Browsing by Subject "business"

Now showing 1 - 16 of 16
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    Open Access
    Adoption of foreign institutional practices and industrial development: Understanding the cross-level interaction effects
    (2021) Matenge, Tendy Moffat; Kabinga, Mundia; Zoogah, Baniyelme D
    Foreign market knowledge has been at the epicentre of international business research for decades and differences in institutional practices across countries have been found to influence performance of internationalised firms. Dominant scholarship in this area has been significantly influenced by insights and experiences from developed countries, usually to the detriment of understanding the influence of foreign institutional knowledge acquisition at both the firm and country levels in developing economies. Using a developing country lens, the objective of this study is to determine if foreign institutional practices acquired by SSA firms has a significant effect on their home country's industrial development. The study employs a quantitative cross-sectional survey research approach and collects data from 874 formally registered manufacturing firms in 28 SSA countries. The countries are stratified along two dimensions, noticeable and unnoticeable levels of industrial development. This allowed for cross-country comparison across the industrial development spectrum. The data collected was subsequently analysed in MLWin 3.02 for multilevel and involved a two-tier regression analysis to examine the relative importance of foreign institutional practice adoption as a source of variation in the home country's industrial development. The study finds statistically significant influences with respect to foreign practice adoption. This implies that adoption of foreign institutional practices by an internationalised firm from a foreign country benefits the home country. This study further opens new discussions about firm internationalisation and home country industrial development by demonstrating the significant influence of interaction effects between adoption of foreign institutional practices by an internationalised firm and four firm level variables and one country level variable on home country's industrial development.
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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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    Determinants of Agri-Lending Among Financial Institutions in Kenya
    (2018) Maloba, Michelle; Alhassan, Abdul Latif
    This study seeks to examine the factors that influence Kenyan financial institutions’ lending behaviour towards the agricultural sector. Secondary panel data from 15 licensed financial institutions (commercial banks and deposit-taking microfinance institutions) for a period of 6 years (2011-2016) was used after which a panel multiple regression model was estimated using random-effects to examine the significant determinants of agri-lending by financial institutions. The study found that financial institution equity and risk on credit were negative and statistically significant in affecting the gross agricultural loans ratio while financial institution size, return on credit and financial institution liquidity were insignificant. As a result, the researcher recommends that financial institutions should devise better risk management strategies in order to reduce volume of non-performing loans in agriculture. Furthermore, the Kenyan Government should enforce the requirement that regulated financial institutions should hold a minimum of 10%-15% agricultural loans in their portfolios. This would steer larger banks to increase their investments in the agriculture given the economic benefits that the country would receive as a result.
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    Development/exploration funding for black junior miners in South Africa
    (2021) Mazibuko, Molebogeng; Jere, Mlenga; Boikanyo, Herman
    The lack of racial transformation in most industries has led the government to craft policies geared towards distributing the pillars of power and influence of all races, especially the previously disadvantaged people of South Africa. A policy is not standalone; hence, on its own will not lead to the materialisation of any of government's plans. It is on the back of this that a solution to any problem needs to be a product of a collaborative system. In 2015, over 80% of all prospecting rights held by black owners expired and changed ownership from blacks to whites. The purpose of this research study is to investigate the proportion of black junior miners holding prospecting rights that manage to advance to obtain a mining license and then to production. Moreover, this study aims to describe and explain attributes that influence the investigated phenomenon to derive mitigations and remedies. It is assumed that since black people could participate in natural resources, economic activity post the apartheid era of the nation, the representation of blacks in this industry regarding ownership of productive assets is still less than 15%. This study uses a qualitative research methodology by examining the funding challenges experienced by black junior miners in taking their projects forward by investigating the proportion of allocated prospecting rights to blacks that reach production. A literature review was undertaken as a backbone to the phenomenon being researched. The researcher conducted qualitative research, interviewing 12 respondents; 8 of whom are middle to senior managers in their prospective companies and 4 of whom are aspiring mining owners with prospecting rights. The research findings revealed predominant themes, among which are the inefficient application process, poor quality applications, little to no government support to help execute their transformation agenda within mineral economics, limited funding allocated towards the development of early-stage mineral resources projects and the nation's deficiency of experienced early-stage funders and funding mechanics. Practical recommendations were provided, and these show a correlation between a participant-private-public relationship that needs to happen to achieve the intended purpose of the study. In absence of funding commitment from private entities, the only option the country has might be to constitute a consolidation policy, forcing majors to financially adopt juniors with a clawback option.
