but at a slower pace, given the pressure that world credit markets are under as a result of the sub-prime crisis in the US. Market participants identified the constraints to growth as being insufficient capacity of local investors to take up the paper. From a supply point of view the South African banks have substantial securitisation capacity that is still untapped.