ETD Collection

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Browsing ETD Collection by Faculty "Faculty of Commerce.Law and Management"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Balancing the protection of public health interests and trademark rights in plain packaging of tobacco products: a South African perspective.
    (2018) Nyatsanza, Sharon.
    In introducing plain packaging measures in the marketing of tobacco products, South Africa is confronted with the need to balance trademark and public health interests; and competing obligations under the World Health Organizations’ Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the World Trade Organization. Tobacco trademark owners challenge the proportionality of plain packaging measures under both Constitutional and WTO law. Health advocates have challenged the even-handedness of the test for proportionality at the WTO level and proposed a health – over – trade approach. Under this approach, plain packaging measures become immune to the WTO proportionality test and assume an automatic pre-eminence over trademark rights. This study locates itself at the crux of this conflict. Although the central problem to be addressed is whether plain packaging measures are proportional, the claims over the even-handedness of the proportionality test cannot be overlooked. The study uses a predictive and proactive approach as it foresees the challenges that South Africa will face and makes recommendations in that regard. It proceeds from the premise that a balancing of competing interests guided by proportionality is desirable to ensure that no interest is left to redundancy or inutility. However, before arriving at the balancing stage, the study establishes that there exists a genuine conflict between trademark rights and public health interests. Aspects pertaining to the substantive nature of trademark rights and the right to use debate are traversed to assess the implications of plain packaging measures on trademark rights. Simultaneously, the study unveils the dire effects of tobacco prevalence and the health interests involved. Health rights are comprehensive and their importance is unrivalled, but does not support a health – over – trade approach in South Africa or abroad. An analysis of the South African proportionality review is undertaken and predictions are made on how the balancing process will play out. It is found that the existing jurisprudence has been developed in the corporeal property context, and cannot be directly transposed to intellectual property. A nuanced approach should be adopted to ensure that trademark interests are properly considered. An analysis of the necessity of plain packaging measures under WTO law is also undertaken with the aim of examining the justifiability of the criticisms levelled against the WTO proportionality test. It is found that there are differences in proportionality under the domestic and the WTO sphere. However, the ii differences are not substantial enough to result in different outcomes on the proportionality of plain packaging measures, it is anticipated that the measures will also pass the proportionality test at the domestic level of governance. Another finding is that, there is no merit in assertions that the WTO proportionality test is biased against public health and the health – over –trade approach is unwarranted.
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    Factors that In uence illiquidity in the South African Banking Industry: Empirical Evidence of Commercial Banks
    (2019) Tsela, Sifiso.
    This paper investigates the determinants of illiquidity in the South African banking industry using listed commercial banks. We selected two theoretically established illiquidity measures and perform empirical analysis using rms spe- ci c variables and macroeconomic variables. A xed e¤ect regression model was adopted and the empirical results indicate that total cash to assets ratios and rms market size as proxy by market capitalization are the signi cant factors that in uence illiquidity in the South African banking industry. These results are consistent with the ndings in the literature. Furthermore, we nd no dif- ference between the illiquidity measures used in the study as they lead to the same conclsuion. Keywords: Commercial banks, illiquidity, rms speci c factors 2
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    Macroeconomic effects of capital account liberalization: evidence from sub-Saharan Africa
    (2019) Mughogho, Tamara Esther
    thesis examines the macroeconomic effects of capital account liberalization (CAL) for a panel of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries from 1996 to 2013. Specifically, the study examines the effects of CAL on capital flows, financial sector development, financial crisis, and exchange rates. For this study, several methodologies are employed and these include System-Generalised Method of Moments (GMM), Least Squares Dummy Variables (LSDV), Fixed Effects (FE), Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Models, and Propensity Score Matching (PSM) techniques. The study makes several key findings. Firstly, the study finds that liberalizing capital inflows promotes the inflows of capital into SSA. This is particularly so for foreign direct investment. The study also provides evidence of significant thresholds effects of institutional quality and financial sector development. That is, higher levels of institutional quality and financial sector development help to enhance the effects of CAL on capital flows. Secondly, the study unearths that CAL, implemented on its own, has a negative effect on financial sector development. However, liberalization of capital accounts coupled with substantial trade openness has a positive effect on financial sector development. It is also concluded that liberalization of capital flows reduces the exchange market pressure in SSA. This implies that capital account openness is unlikely to induce a currency crisis for SSA. This result holds even after controlling for sample selection bias. Lastly, the findings of the study suggest that CAL leads to exchange rate appreciation for SSA countries. However, this effect is attenuated with higher levels of financial sector development. The study has made significant contributions to the body of knowledge in several key ways. Firstly, the study provides regional evidence of macroeconomic effects CAL in SSA where extant studies for SSA have mostly been single country studies which focused on examining effects on economic growth. In addition, the study makes methodological contributions by employing sample splitting techniques, to examine the presence of threshold effects, and examining potential non-linear dynamics in the effects of CAL. Lastly, the study employs a new measure of CAL which, not only builds upon past measures and improves on them, but also disaggregates CAL based on several criteria such as asset type, the direction of liberalization and whether liberalization is on residents or non-residents. Keywords: Capital account liberalization, financial sector development, capital flows, financial crisis, currency crisis, exchange rate appreciation.
