Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management (ETDs)
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Item The impact of digital ecosystems on customer loyalty in South African life insurance companies: A customer’s perspective(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Muthama, Georginah M.; Nyamajiwa, Michael T.The concept of life insurance has been in existence for thousands of years, with a business model that has remained relatively the same. Persistency or customer retention in South African life insurance companies is an ongoing concern. Advancement in technology has provided new opportunities to life insurance companies, such as online sales, improvement in service offering, and the increase in brand awareness. The literature indicates that digital ecosystems offer a new value proposition for life insurance companies to create loyal customers. This study was motivated by the high number of policy cancellations, unmet premiums and lapsed policies experienced across the insurance industry in South Africa. The study proposed that customer loyalty can be increased with the implementation of digital ecosystems, specifically in terms of the value propositions related to ease of doing business, loyalty programs and digital platforms. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the value proposition provided by digital ecosystems can create loyal customers. A quantitative research approach was used in this study. Data was collected using surveys whereby the respondents gave their responses on a structured-self-completion questionnaire that were distributed via email and WhatsApp. A random sample of n=57 was achieved. The Cronbach’s Alpha test showed there was good internal consistency reliability for the independent variables, but the dependent variable has poor internal consistency. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was conducted and the factor loadings higher than 0.40 indicate that the constructs were valid. Multiple regression was applied to test the four research hypotheses. The results indicate that there is a statistically significant relationship between digital ecosystems and customer loyalty. Regarding individual value proposition items of digital ecosystems, ease of doing business does not have a significant relationship with customer loyalty, nor does digital platforms. Loyalty iv programs has a significant relationship with customer loyalty. The final conclusion of this research is thus that digital ecosystems do provide a value proposition which can increase customer loyalty. When a digital ecosystem consists of different value propositions, in this case, ease of doing business, loyalty programs and digital platforms, loyal customers can be created.Item Proposing the establishment of a tourist-generated-video library for destination marketing by tourism organisations(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Lehutjo, TshepoTourist-generated media content is a phenomenon that has become increasingly popular in recent years on social media platforms; to a point where many travel bloggers have even taken it on as a full-time occupation to meet the growing customer/tourist demand for it. On the other hand, tourism organisations and the industry at large have not been at the ready to take advantage of these technological developments. The prevailing explanation for this contrast is that tourism organisations do not have the know-how nor the time to invest in these technologies as they are typically staffed by small, specialised teams. As a result, entrepreneurs may investigate this identified gap to assist tourism organisations in meeting customer demands for: authentic tourist-generated videos while these customers are in the discovery and decision- making process of before their travel journey. Data was gathered remotely through publicly available platforms on the Internet, using a close-ended questionnaire to capture responses. The responses were then processed to generate descriptive statistics to elaborate on the following: the proportion of South African tourism organisations currently using the Facebook platform was determined to gauge the size of the market. Further, the extent of video use and other factors on the platform was determined, within the attraction and engagement constructs of the Digital Marketing Framework. This was done to understand how and when tourist-generated videos are used, if at all, and what other methods tourism organisations apply to attract or engage customers. Based off the findings, which show that South African tourism organisations have a low social media engagement rate with tourists and make very little use of video (which is proven to be more engaging and better for sales conversion) as a form of media content – be it tourist generated or not. This research thus proposes the use of a tourist-generated-video library that tourism organisations will pay to access so that they may use such videos to market destinations on their social media profiles and websites.Item Impact of financial intermediaries on economic growth(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Ayodele, Ademola EmmanualThis study investigates the impact of financial intermediaries on economic growth in Nigeria between 1986 and 2017. The study uses Gross Domestic Product as the dependent variable and also used Money Supply (MS), Credit to Private Sector, Lending Rate (LR) and Total Credit (TC) as independent variables coupled with the use of Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model as method of analysis. The result revealed that only money supply is statistically significant with economic growth in both the short run and long run. However, Credit to Private Sector, Lending Rate and Total Credit assert a negative effect on economic growth while money supply has positive effect on economic growth. Also, the granger causality test shows a unidirectional causality from GDP to both CPS and TC also from MS to