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This paper presents the results of a survey designed to determine what tax topics are important in the educational background of a trainee accountant entering the training environment in South Africa. These topics were then compared to the 2008 tax syllabus prescribed by SAICA and taught at accredited universities in respect of the 2009 Qualifying Examination. The results indicated that the 2008 syllabus is largely meeting the expectations of respondents both in and outside public practice, although there are a number of topics that the syllabus setters and educators should reconsider when next reviewing and updating the 2008 syllabus and as part of the considerations for the new competency framework.

Changes in business environments have challenged the competencies (technical knowledge, skills and attitudes) of professional accountants. Accounting professions have responded by developing competency frameworks. In 2008, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA) issued a draft competency framework encapsulating a broad range of knowledge, skills and attributes. The objective of the study reported on here was to determine training officers’ perceptions of the knowledge and skills requirements of entry‐level trainee accountants. SAICA could consider the findings of this study in the finalisation of its competency framework. The study reveals that nearly three‐quarters of all the topics in the current prescribed SAICA syllabus are considered to make at least an important contribution to the knowledge requirements of entry‐level trainee accountants. Although more than half the management accounting topics prescribed in the SAICA syllabus are perceived as being only reasonably important, further statistical analysis revealed that TOPP (training outside public practice) training officers disagreed significantly with their TIPP (training inside public practice) counterparts on the importance of management accounting topics and perceived them to be at least important. Except for specialised topics, all other topics covering the remaining core subjects (Financial Accounting, Financial Management, Taxation and Auditing) were perceived to be important or even more than important by the respondents. The study demonstrates that there is a movement towards an expanded set of competencies beyond the technical knowledge typically taught to prospective CAs, and that there is evidence of a need for today’s entry‐level trainee accountants to receive training in communication, analytical, interpersonal and computer skills.

This paper aims to introduce key concepts from practice theory (PT) to the social change agenda and draw on the unique contributions of the social marketing field. PT has underpinned a growing stream of research in pro-environmental studies seeking to reduce impacts of particular behaviours, but it remains theoretical. By drawing on social marketing’s applied roots, this paper introduces a practice-theoretical intervention planning process (P-TIPP) which frames the unique contribution of social marketing in behaviour change and foregrounds practice- not individual-level change.

The P-TIPP draws on the total process planning model, introducing the concept of “practice as entity” and “practice as performance” to frame intervention planning tasks. The process locates the contribution of social marketing within a transdisciplinary framework which emphasises transforming collective conventions.

This is a conceptual paper, but the possibility for PT to make a significant contribution to the world of social marketing is outlined.

P-TIPP is untested. Also, practices can be difficult to identify and somewhat abstract. Finally, it can be challenging to introduce the approach to policy, funding and practitioner procedures.

The implications of P-TIPP are that social change interventions are devised, underpinned and planned using insights from PT, such as the way behavioural patterns fit into broader understandings of practice. The subsequent social change agenda will be inherently transdisciplinary, sustainable and reduce focus on individual power to change.

This paper is a first attempt at exploring what PT, and social marketing can learn from each other for the future effectiveness of social change activity.

Post-apartheid South Africa has some of the highest educational and economic disparities in the world. Taylor Salisbury’s (2016) analysis of the National Income Dynamics Study reveals that South Africa’s unequal distributions of income and wealth by race are likely to worsen over time, with Africans the most disenfranchised by low-quality education and low monthly earnings. What is missing from Salisbury’s discussion is that definitions of quality education are analogous to Western democracy, epistemologies, and curriculum. Township schools where most African children and youth attend do not draw upon African epistemologies, values, and languages to support the development of Africans’ productive capacities. Increasingly, capacities are only considered “productive” if they align with modernity and values of the labor market. In this chapter, I argue that South Africa is schooling inequality through the exclusion of African epistemological traditions and the inclusion of mainly Western liberal principles. The notion of divided (epistemological) space – separate, distinct, and apportioned – is examined from the research data I collected with African (in this case Xhosa) primary and secondary students, teachers, and principals in South Africa’s longest-standing township. The intent is to orient the field of comparative and international education to critically problematize discourse that identifies equality as central to social change but that ignores indigenous constructions of democracy informed by different epistemological traditions. This work builds on the growing argument about the need for comparative educators to learn from indigenous perspectives (Freeman, 2004), indigenous knowledge systems (Kubow, 2007), and different educational traditions for comparative study (Assié-Lumumba, 2017).

