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The purpose of this paper is to interpret current global events to extrapolate the issues of twenty-first century for consideration by African mining policy and decision-makers.

The high-level mining issues are identified to assess what lies ahead for the twenty-first century. Some of these require innovation, called beacons for twenty-first-century mining in this paper, so that decision-makers can consider policy instruments and management strategies to craft a more desirable future for governments and companies, without affecting other stakeholders negatively.

It is proposed that African mining should consider three cross-cutting elements as subsets for the existing policy themes and management decisions, namely, broad benefit, mine sustainability and business improvement. Digital technologies have the potential to significantly support the three elements for fast-tracking Africa’s sustainable economic development.

Although the findings can be applied to most of the developing world, the focus of this paper is on the African mining industry.

Practical considerations for policymakers in Africa.

This paper includes novel/original policy considerations that have the potential to become cross-cutting elements for the existing policy themes of the Africa Mining Vision.

This research aims to examine the smelter industry’s investment competitiveness in Indonesia as well as to find solutions to improve its competitive advantage for the nation.

This research applies a sequential mixed-methods approach with a second quantitative phase building on an initial first qualitative phase. The qualitative phase is conducted by interviews to find the root causes of problems as well as solutions to gain smelter industries’ competitiveness. The quantitative phase is conducted by a system dynamics model. A descriptive causal loop diagram is created based on interviews and focus group discussions to describe the problems. The concept of competitive advantage of a nation from Porter’s diamond model is applied in this research.

The results reveal the complexity of smelter industries in Indonesia. The paper also addresses the causes of problems and interaction of variables using a causal loop diagram. To gain the smelter industry’s competitiveness, this paper suggests the potential policy development to increase competitiveness of the smelter industry such as policy for different fiscal incentives to each different mineral, effective export duty and exploration obligation.

The result of this study provides a good basis for government in making policy to improve the competitive advantage of the smelter industry investment in Indonesia.

This is the first research on smelter industry competitiveness that applies Porter’s diamond model and system dynamics model to find solutions in designing appropriate policy to gain competitiveness.

After almost three centuries of employing western educational approaches, many African societies are still characterized by low western literacy rates, civil conflicts, and underdevelopment. It is obvious that these western educational paradigms, which are not indigenous to Africans, have done relatively little good for Africans. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to argue that the salvation for Africans hinges upon employing indigenous African educational paradigms which can be subsumed under the rubric of ubuntugogy, which the authors define as the art and science of teaching and learning undergirded by humanity toward others.

Therefore, ubuntugogy transcends pedagogy (the art and science of teaching), andragogy (the art and science of helping adults learn), ergonagy (the art and science of helping people learn to work), and heutagogy (the study of self-determined learning). That many great African minds, realizing the debilitating effects of the western educational systems that have been forced upon Africans, have called for different approaches.

One of the biggest challenges for studying and teaching about Africa in Africa at the higher education level, however, is the paucity of published material. Automated generation of metadata is one way of mining massive data sets to compensate for this shortcoming.

Thus, the authors address the following major research question in this paper: What is automated generation of metadata and how can the technique be employed from an African-centered perspective? After addressing this question, conclusions and recommendations are offered.

Increasing international competition requires companies to empower and develop the skills of workers at the lower levels. This paper will show how implementing change from below through self‐directed teamwork enhances the understanding of the changing nature of work and the relationship between work and training. The case study of African Gold Mine (a pseudonym of one of the world’s deepest gold mines) illustrates the South African gold mining industry’s attempt to create a twenty‐first century workforce through self‐directed work team (SDWT) training conducted within the mine. However, underground participatory research reveals that in the workplace, organisational constraints hinder the effective implementation of SDWT training. In order to cope with these organizational constraints and inefficiencies, workers resort to planisa; “they make a plan”. In other words, they “get on and get by” underground through improvising and the team’s self‐initiated action. This paper argues that planisa is part of the existing occupational culture of miners and is an embryonic form of teamwork. Any strategy to increase the productivity of mineworkers must draw on these experiences.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the complex and shifting relationship between the Anglo American Corporation (Anglo) and the South African State (“the State”) as reflected in Anglo’s annual reports.

This paper builds on research on the role of annual reports in ideological conflict. To examine the ongoing relationship between Anglo and the State, the authors read all the annual reports published by Anglo American from 1917 to 1975, looking for instances in which the corporation appeared to be attempting to address, criticise, compliment, or implore the State.

During the period under study, despite the apparent struggles between the South African State and Anglo American, the relationship between the two was primarily symbiotic. The symbolic confrontation engaged in by these two behemoths perpetuated the real, physical violence perpetrated on the oppressed workers. By appearing to be a liberal opponent of apartheid, Anglo was able to ensure continued investment in South Africa.

The examination of decades’ worth of annual reports provides an example of how these supposedly neutral instruments were used to contest and sustain power. Thereby, Anglo could continue to exploit workers, reap enormous profits, and maintain a fiction of opposition to the oppressive State. The State also benefited from its support of Anglo, which provided a plurality of tax revenue and economic expansion during the period.