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    Embracing climate transition beyond green debt: exploring the obstacles and enablers to transition bonds
    (2021) Pietri, Alessandro; Dhlamini, Xolisa
    Financial markets have shown that there is a growing interest in funding investments that help address the climate challenge alongside financial returns. As the market has developed, so too has the need to cover a wider sector of the global economy. High carbon emitters, however, are still absent and this presents an opportunity for financial actors to support their sustainable transition towards a greener economy through transition bonds. Transition bonds represent an evident market opportunity to provide financing to companies, whose business is not environmental-friendly today, but who have plans to become sustainable in the future. The study followed an inductive design method to explore the determinants for using transition bonds and the outlook towards the instrument. Moreover, it aimed at identifying the practitioners' approach in valuing transition bonds. The author of this dissertation undertook a qualitative exploration through interviews with investment practitioners to assess what constructs are considered to understand investments in and the issuance of transition bonds. The analysis found that sustainability-linked incentives for engagement with transition bonds are the most cited determinants, signalling the willingness to support the transition plans of brown industries. The establishment of clear standards and disclosure was perceived to be of crucial importance to enhance the credibility of transition bonds. Moreover, practitioners confessed to not yet being equipped with the specific tools and knowledge to measure and report transition objectives. The findings further highlighted that supportive policy and regulation were considered to play an enabling role for the success of transition bonds. The author recommends intensifying the development of transition bond guidelines, enhancing disclosure and implement measurement and reporting procedures. The author also urges public and private institutions to cooperate in the establishment of appropriate institutional arrangements that facilitate the growth of transition bonds. The author suggests expanding the geographical scope of the research and widen the segments of market participants, thus incorporating practitioners residing in other regions and retail investors. Another area of research would be to gain insights into the transition measurement techniques. Future research could also explore the emergence of a pricing premium compared to traditional bond instruments and any pricing discrepancies with green bonds.
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    Foreign Private Investment Flows and Manufacturing Sector in Zimbabwe
    (2021) Chinodzama, Delia; Kabinga, Mundia
    The study primarily examined the macroeconomic and institutional factors constraining the flow of foreign private investment flows into Zimbabwe's manufacturing sector. The study further explored the benefits that accrue from private capital as a source of financing for Zimbabwe's manufacturing sector. Quantitative analysis was used to determine the macroeconomic and governance factors that have a significant impact on the flow on private capital into Zimbabwe. Using the Johansen cointegration trace and maximum eingen value test indicate the presence of a significant long-run relationship between foreign capital inflows and the predictor variables. The results indicated the presence of 5 integrating equations for the trace test and 3 cointegrating equations for the maximum eingen value test. The normalized coefficients, foreign private investment flows are significantly and positively impacted by infrastructure development, economic growth rate, and inflation (macroeconomic factors) and further by business freedom and government effectiveness (governance factors). GDP per capita was found to have a negative impact on foreign investment flows. Analysis of questionnaire data revealed that foreign private financing appeals highly to manufacturing companies but access to this source of funding is constrained by funding mismatches, high credit risk levels within the local manufacturing industry, a longer time lag, sanctions imposed on the country and high production costs. In terms of the benefits of foreign private capital over the traditional sources of funding, the study found that private capital improves company operations (capacity utilisation, export market penetration and productivity), improves technology usage, and boosts the target company's corporate image.