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    Monetary policy and stock market liquidity: empirical evidence from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE)
    (2018) Nyika, Patrick. H.
    e recent financial crisis has given liquidity an important role in the financial market functioning. Especially in small size equity markets like the African, lack of liquidity has been reported as major issue. In order to source the causes of the lack of liquidity, this study investigated the relationship between monetary policy and stock market liquidity in South Africa using fixed and random effect estimations for stock specific effect and VAR impulse response function for portfolio analysis. We first estimate a Taylor rule for South Africa, which we augment with a financial indicator adapted from the literature and use the difference between actual and fitted values to measure monetary stance. The literature on the monetary policy rules in South Africa revealed M3 as the instrument used by the SARB before the period of inflation targeting that started in February 2000. We then used the monetary stance computed from the Taylor rule and the growth rate of M3 as measures of monetary policy. The panel regression analysis, with monetary policy measured by the growth rate of money supply, is only significant in the case of illiquidity models while monetary policy shows no effect on liquidity models in that case. In the case of monetary policy as measured by Taylor rule, the turnover model revealed a negative relationship, but weakly significant. Further, a positive and significant effect at 5% and 10% was revealed for Amihud’s illiquidity measure and Roll’s price impact measure. The impulse response analysis shows different results as compared to the stock specific analysis. The study found that monetary policy, as measured by money supply, has a positive effect on the liquidity variables which are turnover and trading volume; and also found that the monetary policy, as measured by the Taylor monetary stance, has a positive effect on illiquidity variables.
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    The perceived effectiveness of executive coaching for leadership development in South Africa
    (2019) Mvelase, Mandla. I.
    Although executive coaching is relatively new to South Africa compared to the western world, it has become quite important as a tool for leadership development and support. Executive coaching is a client-centred, relationshipbased, collaborative, reflective, contracted goal-driven interactive process to facilitate client learning and improvement in leadership development. Management/business leaders have experienced executive coaching as a leadership development tool but they cannot fully determine the efficacy of the different factors that are mostly effective. The study explored the perceived effectiveness of executive coaching as a leadership development tool in South Africa through the lived experience of a sample of management/ business leaders, all of whom have had direct reports been coached. The interview process was inductive in approach to allow the participants to share their lived experiences and their perception of the effectiveness of executive coaching. A significant theme in the findings was that a well-planned executive coaching programme supports continuous personal improvement for leaders and managers. Another key theme was that leadership development is perceived as an imperative intervention in South Africa. The last theme to emanate from the study was that executive coaching is transformational. The research participants had all experienced executive coaching as effective in developing their direct reports. Invariably all the participants had undergone coaching themselves although the study was about people reporting to them. Their context in this study is that they were sponsors of the coaching they were evaluating. Keywords: executive coaching, leadership development, client learning, effectivenes of coaching
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    The role of endowments and behaviours in street trader upliftment within the City of Johannesburg
    (2019) Volker, Cordelia
    The purpose of the study was to investigate the importance of endowments versus behaviours in relation to street traders within the inner city of Johannesburg, Gauteng. Street traders form an integral part of urban economics and as such are one of the most visible occupations, yet few cities successfully balance the need to support livelihoods with the need to manage public space. Street traders can be viewed as a highly vulnerable group. The knowledge problem addressed in this research is the lack of knowledge of the contribution of endowment and behaviour attributes to the performance of street traders. Such knowledge is considered particularly important in the wake of events, such as Operation Clean Sweep, that may have had a lasting influence on the experience of street traders, and their ability to earn their livelihoods. Whereas behavioural theory such as the entrepreneurship orientation theoretical framework predicts that certain behavioural characteristics of an individual, namely risk taking, proactiveness, innovativeness, competitive aggressive and autonomy can contribute in different ways to performance across different contexts. Sustainable livelihood theory highlights the importance of endowments, taken here to be representative of Bourdieu’s forms of capital, in achieving a sustainable livelihood. While the interactive contributions of these theoretical contributions on performance seem to exist across many entrepreneurial contexts, it is not clear according to these bodies of theory which of these approaches is most effective in the context of inner-city street trading. More specifically, it is not clear whether behavioural theory predicts the behaviour of the lowest-earning street traders in the sector, or whether their life chances are, instead, dictated by their lack of endowments of financial or social capital. Drawing from the entrepreneurship orientation and sustainable livelihood theoretical frameworks, a qualitative study of 20 low earning inner-city Johannesburg street traders was undertaken to investigate certain tensions between the predictions of these bodies of theory. The data was analysed using thematic analysis. Such knowledge is important to gain an understanding of the types of interventions needed to uplift street traders. If endowments, such as access to resources, either in the form of financial capital or social capital, are a necessary condition for street trader upliftment then certain assumptions in the street trader literature may need to be revisited. Findings question assumptions about the ability of low-earning inner-city street traders to transcend endowment constraints in this context. If behavioural attributes are not sufficient to transcend a threshold limitation associated with endowments, then certain predictions of entrepreneurial theory might not be iii valid for certain individuals in this context. The research concludes that certain inner-city street traders have limited agency. The implication of this is that their ability to improve their livelihoods through behavioural change is limited. Although both behaviours and endowments are important for street traders to achieve full functionality as entrepreneurs, the results of this study suggest that a lack of endowments presents a binding constraint to their functionality, and that urgent intervention is necessary to improve their quality of life, and to ensure their earnings are sufficient to maintain their minimum levels of nutrition and health.