Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters/MBA)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/37942

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    Sustainable business model (SBM) theory of SMMEs for black youth within the South African context
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Shiba, Nokuthula Audrey; Horne, Rene
    Orientation: The purpose of the study is to use SBM theory to understand how SMMEs can invest in innovation and adopt sustainability to reduce youth unemployment among South Africa’s black youth and achieve economic growth. The South African unemployment rate of 34.5% is the highest in history of SA with the youth being the majority. There are 2.4 million SMMEs contributing to the SA’s economic growth by providing approximately 10 million jobs. Research purpose: To establish whether SBM theory explains how SMMEs can invest in innovation and adopt sustainability to reduce youth unemployment and drive economic growth among South Africa’s black youth. Motivation for the study: SMMEs located in Johannesburg, Gauteng do not have sustainable business models that can overcome the SA challenges of youth unemployment and lack of economic growth which affects the majority of South African being the black youth. Research design, approach, and method: A quantitative approach was selected, whereby a questionnaire was used to characterize the perceptions, viewpoints, habits, observations, or other representativeness of the sample, which is SMMEs in the Gauteng province in the City of Johannesburg. The variables are defined in the Qualtrics XM used to collect observations from respondents, and SPSS used to analyse the database from Qualtrics XM. The sample size was 103 respondents from out of the population size of 1 050 SMMEs in Johannesburg. According to Conroy (2016), a population size of 1 000 requires a sample size of 88 to achieve an acceptable margin of error of 10% thus achieving a confidence level of 90%. Therefore, the sample size of 103 has a 10% acceptable margin of error and 90% confidence level with regards to representation of the sample size on the total population defined in this research. Main results: The results demonstrate that SBM theory, which focuses on developing a conceptual model, explain the relationship between the investment in innovation and the adoption of sustainability by South African SMMEs. Further, that SMMEs with SBMs can achieve a reduction in youth unemployment and drive economic growth. In conclusion, the results of this research indicate that the SBM theory explains how SMMEs can invest in innovation and adopt sustainability to reduce youth unemployment and drive economic growth among South Africa’s black youth. Recommendations: Further research should be done on how SMMEs can be up skilled and educated on the SBM theory. To enable SMMEs to invest in innovation and adopt sustainability to reduce youth unemployment among South Africa’s black youth and achieve economic growth
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    The application of the internet of things in the South African livestock farming
    (2020) Mhlongo, Thuthuka T
    South Africa will need to increase its food supply by 50% by 2050, catering to an estimated population of seventy-three (73) million. In Quarter four (Q4) of 2019, the agriculture sector employed 885 000 people in South Africa and continues to play a vital part in job creation in the rural areas. There are 35 000 registered commercial farmers in South Africa, with 40% made up of field crop farmers while 60% comprises livestock farming. However, South African livestock farmers (producers) need to continuously deal with the changing environmental, social and economic factors that require innovative methods to ensure the sustainability of livestock production income. While the livestock farming sector needs to contribute towards the food security agenda, livestock farmers continue to deal with challenges related to predation of livestock and a surge in livestock theft. South Africa has realised the importance of the fourth industrial revolution as its potential to propel the country to the new age of digital prosperity. The advances in digital technologies have seen the emergence of new and complementary business models transforming many industries. Digital platforms such as the Internet of Things are poised to provide solutions to some of the most complex cross-industry challenges. In South Africa, there is an emergence of innovative data collection methods such as big data analytics and IoT currently being used for field crop and livestock monitoring, giving rise to precision farming. While IoT promises potential business value generation, recent studies show that IoT applications are confronted with challenges resulting in a handful of IoT projects deemed successful. The study explored the determinants that affect the Internet of Things (IoT) application in South African livestock farming. First, it evaluates the technical factors that play a role in the implementation of IoT; secondly evaluates the nontechnical factors and assesses the positioning of IoT solutions to customers (livestock enterprises) by IoT service providers as means for business value generation. Drawing from these different viewpoints, (1) technology, (2) user, and iv (3) the business aspect of IoT, the Design Thinking Framework was used to provide guiding principles that may be utilised to facilitate the application of IoT in South African livestock farming. This qualitative study followed the snowballing sampling approach to conduct telephonic interviews with IoT experts. The data was collected from a saturated sample size of 13 participants who posed local and international exposure in IoT application and livestock farming. Furthermore, a sizable group out of the 13 subjects were livestock farmers interviewed for triangulation purposes.