4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions
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Item Factors Affecting Blockchain Technology Adoption by Organizations in the Livestock Supply Chain Industry in Zimbabwe(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Tambudze, Pelagia; Isabirye, NaomiBlockchain is a distributed ledger technology that provides the building block for many innovations. The distributed nature of blockchain, its immutability, and anonymity enable trust, transparency, and security among transacting or trading partners. The accelerated unfolding of 4IR due to the COVID- 19 pandemic recently unveiled several critical gaps within global supply chains, including livestock supply chains. The main challenges faced by organizations in the livestock supply industry in the developing world include difficulties for farmers in accessing new markets, no flexibility in production times, and no traceability for the consumer market to trace food component authenticity. In Zimbabwe, livestock is an important sector contributing about 22% of the total GDP. From several studies done by other researchers in different industries, such as health care, banking, mining, education, and agriculture, it is evident that blockchain technology solves most of these issues by decreasing data asymmetries and the cost of transactions to benefit all stakeholders. Blockchain-based solutions have recently been introduced to the livestock sector, and Zimbabwe is one of the early adopters among its African counterparts. However, the adoption rate by organizations within the livestock supply chain has been minimal. Using the lens of the TOE framework, this study investigated the factors that affect the decision by organizations in Zimbabwe's livestock supply chains to adopt blockchain technology. A qualitative approach was applied, interviewing fifteen informants from various levels of the livestock supply chain. Responses were analysed using thematic analysis. The study found that adopting blockchain benefits organizations and the overall livestock supply chain. The study found that technological, organizational, and environmental factors influenced organizations' decision to adopt blockchain technologies within livestock supply chains. These factors included availability of the technology, cost of the technology, skills availability, regulation and policies, competitive pressures, presence of blockchain providers, political and socio- economic factors and market trends.Item The role of the company secretary in promoting good corporate governance in South Africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Thabit, ShaaistaThe global prevalence of corporate scandals involving misconduct has drawn public attention to corporate governance, highlighting the role of the company secretary as a key corporate governance officer. However, company secretaries are often overlooked, despite their importance for facilitating corporate governance. The term ‘secretary’ itself is misleading, as it suggests a purely administrative position. Prior to the role’s development, the connotation was correct. Company secretaries were known as the administrative officer of the company. The implication of this has been, and remains, that the role is not fully leveraged. This view contrasts with the multifaceted functions company secretaries perform today in corporate governance matters and beyond. The emphasis on corporate governance has resulted in modern company secretaries taking on a range of positions with broader powers and extensive duties transforming their roles into guardians of corporate governance. The position is already incorporated into governance codes, the recent Companies Act 71 of 2008 and practice. However recent corporate failures raise concerns whether the role of the company secretary within South Africa's corporate governance framework has the potential to fulfil this corporate governance expectation. This research report will discuss how factors such as the historical marginalisation, legal ambiguity, lack of knowledge and framework fragmentation of the role has contributed to its underutilisation and undervaluation. Effectively hindering it from reaching its full potential within corporate governance and relegating it to the status of an unrecognised hero despite its significant role in corporate governance. This research report further examines the role of the company secretary within the corporate governance framework, highlighting its potential to succeed in this crucial corporate governance position and proposing improvements to maximise this potential. This research report asserts that selection, implementation and utilisation of a suitable company secretary can prevent or mitigate instances of poor corporate governance and, in some cases corporate scandals, bringing to the fore a new corporate ‘governance hero’.Item Re-examining the effectiveness of monetary policy in achieving price stability and output growth in Botswana(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Tlhako, Kefilwe; Mahonye, NyashaThis study reassessed the effectiveness of Botswana's monetary policy, emphasizing its two main goals of maintaining price stability and promoting output growth. Output and inflation are our dependent variables, and they are proxied, respectively by mining and non-mining GDP and the consumer price index. We examined quarterly data from 2005 to 2022 using a Vector Error Correction model. Stationarity tests were conducted using both the ADF test and the Phillips-perron (PP-test), where both tests confirmed all variables to be stationary at levels except money supply which was stationary at first differences. Through the integration of macroeconomic factors like inflation, GDP, interest rates, exchange rates, money supply, and the bank rate, our goal is to offer a thorough comprehension of the relationship