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Effectuation is well suited to broaden our understanding of opportunity recognition because effectual processes are related to recognizing and exploiting opportunities in new markets under conditions of uncertainty. This article investigates the relationship between effectuation and opportunity recognition, while at the same time, accounting for the influence of environmental dynamism and hostility in an African emerging market context — South Africa. In so doing, the paper responds directly to calls for research to emphasize the importance of environmental conditions while placing more attention on quantifying its influences on the opportunity recognition process. Following a survey of 302 enterprises in the renewable energy sector in South Africa, results indicate that entrepreneurs apply effectual principles to recognize and exploit more opportunities while operating in dynamic and hostile surroundings. By explaining the relationships and interactions between effectuation, the environment and opportunity recognition in an African market context, the study provides a more theoretically comprehensive configuration than any of these factors would show in isolation.

The scope of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is broadening as firms embrace CE to survive and succeed in dynamic, uncertain markets. Although scholars have focused on the organizational factors necessary to foster CE, it is important to understand not just what the organizational context must look like, but also to understand how entrepreneurial alertness may facilitate CE activity. Contrary to most studies on CE, this study takes place in a non-Western context, where a survey is used to collect data from 784 respondents at South African firms. Results reveal it is the organizational antecedents of reward and reinforcement, time and resource availability, and flexible organizational boundaries that positively influence CE innovativeness. Additionally, when entrepreneurial alertness is added into the equation, the amount of variance explained in CE innovativeness is increased substantially. These findings highlight the relevance of focusing on firm-based entrepreneurial behavior as opposed to only independent startups in an Africa context.

Researchers argue there is a strong case to be made that entrepreneurship is itself a consequence of the adoption and development of institutions that encourage entrepreneurial behavior. Previous research on institutions classified the formal and informal institutions that affect entrepreneurs into regulatory, normative and cognitive categories. This study builds in this direction by investigating how perceptions of these institutional profiles may influence venture innovation performance. Following a survey of ventures in the ICT industry, hypotheses are tested using regression analysis. The results reveal that regulatory and normative institutional dimensions explain a modest, yet significant, amount of variance in venture innovation performance. The results also have important policy implications, where the institutional framework in South Africa could be enhanced by developing a country-specific mix of entrepreneur-friendly regulations and normative institutional conditions.

This article investigates social enterprises in terms of their outcomes. Few studies focus on social entrepreneurs that incorporate an impact assessment of their social enterprises. The article responds to calls where it has been noted that the rapidly expanding social enterprise sector of the economy is evolving without effective evaluation tools that can provide reliable measurement and impact assessment.The study is conducted in two major cities in South Africa, where social entrepreneurship has unequivocal application, considering that traditional government initiatives are unable to satisfy the entire social deficit, and where challenges to non-profit accountability are acute. Social outcomes are measured in terms of the following dimensions: impact/reach, innovativeness of solution, replicability/expandability and sustainability. A survey is used to collect data from 165 social enterprises and is interpreted using descriptive statistics.Results on sample characteristics indicate that a diverse group of individuals are involved in a wide range of social enterprise activities. Descriptive statistics across the dimensions reflect above-average mean scores suggesting favourable perceptions of social outcomes.By providing an elementary measuring tool for social outcomes, researchers can test its validity across different contexts. Social enterprises need to demonstrate solid impact and reach of their outcomes, so they can replicate interventions, build partnerships, and remain sustainable by meeting the needs of groups who have been failed by previous government attempts in social redress.The article provides a much needed account of the evaluation of social enterprise outcomes in an emerging market context.

This paper contributes to research on metacognitions which focuses on cognitive processes that enable entrepreneurs to create new ventures and to think beyond existing knowledge structures to become adaptable in an entrepreneurial context. Two streams of research, entrepreneurial intentions and metacognitions, jointly inform the hypotheses. Individuals with entrepreneurial intent apply some degree of conscious consideration to the possibility of starting a new business, where these intentions are the result of metacognitions. The empirical evidence ensuing from this study indicates that only the knowledge metacognitive dimension is a significant predictor of entrepreneurial intentions. The study makes a contribution in that the articulation and testing of metacognitive dimensions provides a meaningful categorization, where there are many opportunities for educators to develop skill building exercises that target metacognitions.

The study investigates the prevalence of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) amongst diverse South African firms (n = 315) in a multicultural environment. Through literary investigations innovation as an important predictor of competitiveness is emphasized and EO is validated as a multidimensional construct, acknowledging that in addition to individual and firm differences, forces operating within cultural contexts also influence levels of EO. Based on global competitiveness indices, the country level innovation index is interpreted in the context of a developing country. By addressing methodological concerns of sample representativeness and firm size, survey data is obtained at the firm level and analyzed using correlational analysis. The findings indicate that EO is positively associated with overall firm performance and the overall significance of the study emerges when links with South Africa's innovation levels are made.

Because of South Africa's multicultural society, different cultural values were hypothesized to influence proclivity toward entrepreneurship across ethnic groups. Building on previous research conducted on ethnicity and entrepreneurship, selected findings were investigated to formulate hypotheses and contextualize the study. By adapting entrepreneurial intentions to reflect entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) as a separate measure of feasibility to start a business, principal component analysis was conducted to verify the construct validity of the measures and internal consistency was established. The latest VSM 94 was used to capture the five dimensions of culture. ANOVA and Duncan's multiple tests indicated some significant differences across ethnic groups, while correlation and multiple regression analysis demonstrated that it was the ESE beliefs rather than cultural values that influence intentions.