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    Individual ambidexterity: a critical capability towards innovativeness in organisations
    (2021) Nitsckie, Bradley; Zolfaghari, Badri
    Innovation activities vary over time as organisations evolve towards more exploitative innovation to extract maximum performance from existing knowledge and operations. This is a natural evolution, where past innovators become the leaders, capital allocators and managers. Well-run and continuous improvement programmes deeply embed organisational preferences, inadvertently raising barriers to explorative innovation which seeks new knowledges and, with it, a divergence from current thinking. The prospect of new discovery induces paradox as it threatens obsolescence. It seeks high variance, in the face of a low variance focus. Enabling an ambidexterity capability will synergise these tensions and gain the benefits of both types of innovation. Synergising both offers long-term sustained innovation and enhanced performance, and so ambidexterity capability is of significant importance. The researcher's objective is to explore how an individual ambidexterity capability is able to improve an organisation's ability to synergise the paradoxical tensions in the innovation process. This thesis has a focus on how organisations may scale their internal ambidexterity capabilities. Individual ambidexterity proposes a reframing of the role of the individual towards taking a far more central role, and one from which the ambidexterity capability is scaled. It promises a richer, more generative capability which breaks beyond the limits and boundaries of the structural or leadership limitations. This thesis heeds a call for more theorising on how individuals experience paradox tensions and provides revelatory ambidexterity insights into real world of work situations. The work of this thesis has been to enter the real world of work through the interviewing of 12 participants from a selected case study on an explorative innovation, in an environment more familiar with exploitative innovation performance. The researcher also interviewed 3 functional experts to gain insights into current individual capability support and enablement. Through this thesis the researcher's findings contribute that the paradox tensions are complex layers of interrelated tensions, that they have severe implications for the individual in their ability to respond, that this ability to respond should be deliberately supported by competency, trait, behavioural and other capability models, but also that leaders play a critical role in creatings a supportive context for the individual to enact ambidexterity and lastly that there is also a need for the right instrumental support for the varying needs in the innovation process. This thesis supports the notion that with a lack of awareness and intentionality for ambidexterity, individuals are left to face complex paradoxical tensions but their response is left to chance or individual intuition. Their individual ambidexterity is a rich source of sustained innovation capability but requires a strategic approach to enable it. It requires the reframing of the role of the leader in shifting to a supportive and enabling role, emancipating the agency of the individual in creating a supportive organisational context, a context which normalises the empowerment of individuals, exploration, divergence and experimentation. It is critical to ensure that personal career risks do not inhibit the exploration or agency of individuals.
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    Micro-entrepreneur support
    (2013-01) Macfarlane, Greg
    The project took the form of business support for The Clothing Bank, a local NGO based in Cape Town. Their goal is to empower unemployed mothers to become financially independent by setting up own micro-businesses buying and reselling clothing. The NGO sources excess clothing from large retailers for participants and offers relevant business/ entrepreneur training.
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    Money talks: investigating the relationship between linguistic diversity and financial inclusion
    (2020) Wolf, Matthew Christopher; Alhassan, Abdul Latif
    Differences in languages spoken within a population can be thought of as transaction costs that make economic activities more difficult. This perspective has motivated a host of academic literature analyzing the linguistic profile of countries in relation to different socio-economic variables. Among these studies, financial inclusion is rarely one of the variables of interest. Language and financial inclusion are sometimes analyzed together in more granular studies of a single country, or even of individuals, but never in a cross-sectional, country-level analysis. However economic growth, which is generally considered to be positively related to financial inclusion, has frequently been studied, with mixed results. Earlier researchers of the question identified negative relationships between economic growth and linguistic diversity, in what became known as the “Fishman-Pool Hypothesis”. Later researchers determined that such a relationship did not exist, or that, in certain contexts, linguistic diversity and economic growth could even be positively related. This study departs from the intuition that financial inclusion's relationship to linguistic diversity may parallel that of economic growth – a relationship that seems intuitively negative but is more ambiguous after analysis. To overcome the broad interpretability of the concepts of interest, this study constructed two dependent variables representing financial inclusion, and four independent variables representing linguistic diversity with cross-sectional data for a sample of 61 countries. The models were estimated by accounting for multicollinearity of the regressors, as well as heteroskedasticity and non-normality in the error terms using the Seemingly Unrelated Regressions models and ordinary least squares estimation techniques. The results indicate that linguistic diversity indicators were all nearly zero, and highly insignificant, despite the strong specification of the models. This suggests that linguistic diversity has no significant relationship – positive or negative – to financial inclusion at a country level. This result was consistent across all the possible combinations of the operationalized variables for both concepts.