between monetary policy decisions and their consequences in the economy of Botswana, a small open economy that is prone to both internal and external shocks. By considering both internal and external elements that could have an impact on the framework's performance, our analysis provides light on how less effective Botswana's monetary policy framework has been over the studied period. The results from the study show that policy shocks have little effect on output growth and inflation. This is proven by the results of the VECM showing a significant impact of the bank rate on non-mining GDP only, while the other two variables; mining GDP and inflation proved that the bank rate does not impact them both in the short run and long run. The VAR decomposition also showed that at most 5% of the changes in our dependent variables are explained by the shocks on the bank rate. The results bring us to the conclusion that other external shocks, such as controlled prices and exchange rates, are the primary causes of inflation than it is driven by the bank rate. With respect to output, the results bring us to the conclusion that the mining sector is heavily influenced by global commodity prices, which are determined by international supply and demand dynamics, rather than domestic interest rates. So significant changes in the bank rate may not alter these global factors. Lastly the non- mining GDP is seen to respond to changes in the bank rate due to the interest rate sensitivity of the sector. The non-mining sector is made up of sectors such as manufacturing, services, retail etc, and these are very sensitive to changes in the interest rates as they rely mainly on short term borrowings for capital and investment. Therefore, changes in the bank rate quickly affect lending rates, consumer loans and business financing, leasing to more immediate economic impacts. Based on the above results, we therefore recommend that policy makers should diversify monetary policy tools and implement sector specific support for the mining industry and focus more on controlling external factors such as exchange rates. 4 Enhanced financial sector regulation and coordination with fiscal policy are also crucial. The employment of these measures can help stabilize the economy and improve the effectiveness of monetary policy, and ensure that non-mining sectors which are more sensitive to interest rates changes, benefit from targeted interventions. This holistic approach acknowledges the varying responsiveness of different sectors and the influence of global economic conditions.Item South Africa’s greylisting due to deficiencies in its corporate legal framework on illicit financial flows: is there a need for measures enhancing transparency in relation to beneficial ownership?(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Tshinaba, Tshianzi Palesa; Samaradiwakera-Wijesundara, CharmikaOn 24 February 2023, the Financial Action Task Force’s decision to ‘grey list’ South Africa sent shockwaves through the Republic, placing it under increased monitoring by the intergovernmental body. The economic consequences thereof are dire: loss of investor confidence, increased difficulty in obtaining donor funding from abroad, among many others. The greylisting is a consequence of South Africa’s failure to address the deficiencies in many aspects of its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime, including those relating to the obscure beneficial ownership framework designed for companies that operate within its territory. Motivated by the pressure of being greylisted, the South African government is in the process of establishing a new beneficial ownership regime that is much more transparent and aims to prevent the use of companies by their beneficial owners to facilitate illicit financial flows. However, the obscurity of the “old” beneficial ownership regime was rooted in the need to protect beneficial owners’ privacy and safety. It is on this basis that this paper investigates whether there is truly a need for a new beneficial ownership regime and, if there is, whether the regime being established by the South African government will be effective in preventing and deterring beneficial owners from using companies as vehicles through which they can engage in illicit financial flows in and out of the Republic.Item Caregiver capabilities and socio-economic disparities in children’s health-related quality of life(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Turner, GeorgiaThis study investigates the relationship between children’s health-related quality of life and the associated contextual factors. Furthermore, this study analyses the socio-economic disparities that exist amongst children and what particular social determinants of health are influencing their health and wellbeing. Using an OLS regression as well as the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition, the results show how children with a lower socio-economic status experience a lower HRQOL as opposed to those with a higher socio-economic status. Furthermore, this paper reports new research on the association of caregiver’s capabilities and children’s HRQOL which represents an important explanation for children’s health-related quality of life. Caregivers’ capabilities are a set of tools that enables parents to manage work, life and parenting effectively. The results provide evidence how important these capabilities are as it contributes to a better health related quality of life in their children. The findings show how a higher socio-economic status is associated with better caregiver capabilities. This is an important finding in the South African context, as exorbitant social inequalities exist, and hence, improving adult capabilities could potentially result in not only aiding to narrow the socio-economic disparity gap, but also improving the overall quality and health of