Search results

In a country that is marred by an excessively high unemployment rate, there is a need for policymakers to prioritise entrepreneurship in South Africa. The study aims to explore the determinants of self-employment among the youth in South Africa and in the process answer the following question: Who are the self-employed youths in South Africa?

Different potential predictors of self-employment empirically used in the literature were used in this study. A probit regression model was used with the binary self-employment variable as the dependent variable and a host of independent variables. A nationally representative survey consisting of youths was used in the analysis.

The findings show that financial literacy increases the odds of being self-employed. Secondly, the odds of being self-employed increase with age as mature people are expected to have gathered enough networks and wisdom over the years. Thirdly, being male decreases the odds of being self-employed. When it comes to education, the only category that statistically increases the odds of being self-employed compared with no schooling is the tertiary level of education. The other educational levels are all statistically insignificant. From a policy perspective, the government should promote self-employment by investing in financial literacy as well as increasing access to tertiary education among disadvantaged groups.

The study is one of the first, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to examine the characteristics of the self-employed using a nationally representative survey in South Africa.

Policymakers have long suggested diversifying US police forces, which typically have white male majorities among officers. This article explores to what extent police diversity has changed over time in large agencies, as well as whether different diversity benchmarks may matter for agencies.

The authors draw data from the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey for 358 agencies that had at least 100 full-time sworn officers in 1997 and 2016 and that reported officer demographic data to the LEMAS in both years. For a selection of 12 communities – three randomly chosen in each of the four US Census regions – the authors compare officer diversity to Census data on population diversity for different benchmarks.

There has been some increase in diversity but policing largely remains a white male profession. The authors find only limited variation in diversity by type of benchmark – e.g. total population, working population or recruiting-age population – a community considers. This suggests communities may wish to choose a benchmark they can best measure and seek to increase diversity by it, and research on workforce representation may not be sensitive to benchmark choice. The authors also suggest communities and their police organizations consider other ways to assess diversity, including those that illustrate a broader range of attributes and representation throughout the organization, and that they research and test alternative forms of measurement to gauge whether these findings hold for different modeling approaches.

Our analysis is limited to the largest police agencies and to overall staffing level diversity metrics pertaining to sex, race and Hispanic origin. Still, we find many police agencies have room for greater diversity, which could draw more qualified workers and lead to better policing.

While there has been much attention to police diversity in recent decades, there have been few efforts to compare alternative measurement approaches. This research provides guidance to some initial measures, as well as further considerations communities may wish to make.

The purpose of this study is to assess the contributions of graduate research to social innovation and change for learning and improved transdisciplinary practice. Universities, as centers of teaching and research, face high demand from society to address urgent social and environmental challenges. Faculty and students are keen to use their research to contribute to social innovation and sustainable development. As part of the effort to increase societal impact, research approaches are evolving to be more problem-oriented, engaged and transdisciplinary. Therefore, new approaches to research evaluation are also needed to learn whether and how research contributes to social innovation, and those lessons need to be applied by universities to train and support students to do impactful research and foster an impact culture.

This paper uses a theory-based evaluation method to assess the contributions of three completed doctoral research projects. Each study documents the project’s theory of change (ToC) and uses qualitative data (document review, surveys and interviews) to test the ToC. This paper uses a transdisciplinary research (TDR) quality assessment framework (QAF) to analyze each projects’ design and implementation. This paper then draws lessons from the individual case studies and a comparative analysis of the three cases on, namely, effective research design and implementation for social transformation; and training and support for impactful research.

Each project aimed to influence government policy, organizational practice, other research and/or the students’ own professional development. All contributed to many of their intended outcomes, but with varying levels of accomplishment. Projects that were more transdisciplinary had more pronounced outcomes. Process contributions (e.g. capacity-building, relationship-building and empowerment) were as or more important than knowledge contributions. The key recommendations are for: researchers to design intentional research, with an explicit ToC; higher education institutions (HEI) to provide training and support for TDR theory and practice; and HEIs to give more attention to research evaluation.

This is the first application of both the outcome evaluation method and the TDR QAF to graduate student research projects, and one of very few such analyses of research projects. It offers a broader framework for conceptualizing and evaluating research contributions to social change processes. It is intended to stimulate new thinking about research aims, approaches and achievements.

This study examined the perceptions of tribal members regarding the strengths, challenges and opportunities presented by tribal winery operation. Issues of business diversification, marketing, perceived barriers to success, potential benefits to the tribe and the role of agriculture in the preservation of tribal heritage were considered.

A modified mixed-methods exploratory sequential research model was used to collect and organize data in two studies. In Study 1 quantitative data was used to inform the development of Study 2 which included a qualitative interview protocol. Qualitative interviews followed to elaborate on the various aspects of each of these areas of consideration.

Results indicate that there is neutral to positive opinion on tribal wineries and that any venture would have to be carefully thought out in terms of marketing and preserving tribal heritage.

This research examined the potential strengths, challenges and opportunities provided by tribal winery operation that can be used to inform future business practices.

The results of this research provide a framework for consideration of the potential strengths and opportunities provided by tribal winery operation.

One potential lesson to be learned from the academic “culture wars” of the past few decades, regardless of which position one prefers, is that the humanities as a discipline continue to matter, perhaps more so than ever in a multi-cultural, globalized world. The systematic marginalization, even elimination, of the humanistic disciplines available represents a significant weakness for education in the Gulf; bolstering the study of the humanities – including literature, philosophy, and art history – offers a proven route towards achieving certain goals publicly avowed as priorities for education in the region. This paper proposes that engaging the humanities builds an awareness and appreciation of otherness; encourages abstract (critical) thinking; fosters language development; and, perhaps most importantly, asks students to be inspired by great ideas beautifully rendered. To become a knowledge-based society, a culture of reading deeply and independently needs to be cultivated. To empower students to become lifelong learners requires that they are, by default, lifelong readers. Furthermore, I propose that in an unsettling time of growth, change and challenges in the region, there is a reassuring possibility for humanistic inclusion that transcends the standard categories of identity politics. Students in the Gulf, just as readers everywhere else in this human world, can be shown that there is more to unite us than to divide us.