GDP. Meanwhile, the direction of causality is inconclusive between LR and GDP. Hence, through the preponderance of empirical proofs from various places around the world and the findings of this study, it can be inferred that financial intermediaries have a significant impact on economic growth. The study therefore, recommends that the financial intermediaries should properly monitor credit provide to sectors in the economy in other to ensure that these sectors profitably use such credit to boost the economy.Item Integrated electronic human resource management systems for front- line employees and mine safety performance(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Nyelisani Clement , MufamadiThe South African mining industry heavily relies on manual labour, resulting insignificant risks to lives and production. Competency gaps, human behaviour, andviolations are major contributors to frequent accidents. Despite the implementation ofhuman resource management (HRM) systems, safety and productivity challengespersist, with base metals productivity declining annually by 0.3% from 2013 to 2017.Investing in competencies can enhance overall firm performance, as individualimprovements lead to better team and organizational performance.This study examined the impact of integrated electronic HRM (e-HRM) systems onsafety performance in mining. It explored the relationship between e-HRM practices,employee roles, and mine safety. The research utilized SPSS and PLS-SEM tools tovalidate and analyze data, testing eight hypotheses within a theoretical framework thatincluded performance management, HRM systems, and technological development.The findings showed that ability, opportunity, and motivation significantly and positivelyinfluence e-HRM practices, which in turn enhance employee roles, mine safetyperformance, and sustainable e-HRM systems.Sustainable e-HRM systems were identified as mediators that enhance e-HRMpractices and mine safety performance. However, the study could not substantiate theeffects of employee level, firm age, and industry experience on safety performance.Limitations included the cross-sectional study design and the omission of factors likeleadership and organizational culture. Despite these limitations, the study concludedthat sustainable e-HRM systems improve business success by integratingsustainability plans, ethical data management, and effective technology use, fosteringemployee autonomy and safety.The study suggests further longitudinal and qualitative research to evaluate the long-term sustainability of e-HRM improvements and their impact on safety performance.Comparative studies could also explore different system types and cultural variations,while investigating e-HRM's role in crisis management to reveal strategies fororganizational resilienceItem Bicultural Life Experiences and Career Orientation of South African Indian Women Engineers(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Pillay, Vanishree Nundagopaul; Ndaba, ZaneleThe purpose of this research is to explore the bicultural life experiences of South African Indian women engineers and from this, understand how identity experiences in their bicultural context inform their decision to remain in the profession. A review of the relevant literature offered biculturalism within the discourse of Identity Theory, and social cognition stemming from Social Cognitive Career Theory, as the main concepts to guide the trajectory of this investigation. The study is exploratory in nature with a qualitative design. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 South African Indian women engineers from the public and private domains. Non-probability sampling strategy was adopted and effected through a snowballing technique to purposively secure candidates fitting the eligibility criteria. A narrative analysis of the transcripts was executed in a two-step process. First, by means of a three-part approach consisting of personal, social and temporal dimensions; life stories were unearthed from the interview transcripts in a deductive manner and formulated into a narrative. Secondly, narratives were inductively analysed using thematic analysis. Findings indicated that support from family, coupled with the transformed application of an Indian androcentric cultural value system within the home, positively influenced participants’ socialisation process. This triggered optimistic social cognition that informed high levels of self-efficacy and progressive decision-making. The limited organisational support reported by participants pointed to ubiquitous gender challenges: these negatively impacted professional opportunities and growth. Also clearly evident were perceptions and bias about women in the profession, strongly premised on gender identity, as opposed to racial identity. Motivation to remain an engineer was predicated on: (a) passion for the discipline; (b) career growth and opportunities; and (c) financial independence/empowerment. The findings, and their implications, offer higher education institutions and engineering bodies a point of departure that can inform strategies to motivate female engineers to remain in the profession. The study contributes to the evolving body of knowledge on biculturalism through the bicultural life stories presented by a sample of ethnic minority women who are absent from the literature pertaining to biculturalism. The research offers an assimilated version of Lent and Hackett’s Social Cognitive Career model, represented in a Bicultural Social Career Trajectory, as an understanding of the interplay between identity tags, context, cognitive processing and action behaviour. The sample’s location and nationality impose certain limitations on this study. Participants were South African- born Indian women engineers from three of the country’s nine provinces. Hence, the findings cannot be generalised to South African Indian women engineers from the remaining six provinces, nor to foreign nationals of Indian