children. This also leads to the premise of a bi-directional association whereby improving caregivers’ socio-economic status may likely also improve their capabilities.Item Considering estate duty as a source of wealth tax in South Africa: an African analysis(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Venketsamy, KanushkaTaxation has been employed across the world to generate government revenue, which in turn is spent on public goods and services. Income taxes, consumption taxes and taxes on assets (wealth) make up total tax revenue. A wealth tax has been implemented in various countries through different means. Advocates for wealth taxes argue that its implementation would assist in bringing balance to societies with income and wealth inequalities. Income inequality is abnormally high in South Africa. Wealth tax is imposed in different forms: estate duty, donations tax, transfer duty and securities transfer tax. Studies have been conducted on the implementation of a wealth tax in South Africa; however, it is not considered practical. This research report focuses on revenue collected from estate duty as an existing type of wealth tax. It is considered whether the amount of tax revenue collected can be increased through improvements in the estate duty regime, as opposed to introducing a separate wealth tax. This is determined by comparing the estate duty regime of South Africa to that of selected African countries, namely Angola, Botswana, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Malawi, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal and Zimbabwe. These African countries were selected because of their similar levels of income inequality. Only Malawi and Zimbabwe employ estate duty, while the other selected countries employ an inheritance tax, gift tax or transfer tax. The observed trend in the death tax regimes of the chosen countries was the relationship between the deceased and receiver of the estate/assets playing a role in the determination of the tax rate levied. South Africa’s estate duty regime does not consider this relationship. A potential adoption from the African death tax regimes would be to simplify the estate administration process.Item Researching graduate employability and graduate employability skills of non-traditional graduates in Nigeria(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Sodeinde, Mojisola; Hutton, Timothy; Ojo, EmmanuelThe outbreak of the coronavirus disease in 2019 (COVID-19) resulted in the global adoption of strict lockdown protocols implemented to curtail the proliferation of the virus. The Internet emerged as a leading tool for working remotely, e-teaching, online collaboration, gaming, and for video streaming and conferencing. This study aimed to investigate Nigerian employers' perceptions of hiring graduates who received their degrees from non-traditional modes of learning such as e-learning. The global pandemic became a transformational experience that opened the guardrails for innovative ideas on education and instruction, helping to accelerate the use of distance and virtual instructional tools at educational institutions such as universities during the lockdown. COVID-19 has thus changed how people work, teach, and learn worldwide. The over-arching question of this research was: What understanding do employers have of graduate employability and employability skills, and how does the degree delivery mode factor into recruitment decisions in Nigeria? Furthermore, the subsequent sub- questions were formulated to guide the research process: (1) What perceptions do employers have of graduates who obtained their qualification through alternative modes of learning such as online or e-learning? (2) How does the course delivery mode affect employers’ understanding of graduate employability, and employability skills in the Nigerian labour market? (3) What do employers of labour in Nigeria consider as key factors, with respect to competencies of e-learning and traditional classroom graduates, in recruitment decisions? (4) Using the USEM model of employability as an employability framework, how do the four key descriptors measure within the Nigerian labour market? Explanatory sequential mixed methods were utilized in this doctoral research, collecting quantitative data from one hundred and ten (110) Nigerian human resource professionals and collected qualitative data in semi-structured interviews from five (5) human resource professionals. The doctoral study found that Nigerian employers are more concerned with the personal attributes of graduates than they are with the delivery mode for instruction and learning in the academic institution of the graduate. While employers overwhelmingly view e-learning as comparative to the traditional mode of instruction and thus agree that there is tangible difference between the two modes, about half of all employers prefer to recruit graduates from a traditional on-campus mode of learning. iv Using USEM as the conceptual framework for employability and employability skills, personal attributes emerged as the most desirable set of skills for Nigerian employers, more important than subject matter knowledge. The consensus among employers indicates that there is no discernible distinction in the educational achievements between graduates who have completed their academic pursuits through conventional means and those who have opted for the virtual modality.Item Operating under the Radar: Forestry Plantation Workers Everyday Resistance in Chimanimani District, Zimbabwe(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Mvundura, Wellington; Pillay, DevanThis thesis explores and analyses the everyday forms and practices of labour resistance that rural commercial forestry plantation labour crafts to navigate a highly insecure post-colonial capitalist plantation labour process. It attends to the scholarly puzzle that in Zimbabwe, Africa, and