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    Public debt and economic growth: empirical evidence from South Africa
    (2021) Mbali, Andiswa; Alhassan, Abdul Latif; Jantjies, Dumisani
    This study seeks to investigate the relationship between public debt and economic growth in South Africa for the period 1977 – 2019. This study also seeks to review economic theories related to public debt and economic growth namely: Neoclassical, Ricardian and Keynesian theory. To achieve the research objective, this study uses the time series technique, namely, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach of cointegration test and the Granger causality approach to test the causal relationship between variables. Analysis of variance decomposition and impulse response functions are used to illustrate the proportions of movements of variables due to its own shock relative to other variables by shocking one standard deviation. The study results indicate there is a positive relationship between public debt and economic growth . However, causality runs from economic growth to public debt. Overall, the study results indicate a significant negative long-run relationship between the public debt and economic growth when inflation and gross capital formation are used as controlled variables. However, the relationship is significant in the short run. The impulse response function indicated that there is responsiveness in public debt and GDP growth to shocks of public debt and GDP growth. However, the result of variance decomposition test in explaining the GDP growth and public debt co-movement. In the short run, self-variance of GDP growth comovement is almost 100%, which reduces to 91.79% percent in the long term. Aside from selfvariation, public debt induced no notable variation in bilateral co-movement in short term. In the long-run however, maximum variation of 8.22% is provided by public debt. The above statistics suggest that shock in economic growth accounts for 91.78% fluctuations. A shock to public debt causes fluctuations to GDP growth significantly over time. Last, as a policy recommendation, South Africa needs undertake aggressive economic strategies with clear objectives and strong commitments, driven by accountable bureaucrats to ensure that public funds are used efficiently. Public debt also needs to be directed through economic growth driven projects and productive expenditures.
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    Shared values as organising principles in complexity
    (2021) Philipp, Felix; Sewchurran, Kosheek
    This study seeks to understand the role of organisational values as an apt candidate for organising principles to manage and adapt effectively in complexity. A starting interest of this research was the reflection that a strong set of shared values has the potential to enables a range of positive outcomes, particularly in complexity, where shared values act as schemata to guide behaviour and enhance an organisation's reflexivity and resilience in times of turbulence. My stance is informed by the pragmatist research paradigm, recognising the interrelationship of research, action, theory, and practice. The literature review draws on two theoretical lenses, values theory and systems thinking, to trace the parallels between the developments in systems thinking and management thought. While the chosen topic ranges across a wide scholarly terrain, it is grounded in the narrative of a particular organisation, a South African clothing retailer facing challenges in the face of increasing volatility and change in the market. Case studies are narratives, which can provide a rich and descriptive picture of the investigated object, portraying the complexities and ambiguities of the context and a socially constructed world (Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001). We live in a world with ever-increasing uncertainty, inter-connectedness, and interdependence. Businesses are increasingly challenged to redefine how they manage and develop in complexity and adapt during turbulent times in their environments. Conceptions of management practices are being challenged by increasing unpredictability brought forward by technology, global trade, and the speed of cultural change, amongst other variables. One of the starting deliberations of this thesis is whether in such times, informal behaviour-guiding principles, such as values, gain importance to enable the emergence of systemic outcomes. The project does this by articulating an analytical framework of systems thinking and values research and synthesising a combined lens for the primary case study. I utilise a mixed-methods approach for the organising of data, including interviews and documentation. Values arrange what we do in organisations, and during change, can be effective and meaningful rudders for direction and adaptation if they are shared among members of the organisation and successfully influence decision-making and behaviour.
