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This paper aims to examine the convergence and divergence of business and production practices in the global wine industry, particularly focusing on Pinot Noir producers in Burgundy, New Zealand and South Africa (SA). This study explores the interplay between firm-specific factors and regional contexts to identify competitive advantage drivers among Pinot Noir producers.

This research uses a comparative analysis approach, using data from a comprehensive winery level survey. This study applies methodologies akin to value chain analysis to unravel the configuration of productive and technology/knowledge creation activities within wineries across three regions.

This analysis reveals both convergence and divergence in business and production practices among Pinot Noir producers in Burgundy, New Zealand and South Africa. Although there is a degree of convergence in marketing, distribution and competition strategies, differences exist in production practices and firms’ capabilities. Burgundy emphasizes tradition and terroir expression, contrasting with the modernization and innovation focus observed in New Zealand and South Africa. However, all regions share a commitment to quality as a competitive advantage.

This study acknowledges limitations such as the focus on a specific grape variety and regions, the absence of performance impact analysis and the need for additional variables like environmental, institutional and cultural factors and consumer preferences to provide a comprehensive understanding of industry dynamics.

The insights from this study offer practical implications for winemakers, industry stakeholders and policymakers. Producers can optimize production and marketing strategies based on regional contexts and market segments, whereas stakeholders can identify emerging trends and opportunities in the global wine market. Policymakers can develop targeted policies supporting innovation, sustainability and competitiveness.

This paper provides a unique contribution by conducting a comparative firm-level analysis across distinct wine-producing regions, shedding light on the nuanced interplay of factors shaping competitive advantage among Pinot Noir producers. This study’s comprehensive data set and methodological approach enhance understanding and offer valuable insights for industry stakeholders and policymakers.

China’s biggest contribution to Africa’s modernization is more likely to come from the rapidly expanding number of Chinese migrants determined to seek their fortunes by setting up manufacturing businesses across the continent, according to Irene Yuan Sun in her new book The Next Factory of the World: How Chinese Investment is Reshaping Africa. She is interviewed by S&L contributing editor Brian Leavy.

Irene Sun, a senior McKinsey consultant has spent years researching infrastructure modernization and manufacturing expansion in Africa for her new book.

China is the fastest-growing source of foreign investment in Africa, and this has enormous consequences for Africa and for the global economy.

Nowadays, a lot of the managers with the needed skills and resilience are Chinese people who worked their way up in factories in China in conditions that not so long ago were very similar to what’s in Africa today.

Sun’s big insight: “I’d like Westerners to understand that China’s activities in Africa don’t represent a threat, either to Africa or to the West.” For Western observers who are alarmed by China’s strategy of investing in African infrastructure to gain favorable access to its natural resources she offers a new context: China’s experience at industrialization under primitive conditions can transform Africa into the next Factory of the World.

This paper explores some of the recent developments and transformations in Africa's higher education.

It employs an extensive review of literature based on some dominant thematic areas characterizing the main trends and developments in Africa's higher education.

The paper mainly highlights the impacts of academic partnerships on these transformations, with a focus on research, postgraduate training, mobility and some new intra-African initiatives. Following the unprecedented effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, digitalization comes out as an important turning point for Africa's higher education, which should be exploited for more opportunities. The paper calls for collaborative efforts to address the challenges facing Africa's higher education for the repositioning of Africa as a meaningful player in the unfolding global knowledge society.

The outcomes could be useful to researchers focused on international education, policymakers and higher education leaders and international development partners working on higher education in Africa. It could also be useful for structuring future collaborations between Africa and other regions of the world.

The paper calls for enhanced and mutually beneficial collaborations and disruption of the imbalances that have characterised North–South collaborations. It proposes some possible approaches and alternatives that could be used for redress.

The paper is original and relies on some of the new developments in Africa, including the impacts of COVID-19 and digitalization on the future of higher education collaborations with Africa.

This paper reports on the impact of China's Community of Shared Destiny Policy (CCSDP) on ethnicity, and the development and trade benefits in Africa, whilst proposing suggestions for improvements.

A mixed-research (desktop-based and online survey-based) approach was employed.