elsewhere quotidian forms and practices of resistance are in a much less or barely empirically demonstrated and theoretically elaborated state in both resistance and labour resistance studies. This is even more pronounced in agrarian labour politics studies, yet agriculture labour constitutes a significant proportion of the overall industrial labour-force in xii Africa and elsewhere and is arguably the most easily exploitable form of wage labour. This motivated my empirical focus on commercial plantation labour. In light of evidence from Barura plantation estate, I argue that the workers may have to accept the fact of post-colonial capitalist plantation wage employment, the plantation-specific modalities of statist ethno-national citizenship, and state-sanctioned partisan national politics while contesting the terms and conditions under which these mutual systems of domination and exploitation occur. The practices do not seek to radically decompose the historical material- cum-symbolic bases of these systems of power. The everyday practices of defiance mediate the workers’ realisation of piecemeal de facto material and status gains more than the de jure recognition of those gains. My major empirical contribution is the discovery and foregrounding of the quotidian practices of subaltern groups as an integral part of politics. In a specialised and methodical manner, I re- centre the mundane everyday acts of plantation labour as workplace politics namely labour resistance. Theoretically I deploy and test the conceptual-cum-theoretical positions of seminal scholars on (everyday) resistance and modify some of these positions in light of empirical evidence. Methodologically, I break from the intention-oriented and foreground the practice- oriented approach to everyday resistance. This study is based on a continuous fourteen-month long on-site ethnography at a state-owned commercial forestry plantation. Ethnography was instrumental for the contextualised in-depth discovery and thick description of the workers’ forms, practices, and dynamics of subterranean labour resistance. It also enabled the cultivation of high levels of trust and rapport required to discover a sensitive, incriminating, and largely backstage (hidden) social phenomenon like quotidian labour resistance. For data collection I used three levels of participant observation, unstructured in-depth interviews, casual conversations, and deep hangouts.Item Access to the Township Economy A comparative study of the spaza shop sector in the City of Ekurhuleni Townships Tsakane and Duduza(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Mongwe, Veli; Quirk, Joel2024 marks 11 years since the Duduza community forced out Somali spaza shop traders from Duduza and it is exactly 11 years of continued gatekeeping from a collaborative informal relationship between the business community, township associations and some state actors. While the state actors and non-state actors may not take the credit for chasing Somalis out of Duduza they take pride in their informal governance systems and agreements they have kept Somalis out of Duduza. This research questions the role and power of state and non-state actors in Township informal governance. The concepts of “informal governance systems” and “gatekeeping” were used to guide this research to respond to the question of access. The study employed a qualitative approach as it is interested in understanding the cause for the variations in on the two townships. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews and participant observation. In the initial stages of the research, the snowball sampling was used to identify participants with leads. These two participants were able to refer the researcher to key state and non-state actors in Duduza and Tsakane. The findings of the study reveal the existence of two cartels, a cartel that facilitates gatekeeping in Duduza and a cartel that runs Somali spaza shops in Tsakane. The Duduza business community, associations and some state actors have created informal rules of trade that prohibit Somali spaza shop traders from trading in Duduza, on this other side, Tsakane appears to have a more relaxed approach to trading rules. Access into the Duduza township economy is controlled and protected through informal systems of governance. Through the informal systems of governance, the business community, associations and some state actors in Duduza exercise the power to agree on trading rules and other rules to govern the township. While the trading rules are said to be binding to all who wish to trade in Duduza, they also appear to be stricter on limiting access to Somali and Bangladesh spaza shop traders because of their history in the township. Lastly, the Somali spaza shop cartel that runs the Somali spaza shops in Tsakane is sustained by various pillars i.e. strategic placing of spaza shops which enables its expansion and prevalence in Tsakane.Item Determinants of Adaptation and Insurance Uptake among Small-Scale Farmers in Kenya(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Segone, Tshepiso; Alence, RodDespite the costs associated with climate-related damage and loss, WII uptake remains low among small-scale, Kenyan farmers. Many of these farmers continue to opt for traditional adaptive and mitigative strategies in the wake of climate-related challenges, despite the many known benefits insurance has for climate resilience. Thus, the study seeks to understand the determinants of insurance uptake, and to measure the relationship between these determinants and agricultural output, using a binary regression model. Overall, the study underscores the complex interplay of socio-economic, cultural, and environmental factors shaping farmers’ adaptation decisions in Kenya and highlights the need for targeted interventions to enhance insurance uptake and promote effective climate strategies