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    Shifting the frame: how internal change agents contextualize and co-construct strategic responses to grand challenge issues within and beyond the firm
    (2020) Faccer, Kristie; Hamann, Ralph
    In this study, I aim to understand business responses to social-ecological grand challenges. Prior research has suggested that problem identification and attribution help to foster meaning and action on societal issues. In particular, framing theory has offered significant insight into individual actors' cognitive processes, their skillful articulation of socially resonant interpretive frames, and the role of particular actor categories and repertoires in framing success. At meso and macro levels, researchers have tended to focus on social movements and the outcomes of highly charged political contests between these groups and state actors. As such, we know far less about the co-creative mechanisms and contextual ‘raw materials' that underpin meaning making activities and interaction between groups, especially in instances where the focus is on firms and the significance being attached to ambiguous societal issues for which they are not directly responsible. A key outstanding question is therefore: how do firm-internal agents interpret, signify and mobilize organizational responses to grand challenges? In an effort to address these lacunae, this study explores the proactive efforts of three firms to interpret the complexity of social-ecological grand challenges that they share with the rest of society and to address these issues through meaningful and mitigating action. My inductively derived theoretical model of ‘interactional framing for issue advancement' shows how the active engagement of external influences by internal change or ‘signifying agents' facilitates action on grand challenges within and beyond the firm. While framing activities charge grand challenge issues with meaning and help to organize actors' understanding of, experience, and action around these issues, material affordances and interaction with external actors provide the enabling environment for resonant interpretations to take hold and to facilitate enactment. Grounded in my cases, the model also depicts the progressive sequencing of signifying agent efforts across three broad stages: Introduction and Disruption, Experimentation, and Enactment. My analysis contributes to the management literature by suggesting that the signification work of firm-internal agents is a process of mediation, shaped by the distinct and emergent character of grand challenges and the interplay of social and material mechanisms. Because such issues require a greater emphasis on problem-solving and novel sources of information, my account contrasts with conventional representations of meaning-making as a relatively straightforward line of action from individual logics ‘pulled down' from institutional systems and packaged attractively to appeal to ‘outsiders' less involved in the processes of signification. It also provides an alternative to the popular view of meaning construction as a ‘contest' or essentially dispute-oriented process. Instead, I argue that grand challenge issue advancement demands a more intricate, interactional and contextual process of meaning-making by interested actors and issue proponents internal and external to the firm. The model of signification work I offer in this study thus more fully captures the perspective that actors do not simply assess and attach importance to complex issues, but construct the very nature of the issue itself, and that this construction is a precursor to collaborative action on grand challenges.
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    The impact of a change in sovereign credit ratings on stock market volatility: A comparison of emerging and developed countries
    (2018) Govender, Sharlene; Charteris, Ailie; Alhassan, Abdul Latif
    Sovereign credit ratings affect a country’s financial well-being. The financial markets, at large, have become quite topical within the public space, as well as policy makers and academics. This area has been examined in detail, especially after the global financial crisis of 2008. Rating agencies have been under great scrutiny against their issued ratings and accused of favouring developed economies over developing ones by providing higher ratings to the former. Using a panel of emerging and developed countries over a period of ten years (June 2007 – June 2017), this study examines whether a change in sovereign credit ratings by one of the big three rating agencies has an effect on the volatility of the stock market. This dissertation makes use of an event study over various estimation windows, and the findings depict that changes in sovereign credit ratings do have an effect on stock market volatility. Rating downgrades tend to increase volatility whilst upgrades tend to decrease volatility. Countries that have lower ratings, classified as emerging economies, are no less sensitive to rating changes compared to developed markets and both observe a significant effect on volatility when there is a change in credit ratings. The credit rating agency that had the greatest impact on the volatility of the stock market in response to a rating change is S&P. This was for both upgrades and downgrades. Fitch and Moody’s did not elicit any significant findings. This shows that the market is more responsive to an announcement by S&P than the other agencies. An understanding of the actual effect of this volatility in the equity stock market will have implications for investors, governments, pension funds and asset holders by providing them with country risk assessments and giving them the ability to rebalance their portfolios as required. It also has an impact in determining the cost of capital and evaluating investments, which affect asset allocation decisions. This study has important information, which could help contribute to credit rating agencies’ understanding of the implications that their issued ratings have on the stock market and their contribution to volatility within the market place. The policy implications of this study could affect institutions, especially the Basel committee and banking institutions whom are highly affected by the policies set out by Basel.
