Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters/MBA)

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Browsing Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters/MBA) by Keyword "Absorptive Capacity"

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    Innovation capability building by the TVET sector for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in South Africa
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Mngomezulu, Thulani Proffessor
    This is a qualitative research report on Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system capability building for the fourth industrial revolution in South Africa. The study evaluated the level of complementarity amongst the main components and key role players within the Centres of Specialisation (CoS) program in relation to capability building. The foundational theories that guided this study include the Sectoral Systems of Innovation and Technological Relatedness. An embedded case study involving welding and boilermaking CoS cases was used. Data were collected through scholarly and grey literature review, semi- structured and unstructured interviews of participants representing colleges, employer-partners and students that were on the verge of completing their program. A thematic analysis approach was used for analyzing the collected data, with guiding themes emerging from both the literature survey and primary data. Despite employer-partners being one of the key role players for the learner development process, the study finds that past interventions and research efforts have largely been directed to colleges with little attention paid to industry firms. Even though some colleges have taken initial steps, none of the cases studied has fully integrated industry 4.0 (i4.0) technologies with their training programs. Employer-partners either are in the same position or have achieved partial integration. The study highlights complementarities that exists within the sector. Potential improvements are also outlined with regard to interaction and interdependency structures within the TVET sector. These offer possibilities for maximizing synergies among various 4IR capability building projects and capabilities that may exist within the whole TVET sector