Search results
1 – 10 of over 60000
Kassa Woldesenbet Beta, Natasha Katuta Mwila and Olapeju Ogunmokun
This paper seeks to systematically review and synthesise existing research knowledge on African women entrepreneurship to identify gaps for future studies.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to systematically review and synthesise existing research knowledge on African women entrepreneurship to identify gaps for future studies.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper conducted a systematic literature review of published studies from 1990 to 2020 on women entrepreneurship in Africa using a 5M gender aware framework of Brush et al. (2009).
Findings
The systematic literature review of published studies found the fragmentation, descriptive and prescriptive orientation of studies on Africa women entrepreneurship and devoid of theoretical focus. Further, women entrepreneurship studies tended to be underpinned from various disciplines, less from the entrepreneurship lens, mostly quantitative, and at its infancy stage of development. With a primary focus on development, enterprise performance and livelihood, studies rarely attended to issues of motherhood and the nuanced understanding of women entrepreneurship’s embeddedness in family and institutional contexts of Africa.
Research limitations/implications
The paper questions the view that women entrepreneurship is a “panacea” and unravels how family context, customary practices, poverty and, rural-urban and formal/informal divide, significantly shape and interact with African women entrepreneurs’ enterprising experience and firm performance.
Practical implications
The findings and analyses indicate that any initiatives to support women empowerment via entrepreneurship should consider the socially constructed nature of women entrepreneurship and the subtle interplay of the African institutional contexts’ intricacies, spatial and locational differences which significantly influence women entrepreneurs’ choices, motivations and goals for enterprising.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to a holistic understanding of women entrepreneurship in Africa by using a 5M framework to review the research knowledge. In addition, the paper not only identifies unexplored/or less examined issues but also questions the taken-for-granted assumptions of existing knowledge and suggest adoption of context- and gender-sensitive theories and methods.
Details
Keywords
Nkholedzeni Sidney Netshakhuma
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of literature dealing with acquisition, appraisal and access was used in this research. It was supplemented with interviews.
Findings
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.
Research limitations/implications
The paper was limited only to the National Archives of South Africa.
Practical implications
The paper makes practical implications concerning the acquisition, appraisal and providing access to human rights records.
Social implications
Sufficient funding resource allocation ought to be provided to advance human rights promotion.
Originality/value
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.
Details
Keywords
Eugine Tafadzwa Maziriri, Brighton Nyagadza and Tafadzwa Clementine Maramura
This study aims to investigate how social entrepreneurial role models influence social entrepreneurial self-efficacy, social entrepreneurial intent and social entrepreneurial…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate how social entrepreneurial role models influence social entrepreneurial self-efficacy, social entrepreneurial intent and social entrepreneurial action, with moral obligation as a moderator.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional survey of 261 pupils in the South African province of the Eastern Cape was used in the research study. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses.
Findings
The research revealed that having social entrepreneurial role models has a positive impact on both social entrepreneurial self-efficacy and social entrepreneurial intent. In addition, a connection was found between social entrepreneurial intent and entrepreneurial action. The influence of moral obligation was found to be a positive and a significant moderator. Moreover, the association between social entrepreneurial role models and social entrepreneurial intent was mediated by social entrepreneurial self-efficacy.
Research limitations/implications
The findings are not generalizable to nonstudent samples because students constituted the sample for gathering data. Future study therefore requires considering nonstudents to generalize the outcomes. This research should be replicated in other South African provinces and other developing countries for comparative outcomes.
Practical implications
Since social entrepreneurial role models have been practically linked to social entrepreneurship intent and entrepreneurial efficacy, understanding the factors that influence student’s decision to start a social enterprise is critical in South Africa to develop targeted interventions aimed at encouraging young people to start new businesses. Policymakers, society and entrepreneurial education will all benefit from the findings.
Originality/value
This study contributes to bridging the knowledge gap as it investigates how social entrepreneurial role models influence social entrepreneurial self-efficacy, social entrepreneurial intent and social entrepreneurial action, with moral obligation as a moderator. Encouraging social entrepreneurship among South African youth would also help address societal issues. This is a pioneering study in the context of an emerging economy such as South Africa, where social entrepreneurship is so integral.
Details
Keywords
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…
Abstract
Purpose
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.
Design/methodology/approach
Irene Sun, a senior McKinsey consultant has spent years researching infrastructure modernization and manufacturing expansion in Africa for her new book.
Findings
China is the fastest-growing source of foreign investment in Africa, and this has enormous consequences for Africa and for the global economy.
Practical implications
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.
Originality/value
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.
Details
Keywords
Betty Jane Punnett, Lemayon Melyoki and Thomas Senaji
This paper presents insights on expatriates in Africa and sets out a research agenda for Africa’s expatriation. The objective of the paper is to provide background and context on…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper presents insights on expatriates in Africa and sets out a research agenda for Africa’s expatriation. The objective of the paper is to provide background and context on expatriation in Africa and to stimulate and guide further research in this important area.
Design/methodology/approach
The reviewed papers were drawn from journals and other sources that reported on expatriation to/from African countries. It also incorporates an array of literature on contextual African issues, exploring conceptually how these relate to expatriation.
Findings
The review confirmed that there is little research on the topic, particularly with respect to outward expatriation and the studies that exist are one of a kind and stand alone. There has been no attempt to build systematic theory or develop a wholistic picture. This means that the field is wide open for more research. The data provide a picture of the current expatriate situation, including numbers, demographics, host/home locations, success rates and so on, and are provide a basis for further research developing and testing hypotheses regarding individual, organizational and country/national characteristics and how these influence and relate to expatriate experiences and outcomes. Researchers can also draw on the existing expatriation literature from around the world for replication studies to identify uniquely African issues as well as similarities with other locations. As Selmer (2016) noted, replication research is widely used in the sciences and is at the core of the scientific method and thus should be considered for expatriation research.
Research limitations/implications
Limited previous research means there is a need for further research.
Practical implications
Expatriation is a critical aspect of companies operating internationally and companies are increasingly interested in doing business in African countries. Africa's economic growth and development are strong and foreign direct investment (FDI) into Africa is growing with consequent increases in the number of expatriates going to Africa. Understanding expatriation in the African context is thus very important to a variety of companies.
Originality/value
Management literature focusing on Africa is limited and this is true regarding expatriation. This means there is a need for researchers and practitioners to understand expatriation issues in this context, particularly considering economic growth on the continent, increasing interest in doing business there, along with increasing FDI and use of expatriates, as well as the expansion of African companies. This paper provides a research agenda as a guide on which researchers, including those in Africa, can build.
Details
Keywords
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…
Abstract
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.
Details
Keywords
James S. Duesenberry, Arthur A. Goldsmith and Malcolm F. McPherson
Abstract
Details
Keywords
- Capital flows
- Debt management
- Economic liberalization exchange rates
- Efficiency of resource use
- Export controls
- Financial system
- Fiscal policy
- Globalization
- Growth differentials
- Initial conditions
- Institutional deepening
- Lagos Plan of Action
- Macroeconomic management
- Monetary policy
- Pan-seasonal pricing
- Politics and institutions
- Price controls
- Productive resources productivity
- Productivity
- Tax policy
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…
Abstract
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.