The informal sector is increasingly recognized in terms of its entrepreneurial potential. However there is a general lack of empirical research on small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) effectiveness in the informal economy in Africa. Recognizing this research gap, this article investigates entrepreneurial enabling factors in the South African township context to determine their impact on SMME's performance. Township-based SMMEs in South Africa's largest province, Gauteng, are surveyed and hypotheses are tested with correlation and regression analyses. Results indicate that access to finance and markets, institutional support, and skill and competency development are all significant predictors of enterprise performance. Empirical investigations in under-researched African contexts are important to highlight differences in enabling factors when compared to western contexts. In South African townships, which are plagued by high inequality, poverty, high unemployment and several other socio-economic challenges, it is an important policy which takes into account the variety of enabling environment factors that impact enterprise performance.

This article examines the extent to which institutions and entrepreneurial alertness influence and interact to improve the venture performance of female entrepreneurs. Having established instrument validity and reliability, hypotheses are tested using multiple regression analyses based on survey data from South African female entrepreneurs. Results reveal that it is the normative and cognitive institutional dimensions, rather than the regulatory dimension, which have an effect on venture performance. Several positive interaction results are also noted between entrepreneurial alertness and the different institutional factors in terms of their effect on performance. Development support agencies should encourage more female entrepreneurship by supporting evidence-based programs designed to foster higher levels of entrepreneurial alertness and provide a mix of institutional conditions that directly support female entrepreneurs. By linking an essential individual-level entrepreneurial factor (alertness) with institutions, the study widens the theoretical reach of these factors to the domain of female entrepreneurship in the South African context.

The relevance of entrepreneurship is underscored in the public policy domain where a wide range of government policies support the development of entrepreneurship, with Further Education and Training (FET) colleges seen as critical role-players. Research shows that entrepreneurship education increases a students self-confidence and overall attitudes, which in turn increases their perceptions of feasibility and desirability of pursuing entrepreneurship as a career. Recognising the challenge for FETs is to ensure that graduates are also equipped for self-employment, this study investigates entrepreneurial intentions of final year FET college students in four provinces. Statistical analysis reveals high levels of intentions amongst differing groups irrespective of personal (gender) or contextual attributes (in rural, vs. metro-township, vs. urban FET colleges). Implications can be advanced to the policy domain where it needs to be stressed that government initiatives will affect entrepreneurship development only if these policies are perceived in a way that influences intentions, in particular an individuals conviction, as characterised by general attitudes towards entrepreneurship.

Organizations are paying greater attention to the environmental impact of their business activities, as external stakeholders such as shareholders, customers and policy makers are increasingly demanding improved environmental performance from firms globally. Clean production and green products have become important issues to manufacturers as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has produced frameworks such as the ISO14001 series. These standards are intended to provide organizations with the elements of an effective environmental management system (EMS) that can be integrated with other management requirements and assist organizations achieve environmental and economic goals. Firms have adopted environmental management systems (EMS) due to mounting government and industry pressures, yet little data exists in terms of the implementation of and practices within EMS. This paper aims to improve understanding and generate empirical data on firm activities in environmental management practices. This research will examine the nature and levels of environmental management practices within the industrial coatings industry by surveying the primary supply chain within an emerging market context. This paper employs a quantitative cross-sectional survey approach to provide empirical data from a sample of firms which have implemented an EMS. The study is executed in an emerging market country allowing for international comparisons in similar contexts. For the purpose of this study the population comprised suppliers of industrial coatings raw materials and industrial coatings manufacturers operating within the broader chemicals sector in South Africa. This emerging market country context provides a unique environment with opportunities to expand theory. A diverse sample frame ensured heterogeneity in the final sample representing several value chain activities in this industry. The survey was administered electronically to key players in this industry, with a 64 per cent response rate, resulting in a final ...

PurposeDespite that a transformational shift has occurred in many organisations towards data-driven management, many organisations struggle to harness and translate new technology, such as "big data" into a competitive advantage. This study aims to undertake an empirical investigation into the enabling factors which lead to the practice of formulating an effective data-led strategy (EDLS). Leveraging the theoretical lenses of the resource-based view, absorptive capacity and attention-focus view, a range of various factors are hypothesised to influence EDLS.Design/methodology/approachThe study takes place in South Africa and is based on primary survey data focused on the Fin-tech industry sector where the need to formulate and implement an EDLS has become urgent considering the move to technology enabled banking solutions. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) is used to test the hypotheses.FindingsResults highlight that several factors are related to EDLS as significant predictors, which include the data platform, technical skills, knowledge management, transformation and focus-alignment. This latter factor has the largest influence on EDLS, which suggests that the alignment of focus across multiple firm divisions both vertically and horizontally significantly enables an EDLS.Practical implicationsManagers need to appreciate the intricacy of the range of factors involved in enabling an EDLS. Managers are advised to grow their organisational knowledge regarding which enablers offer the best pathway towards the development of a more robust framework when putting an EDLS into practice.Originality/valueThe article offers new insights into better understanding the relevant antecedents which enable the successful practice of an EDLS from an African emerging market perspective.