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    The lived experiences of black managers in accessing top management positions within the Namibian private corporate sector
    (2022) Sihela, Jacobs Jakobo; April, Kurt
    This PhD study draws from anticolonial and decolonial thought systems to explore how multi-level factors; macro-level (social-contextual contextual histories, economic, legal and religious), meso-level (organisational cultures, structures, processes and procedures), and micro-level (interpersonal and intergroup), intersect to shape the experiences of black managers in accessing top management positions within Namibian private sector organisations. This study aimed to uncover the historical and political elements that underpin black managers' experiences. The data in this study was collected through a decolonial data collection process utilizing storytelling interviews with 44 study participants, recruited through snowball sampling. The research adopts a qualitative research design that infuses thematic analysis with decolonial, and anticolonial, lenses of data analyses, rooted in the African indigenous paradigm. The findings of this study reveal influential multi-level factors influencing the experiences of black managers are interwoven and imbued with coloniality of power (coloniality)—continuing colonial social and economic patterns rooted in the colonial histories that are not lost to the past. In the Namibian context, coloniality is anchored in the histories of colonial violence, including the German genocide of black Namibians (1904-1908) and its apartheid successor. These histories continue to reside in the society and the private sector, re-inscribing and entrenching colonial social and economic relations that are (re)produced at organisational levels. The study's critical theoretical contribution highlights coloniality as the deep-seated and concealed structure undergirding the persistent racial inequalities within Namibian private sector organisations, through which black managers are subjugated, disempowered, exploited, and marginalised from opportunities to access organisational resources and top management positions. Furthermore, the study shows that coloniality in the contemporary private sector is intimately tied to the private sector's participation in past colonial violence. At present, it appears that coloniality in the private sector is facilitated by influential white executives forming white affiliations of power in maintaining the material and symbolic interests of the white minority populace. This study labels these enacted implicit political and insidious managerial practices and mechanisms as: 'managing to colonise'. Finally, this study recommends dismantling the coloniality of power underlying racial inequalities in the private sector and the broader Namibian society through anticolonial and decolonial praxis grounded in reparative social justice, equality and self-determination.
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    The relationship between FDI, political and institutional risk in Sub-Saharan Africa
    (2021) Matima, Zorodzai; Gossel, Sean J
    This study uses Generalised Meod of Moments to investigate the roles of political risk and institutional quality determinants of Foreign Direct Investment inflows to 20 countries in SubSaharan Africa between 2003 and 2019. The results show that both political risk and weak institutional quality significantly and negatively affect FDI in Sub-Saharan Africa. The GMM interaction terms for institutional quality are larger than those for political risk. These results emphasize the importance of institutional quality above that of the political system, suggesting that institutional quality is more attractive to foreign investors than a sound political system. This is probably because foreign investors are more concerned with long-run regulatory enforcement and investment protection than by short-run political dynamics.
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    Volatility level dependence and the CEV market model
    (2020) Yeung, Alan; Ouwehand, Peter
    Interest-rate volatility is known to be level-dependent. However, Filipovic, Larsson and Trolle (2017) found that volatility becomes more level-dependent as the interest rate approaches the zero lower bound. This varying volatility level-dependence feature motivates the use of CEV market model to model the interest rate. In this dissertation, we compare the lognormal forward LIBOR market model, the CEV market model and the normal market model through regression analysis, hedging analysis and calibration analysis to assess their performance. The investigation is performed using EURIBOR 10-year interest-rate caps with various strike rates. This research work has a significant impact as the industry often needs to hedge interestrate caps. We show that although the CEV market model best calibrates to market prices, the normal market model is the best in terms of hedging interest-rate caps.