descent. These limitations offer an opportunity for future research on ethnic minority women of Indian descent, regardless of nationality. This would entail an extended geographical reach to include countries that have a population of Indian womenengineers. Such a study could potentially unearth interesting nuances regarding the bicultural life experiences and career orientation of Indian women engineers on a global scale.Item Financial System Stability in the East African Community: Prospects and Constraints(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Lyimo, Anna Gustav; Ojah, KaluThis thesis examines the EAC financial system stability, focusing on the system’s prospects and constraints for the period 2000 - 2018. The primary agenda is divided into four objectives. The first objective is to investigate the evolution of the financial system and the kind of environment that it has been operating in. The relevant findings in respect of this objective indicate that the EAC financial systems have experienced both positive and adverse developments that have led to the initiation of several macro-economic and financial sector reforms. Credit risk is one of the major factors affecting the EAC financial system stability. The second objective is to conduct an empirical examination of the determinants of credit risk in the EAC financial sector. The associated results show that credit risk is responsive to the dynamics of member-countries’ macroeconomic and macro-financial variables. We found that prudent macroeconomic policies intended to stabilize inflation and exchange rates — which stimulate economic growth and increases the capacity to borrow – influence credit growth. And credit growth (with less prudent lending standards) increases the ratio of non-performing loans as well as raises credit risk during recessions. The third objective is to measure and forecast financial systems’ resilience in the EAC. Findings here suggest that EAC financial systems have remained relatively resilient, albeit vulnerable to shocks. Despite the differences in financial instability characteristics across the region, countries have reflected similar financial stability (or instability) patterns. The forecast results indicate that the EAC continues to experience financial system stability for the period 2018 -2020, other factors held constant. The last part (objective) examined the potential systemic risk contribution of individual banks to national financial systems. Here, the banking industries’ interconnectedness is shown to have increased significantly, especially during economic downturns, which poses a potential for spill-over of shocks (vulnerability) across the region during times of crisis. Each bank’s connectedness and potential systemic risk contribution is time varying. Also, there is a significant positive correlation between bank size and systemic risk contribution. Based on the above findings, and other findings of the study, the EAC region should monitor credit expansion to ensure it is consistent with economic and market realities; optimize benefits from linkages in the EAC financial system structure; and enhance effective policy formulation for more robust financial system regulation and supervision. There is also a need to conduct effective periodic risk assessments to identify and mitigate potential systemic risk, as to ensure regional financial system stabilityItem A theory of virtual culture formation(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Chitondo, Margaret Zvobgo; Carmichael, TerriThis research focused on the formation of organisational culture in virtual work teams that exist within the context of a virtual organisation. The concept of organisational culture has been studied since the late 1970s in traditional work contexts. Several studies have subsequently been carried out on the factors influencing and the processes involved in the formation of culture within the context of traditional brick and mortar workplaces. This study focused on the formation of culture in virtual organisations, which have become commonplace in the 21st century and whose key characteristics are technological enablement as well as geographic and spatial distribution. A sensitising literature review was presented to locate the study within the current discourse of organisational culture, process theory and virtual work teams within virtual organisations. A constructivist grounded theory study was carried out to investigate the phenomenon of culture formation in virtual organisations using respondents who were at the time working as part of a virtual team within a virtual organisation. Data from 18 interviewed participants and five sets of archival records were collected and analysed theoretically. The results of the study were integrated with extant literature to find that organisational culture within virtual contexts developed through managing the core theme of virtuality and by dealing with virtuality while maintaining organisational effectiveness and managing interpersonal relationships. The findings from this research are expected to inform stakeholders so that they may better anticipate, facilitate and r respond to organisational culture development within a virtual organisation context.Item The Adaptation of the Shadow Corpse Belief System for Change Management in Corporate Organisations(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Chazuza, Richard G.; Maier, ChristophThis thesis examines how the use of an African natural idea and practice, Mumvuri loosely translated in English to the Shadow on the Corpse Belief System can be adapted and used to understand change management in corporate organisations. While the talk of Ubuntu and other African ideas has received a lot of prominence in organisations and academia of its potentially untapped value in management, few to non-existent African ideas and practices are known to realistically permeate and guide management thinking and practices in corporate organisations. This