This paper provides insights into the ways the State and other institutions sustain each other in the pursuit of economic and political power in the face of visible and widely condemned injustices. Although they frequently contested each other’s primacy, both benefited while black South African miners suffered.

The purpose of this study is to identify various Russian manifestations on expanding its role in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as shed light on the major obstacles it may face.

The research paper uses the “national role theory” to analyze the factors that helped in the growing Russian role in sub-Saharan African countries. It assumes that every state seeks to play a particular role, and that role is reflected in its foreign policy, which is known as “role performance,” and this role originates from several sources. On the other hand, this role faces various obstacles, mostly from the external environment, especially the international system’s structure, global values and international obligations, known as “role prescriptions.”

Despite Russia’s ability to use all its capacities in expanding its role in the African continent, the degree of its influence varied from one field to another. While it was very influential in the military, security, political, diplomatic and technical fields, it is relatively less in the economic and counter-terrorism areas.

This study paves the way for further researches related to international competition over sub-Saharan Africa, whether economically, militarily or politically, in addition to other studies related to potential cooperation opportunities, especially in security and combating terrorism.

This research’s significance stems from using the existing theoretical structure represented in national role theory in analyzing the Russian orientation toward sub-Saharan Africa, giving more attention to the latest developments in Russian strategy, as well as clarifying the major obstacles that may hinder its activities.

The purpose of the paper is to question the false dilemma of bread (the social and economic rights) or freedom (the civil and political rights), which amounts to a simplified ambivalent vision either for or against “China in Africa”, in the debate over African workers’ rights in Chinese enterprises. The paper, first underscores the importance of the constraining and enabling institutional conditions by deconstructing this normative approach, and then proposes an alternative institutional approach to address issues pertaining to employment relations.

In the tradition of deconstructive techniques, the paper draws three lines of institutional resistance to move the “China in Africa” controversy in employment relations beyond its normative approach. These lines of demarcation are an African ethnology as opposed to a Western modernist reference, a postcolonial analysis of power in lieu of liberal hegemony and informality as a legitimate source of legality.

The paper suggests the Chinese corporate strategy as implemented by managers notably through human resource management practices, the African institutional contexts where the protagonists’ power resources are deployed and the paramount importance of informality in discussing the impacts of Chinese investments on workers’ rights in sub-Saharan Africa.

The paper shows that the disconnect between “good investment” that should improve social and economic rights and “bad employment” that downplays civil and political rights is not a “foreign” (Western or Chinese) issue per se, but a challenge for innovative employment relations that support investment and mind the workplace institutional context.

Examines some of the issues faced by South African manufacturing concerns and considers in particular the chemical industry. Considers the macro‐environmental factors with particular reference to the political environment, unemployment and violence, and the effect of the removal of sanctions. Examines the South African chemical industry in terms of its past history and present structure. Discusses the new challenges faced by the industry and potential new strategies which can advance the South African chemical industry.

This paper aims to examine the potential for “triangular cooperation” between investment partners from Australia, China and host African nations to contribute to the economic development in Africa.

The paper discusses a number of complementarities between Australian and Chinese investors in mining, agriculture, energy, research and education and finance – sectors vital to Africa’s future development. These complementarities are examined in light of recent development studies on the benefits of triangular cooperation and recent literature examining links between foreign direct investment (FDI) policy and economic development.

The paper concludes that there is much to be gained by making the most of the existing and potential synergies between Australian, Chinese and local investors in African settings.

The implications of this paper are, first, that African nations should keep the benefits of triangular cooperation in mind when designing FDI policies and, second, that Australian and Chinese investors should be more willing to explore potential investment partner synergies when investing in Africa. The paper also suggests an agenda for future research into how good design of FDI policies might best promote healthy economic development in African nations.

Australian and Chinese companies should be more willing to explore potential avenues for cooperation when investing in Africa, while African governments should be more mindful of how rules and policies can maximise the local benefits of FDI.

African governments should be more mindful of the quality, rather than the quantity of FDI when drafting relevant laws and policies.

The value of the paper is in applying the concept of “triangular cooperation” to direct investment. The paper also provides an original focus on Australia-China investment synergies in African settings.

This paper is a case study of the effects of an organizational intervention on the recovery of the Ashanti Goldfields Corporations Limited mining operations in Ghana, a country in West Africa. We examine the events leading up to the company's decline, the deep‐level intervention strategy that was applied, and the effects of that intervention. The design of the change initiative could best be classified as a system‐renewal intervention, in that comprehensive changes in the organization were sought through an eclectic combination of strategies that recognized the unique cultural milieu in which the company was operating. Major emphasis was placed upon the development and establishment among management of a new shared vision of performance, the introduction of managerial goal setting, the development of managerial teams, and an improvement in the basic standard of living for line employees.