Suchergebnisse

A growing movement of foreign nationals is settling and starting up businesses in South Africa. Given this fact, there is a need to understand those factors influencing the human capital side of being an immigrant entrepreneur as a basis for coming up with mechanisms to support such a sample group. The focus of this empirical investigation was to understand those barriers that are encountered by immigrant entrepreneurs in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. To fully experience this, there is a need to understand those factors that affect immigrant entrepreneurship as a practice and the entrepreneur as someone who seeks to enact this value. The narrative research paradigm was adopted to understand the main purpose of the study. Guided by the study objectives, semi-structured interviews were conducted using a sample of foreign immigrants operating businesses in the Eastern Cape (n = 23). Individual stories and narratives highlighted the fact that immigrant entrepreneurs encountered the following challenges: financial resources, xenophobia and crime, legislation and finally lack of networks.

Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the challenges and resolution tactics of women middle managers in the South African public service.


Design/methodology/approach
A qualitative research approach using semi-structured interviews was used as a data collection technique. Narrative analysis was used with a sample of 20 women middle managers working within the South African public service.


Findings
Narratives of challenges faced by women middle managers in the South African public service included relational issues, with a subtle undermining of women managers, challenges rooted within the socio-cultural milieu – perversely undermining the experience of being a manager and challenges stemming from public service in general such as corruption, in turn, questioning the ability of women managers to handle such. In addressing these challenges, the women middle managers exercised three individual performative actions in response to the identified challenges. These include using direct confrontation, relying on networks for guidance and relying on indirect confrontation.


Research limitations/implications
Sample size challenges feature as a notable limitation including the research being conducted in only one political province of South Africa. Caution should be exercised when seeking to generalise the findings to other contexts.


Practical implications
Understanding the challenges and resolution tactics of women middle managers can be a useful precursor to management development interventions.


Originality/value
The study answers call for more processual career and management development studies that help understand not only challenges but also resolution strategies. This study illustrates both the difficulty of this and ensures opportunity for the advancement of women in management.

Purpose
The purpose of this study is twofold. The first was to explore the relationship between strategic planning (SP) and social enterprise performance (SEP). The second was to ascertain the mediation of value co-creation (VCC) to the relationship between SP and SEP.


Design/methodology/approach
This study followed a quantitative methodology using a survey conducted with 147 social enterprises (SEs). The location of the study was the Eastern Cape, a province in South Africa. Respondents to the study occupied the status of key decision-makers who either owned or managed a SE.


Findings
The findings show that a relationship exists between SP and VCC; VCC and SEP; and finally SP and SEP. Concerning the mediation, results show that VCC had a fairly weak positive and significant mediating effect on the relationship between SP and enterprise performance.


Originality/value
There are renewed calls for research that focuses on understanding issues related to the management of SEs, especially within the South African context. Such calls stem from the high dependence on state support to alleviate challenges experienced by communities. The role of SEs in such a context is thus heightened. The findings give support to issues that assist not only in understanding the decision-making capability but also in understanding the role of VCC.

Background: In South Africa, inequitable access to healthcare information has made many young people with limited resources more vulnerable to health risks. Mobile phones present a unique opportunity to address this problem due to the high penetration of mobile phones in South Africa and the popularity of these devices among young adults. Objective: This research sought to examine the adoption of mobile phones to access health information among students at a traditional university in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Method: A cross-sectional survey approach was used to collect information from a convenience sample of 202 university students (58 males; 104 females), the majority (71.3%) of whom were aged between 18 and 27 years and of Black African ethnicity (75.2%). The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) framework formed the theoretical foundation for the questionnaire. A research model was developed to test the hypotheses that behavioural intention to use a mobile phone to access health information would be influenced by: perceived usefulness (PU), perceived effort, social influence (SI), attitude towards technology (AT) and mobile phone experience. Results: Factor analyses indicated that the research model explained 36% of the variance in behavioural intention to use mobile devices to search for health-related queries, with PU being the largest predictor, followed by mobile experience, SI, and AT. Perceived effort did not make a statistically significant contribution. Conclusion: Using mobile phones to disseminate health information to students is a useful, convenient, and cost-effective health-promotion strategy. This research has contributed to the body of knowledge concerning the applicability of the UTAUT framework to study the adoption of technology and provided useful information to guide future research and implementation of mHealth initiatives.

PurposeThere is noted emphasis on the role of small businesses as conduits for economic development especially in emerging economies. Given this, there is need for constantly seeking for ways to assist small businesses achieve success. Calls exist in the literature to investigate the combined role that strategy and human resource management practices can play leading to efforts of financial success.Design/methodology/approachA structured questionnaire was utilised and data collected from 401 small businesses operating in the Eastern Province of South Africa. Pearson product–moment correlation and hierarchical regression were used in the data analysis.FindingsThe results confirm that a direct relationship exists between strategy and financial performance. Further, the relationship is made significant only through the mediation effect of human resource management practices.Practical implicationsTo fully realise the enactment of strategy within small businesses there is need to pay attention to the role that human resource management practices may potentially have on financial performance. Small business owner-managers need to ground their strategies with sound human resource management practices. Through this, firm financial performance can be attained.Originality/valueThe paper sheds light and presents a model that illustrates the mediating role of human resource management practices on the relationship between strategy and financial performance.