Information Systems Technology (IST) has a recognised role in creating and sustaining competitive advantage. The link is developed between logistics and the use of IST to improve competitive performance by outlining a model of the logistics function that stimulates thinking about logistics issues and by describing instances of organisations that are using IST to gain competitive advantage in logistics. It is argued that IST will be a powerful tool for putting logistics and marketing together again. The majority of the case studies are drawn from the Australian business environment. A general process is also described that strategic planners can use when attempting to identify strategic information systems.

The organization’s core approach to exploring and influencing the future, Framework Foresight, emerged from piecemeal roots in the 1990s to an established method circa 2013. Since then, it has evolved from primarily a teaching tool to a project methodology in its own right. The purpose of this paper is to explore the iterative process that has emerged in which teaching and practice inform and advance one another.

Innovations in technique will be highlighted and illustrated by commentary from project experience. The piece will be providing readers with a birds-eye view into the evolution of a foresight method in both theory and practice.

The continuous iteration between theory and practice, or the classroom and the client world, provides an excellent means to advance the teaching and practice of foresight. Significant changes include three horizons, inputs, drivers, archetypes, rating scenarios and strategic approach.

This paper suggests that closer relationships between academia and the external/client world provide practical benefit by improving teaching and providing more innovative approaches for clients.

The description of the development of this unique approach to doing foresight work provides an example for other programs or firms to emulate.

Information Systems Technology (IST) has a recognised role in creating and sustaining competitive advantage. The link is developed between logistics and the use of IST to improve competitive performance by outlining a model of the logistics function that stimulates thinking about logistics issues and by describing instances of organisations that are using IST to gain competitive advantage in logistics. It is argued that IST will be a powerful tool for putting logistics and marketing together again. The majority of the case studies are drawn from the Australian business environment. A general process is also described that strategic planners can use when attempting to identify strategic information systems.

This research aims to investigate effect of consumer creativity on their evaluations of brands. Consumers’ creative participation is often used by online retailers as a promotional tool nowadays. The authors propose that consumer creativity exerts a positive impact on brand attitudes by affecting their attitudes toward the creative activity itself. Furthermore, consumer creativity moderates the effect of consumers’ perceived level of fit on their acceptance of brand extensions, such that creative consumers will show a higher level of acceptance of distant brand extensions.

The authors test their hypotheses in three laboratory experiments. Study 1 examines the effect of consumer creativity on brand evaluations. Study 2 explores the moderating effect of consumer creativity on perceived level of fit on acceptance of brand extensions. Study 3 replicates the authors findings in Studies 1 and 2 using a better representative sample and a different type of creative task.

Study 1 finds that consumer creativity results in a positive attitude toward brand; this effect is mediated by attitude toward the creative activity. Study 2 shows that creativity leads to a greater level of brand acceptance when the brand extension has a low fit with the focal brand. Study 3 further provides evidence of proposed effects using a different type of creative task with a more representative sample.

In the experiments, this study examined three types of online creative marketing communication activities. Future research could examine other types of consumer creative activities so as to enhance the generalizability of the findings.

Our results provide important implications for firms that intend to exploit the promises of online creativity-themed marketing communications. First, because consumers’ attitudes toward the focal brand hinge on their attitudes toward the creative activity, it is important that firms design their creativity-themed activities carefully, so that they are attractive to the users. Second, firms can exploit the creativity edge by launching new brand extensions that target creative consumers. This effect is even more pronounced when the brand extension exhibits a low fit with the focal brand. These guidelines suggest that firms’ investments in online creativity-themed marketing communications can pay off in terms of improved consumers’ attitudes toward the firms’ brands and brand extensions.

This research makes several theoretical contributions. First, the authors explore the important role of creativity in the context of brand attitudes and brand extensions. This study adds to extant consumer creativity literature by documenting the consequences of consumer creativity in terms of positive outcomes for firms. Second, by examining the mediating effect of attitude toward the creativity task, the authors broaden the scope of attitude-toward-the-site and attitude-toward-the-sponsorship-event research to the online marketing communications setting. Third, by showing that consumer creativity can facilitate the acceptance of distant brand extensions, this study also enriches extant brand extension literature.

The first‐hand experience of operating people combined with well prepared charts of their processes can take the guesswork out of process improvement. Process charts provide cross‐functional teams of operating people with a comprehensive picture enabling them to view their work from the perspective of the organization rather than from their particular work areas. At the same time the charts break the processes down into steps that can be dealt with realistically. Done well this approach cuts through the bureaucracy and results in processes that are faster and produce finer quality and greater output. This approach also fosters cooperation and legitimate pride among the operating people, thus preparing the organization for continuous improvement.