thesis is informed and guided by the interpretive paradigm. It adopted and followed the qualitative approach where the basic interpretive qualitative research design was used. In-depth, semi-structured, open ended and thematised interviews were used to collect data from 35 carefully selected experts that were placed into 3 homogeneous groups. Thematic analysis was used as the data analysis method aided by ATLAS ti version 8 software package, a computer assisted data analysis software package (CAQDAS). The evidence from the research revealed that Mumvuri is a known and commonly practised African socio-cultural belief system. Even though it is rooted in the Karanga ethnic culture of modern day Zimbabwe, its traces are found in other African cultures. Despite the prevalence of Mumvuri in African culture, it has not been adapted and used in corporate organisations. The main contribution was the development of a conceptual framework for change management in corporate organisations and the accompanying guidelines of implementation for executives and practitioners. These guidelines outline the process of adaptation of Mumvuri as an African idea, belief and concept in management. The thesis makes an empirical, methodological and practical contribution. Further research is suggested in testing this conceptual framework in corporate organisations.Item Employer brand activities for effective responses to gig economies in South Africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Makhafola, Kelebogile; Roselyne, KoechThis research paper aims to investigate employer brand activities that effectively respond to the engagement dynamics introduced into the working environment by gig economies. The focal points are elements which contribute to the sustenance of the organisations’ brand equity, brand reputation and competitive advantage. The paper uses two frameworks to guide the process of investigating the employer brand activities which influence employer brand attractiveness, employee value contribution, and the organisational culture amongst other research attributes and variables within this paper. The first framework used to approach the analysis is the employer brand experience framework and the second framework is the framework on Human Resource Management (HRM) and platform ecosystems in the gig economy. The study follows a qualita-tive research method, introducing the use of semi-structured interviews. Broadly, the findings communicate that effective employer branding that keeps the employees involved and valued will most likely enjoy a higher retention and productivity rate, further stimu- lating the organisational bottomline. Accessible research and material regarding employer brand effective in context to gig economies within South Africa is not popularly explored. Further- more, the investigation of employer brand activities and programmes are limited to the traditional organisational structures which exclude the attributes introduced by nuances in gig economies (roles, responsibilities, productivity, brand loyalty, the measurement of value contri- bution and innovation). The key findings further elaborate that the participating organisations (employer brands) and their employees aren’t confidently aware of the introduction of gig economies as a direct effect to their organisation. Through the findings, it further appears that they, the organisations, are not adequately prepared to embrace the new world of work in light of policies, Human Resource Management systems and work related structuresItem Exploring the mindsets and behaviours necessary for cultivating data-driven decision making within an organisation(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Jacobs, Jef Andreas; Ngubane, Samukelo; Wotela, KambidimaThe advancement of data storage and processing technologies and the exponential growth in data generated by online activity and smart devices has stimulated a desire by organisations to be more data-driven in their decision making. Adopting a data-driven approach to decision making is associated with improved organisation performance and innovation. However, most organisations are struggling to realise these benefits because crafting clear data use strategies and cultivating a culture of data-driven decision making appears to be more challenging than investing in relevant technologies or implementing organisational processes. Given this situation, the purpose of this study is to investigate the mindsets and associated behaviours of leaders and their teams who are successfully leveraging data to improve market competitiveness or impact. Using a qualitative research strategy and semi-structured interview processes with six experienced professionals, this research paper identifies six mindsets and associated behaviours that senior decision makers should adopt to help overcome the common people related challenges that hinder effective data-driven decision making in organisations. Prime examples include senior leaders as data advocates who communicate and reflect of data-driven decisions and leaders who encourage quick experimentation with an openness to failure. Based on these findings the study recommends that senior decision makers, working in organisations that have invested in data related technologies and skills, acknowledge that their attitudes and behaviours have a direct impact on how successful any data strategy and investment will be. These influential leaders or managers need to understand and believe in the data- driven decision making process and they need to ensure the implementation of key activities that ensure informed actions are eventually taken on the back of data collected. Research in this field mostly predominantly discusses issues related to numerical techniques, technological innovations and studies around impact. This study contributesto the current body of knowledge by investigating leadership and managerial aspects of data use or Big Data in organisational decision making