Trade and foreign direct investment alone can account for 11.8% of changes in the peaceful coexistence of China and some selected African countries, and cause changes to the mutual prosperity of China and African nations, to the tune of 6.3%. Therefore, the activation of mutual prosperity among these nations is not necessarily trade and foreign direct investment. The CCSDP is effective and has increased economic development for ethnic groups (50%), although with some negative concerns.

Inadequate/small sample size for the study.

Chinese investment in Africa has had a transformative impact, driving economic growth, improving infrastructure, and fostering regional integration. The share of trade between China and Africa in the continent's overall external trade has increased dramatically. Overall, the CCSDP should be kept in place, but with some modifications to improve its effectiveness and mitigate its negative effects. Finally, as China's engagement with Africa evolves, it is vital that partnerships are founded on mutual understanding, respect, and benefit, and that policies reflect the different needs and ambitions of African communities.

The World Bank report Changing Wealth of Nations 2018 is only the most recent reminder of how much poorer Africa is becoming, losing more than US$100 billion annually from minerals, oil, and gas extraction, according to (quite conservatively framed) environmentally sensitive adjustments of wealth. With popular opposition to socioeconomic, political, and ecological abuses rising rapidly in Africa, a robust debate may be useful: between those practicing anti-extractivist resistance, and those technocrats in states and international agencies who promote “ecological modernization” strategies. The latter typically aim to generate full-cost environmental accounting, and to do so they typically utilize market-related techniques to value, measure, and price nature. Between the grassroots and technocratic standpoints, a layer of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) do not yet appear capable of grappling with anti-extractivist politics with either sufficient intellectual tools or political courage. They instead revert to easier terrains within ecological modernization: revenue transparency, project damage mitigation, Free Prior and Informed Consent (community consultation and permission), and other assimilationist reforms. More attention to political-economic and political-ecological trends – including the end of the commodity super-cycle, worsening climate change, financial turbulence and the potential end of a 40-year long globalization process – might assist anti-extractivist activists and NGO reformers alike. Both could then gravitate to broader, more effective ways of conceptualizing extraction and unequal ecological exchange, especially in Africa’s hardest hit and most extreme sites of devastation.

This paper aims to explore the role played by the National Archives of South Africa in human rights promotion and protection. The study examined the challenges that archivists encounter when undertaking archival functions, such as acquisition, appraisal and access provision, that contribute to forming documentary archives crucial for human rights promotion and protection.

A review of literature dealing with acquisition, appraisal and access was used in this research. It was supplemented with interviews.

This paper provides recommendations of benefits in the field of archives management with a focus on the areas of acquisition, appraisal and access. The transformational discourse in the jurisdiction of archives management challenges archival institutions to be active players in selecting historical and cultural archives’ significance that is significant in human rights protections. However, despite judicial requirements that recommend the importance of archives, there is evidence that archival functions such as appraisal, acquisition and access are not being fully used, resulting in national archives institutions that are subject to irregularities that contribute to an unbalanced archives collection.

The paper was limited only to the National Archives of South Africa.

The paper makes practical implications concerning the acquisition, appraisal and providing access to human rights records.

Sufficient funding resource allocation ought to be provided to advance human rights promotion.

This paper offers informed recommendations to address the challenges of acquisition, appraisal and access provision of archive materials. The availability of archives materials reinforces the community by aiding to protect legal rights and prevent human rights violations. It was, thus, necessary to establish whether the National Archives of South Africa is actively building the archives collections that are important for human rights promotion and protection.

The African continent is filled with a textured history, vast resources, and immense opportunity. The landscape of higher education on such a diverse continent is extensive and complex. In this review of the landscape, four primary topics are evaluated. The historical context is the foundational heading, which briefly covers the evolution from colonization to independence and the knowledge economy. The second main heading builds upon the historical context to provide an overview of the numerous components of higher education, including language diversity, institutional type, and access to education. A third section outlines key challenges and opportunities including finance, governance, organizational effectiveness, and the academic core. Each of these challenges and opportunities is interconnected and moves from external influences (e.g., fiscal and political climate) to internal influences (e.g., administrative leadership and faculty roles). The last layer of the landscape focuses on leveraging higher education in Africa for social and economic progress and development. Shaping a higher education system around principles of the public good and generating social benefits is important for including postsecondary institutions in a development strategy.