Browsing by Author "Moti, Mahad"

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    Social capital, decision-making and capital resource acquisition: a case study of Pakistani immigrants in Gauteng
    (2019) Moti, Mahad
    Social capital is the advantage and opportunity a person gets from belonging to a community and includes the resources that are acquired from social ties. Despite the contributions made by SMMEs to the economy, most are unable to survive the early stages, with more than 70 percent of SMMEs failing within three years of inception. This study seeks to determine how SMMEs can use social capital to overcome challenges and address their shortcomings, by finding a relationship between social capital (divided into community and government) as the dependent variable, and decision-making, human capital, and financial capital as the independent variables. The focus of this study was Pakistani immigrants that engage in entrepreneurial activities, be they formal or informal, in Johannesburg, Gauteng, and the utilisation of their social networks to make faster and better decisions and acquire capital resources. This was a positivist, cross-sectional, quantitative, primary study, where the data was collected using a questionnaire based on several previous studies. The data was analysed using correlation analysis, exploratory factor analysis and multiple regression analysis It was found that only social capital (government) had a significant positive relationship with financial capital. All other relationships were found to be either insignificant or negative. This finding could support the Department of Small Business Development and other relevant stakeholders in channelling their resources towards helping SMMEs create social capital. The commercial impact of this study is focused on lenders, primarily banks, who are not issuing loans to SMMEs, this study shows that, social capital (community and government) can become a tool for banks to use when granting loans. The implications for societies and communities are that they can actively seek to create connections that could benefit them and their businesses.
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    The relevance of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, social networking, and the institutional environment on immigrant entrepreneurship in South Africa
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Moti, Mahad; Urban, Boris
    South Africa has high rates of criminal activity and widespread corruption, which debilitates entrepreneurial activity, performance, and operations for many entrepreneurs. One of the causes of these issues is the restrictive nature of the regulatory environment. However, many immigrants are able to overcome these challenges, using their entrepreneurial self-efficacy and social networking capabilities. Entrepreneurial self-efficacy has been found to influence entrepreneurial intention, behaviour, motivation, and performance; furthermore, entrepreneurial self-efficacy is the targeted outcome of entrepreneurial education and training. Social capital is an advantage to immigrant entrepreneurs in the acquisition of capital resources, and their networks provide access to further opportunities. This study aimed to determine if an ethnic immigrant minority, Pakistani immigrant entrepreneurs, is able to operationalise their entrepreneurial self- efficacy and social networks to improve the performance of their ventures, despite all the regulatory challenges that they face in South Africa. This study employed a quantitative research method, using quantifiable variables to measure relationships. Immigrant entrepreneurs have capabilities, experience, and knowledge, all of which are useful, according to the resource-based theory, for conducting business internationally. These were measured in terms of entrepreneurial performance with a specific focus on growth and innovation. The results showed that the self-confidence of Pakistani immigrant entrepreneurs had a significant influence on their growth and innovation, whereas their social networks had a negative impact on their entrepreneurial performance. Furthermore, contrary to Western studies, which suggested that regulatory environments had an impact on business growth, it was found that South Africa's negative regulatory environment had no effect on the performance of Pakistani immigrant entrepreneurs.