4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions

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    The role of Corporate Social Investment (CSI) programmes on developing small and medium enterprises (SMEs): The case of Sappi Southern Africa in the local communities of Umkomaas in the South Coast of KwaZulu Natal
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Ntuli, Zandile Phindile; Dube, Nkosiyazi
    Africa. The government has called on corporations to help transform the country through Corporate Social Investment (CSI) to accelerate socioeconomic development. This study focused on CSI as part of a broader corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework. South Africa has seen significant growth in CSI, due in part to the implementation of the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) Code of Good Practice, which requires businesses to contribute to the country's reconstruction efforts. As a result, many businesses have adopted social development strategies as part of their core business objectives. The small and medium enterprises (SMEs) economy is considered crucial to achieving some of the objectives for post- apartheid reconstruction and development, such as economic restructuring and alleviation of poverty. Given the slow growth of new job opportunities in large corporations, the developmental support of SMEs is viewed as a vital vehicle for generating employment. Using a qualitative approach, the study explored the role of CSI programmes in developing SMEs, with a focus on Sappi Southern Africa’s Saiccor mill in Umkomaas on the South Coast of KwaZulu Natal (KZN). A case study design was adopted to obtain in-depth information from participants concerning Sappi's CSI programmes. A semi-structured interview schedules was used as a research instrument, with one-on-one individual interviews used as a method of data collection. The study consisted of 12 purposively sampled participants. The findings revealed that the local community of Umkomaas benefited from the CSI programmes. The CSI programmes contributed positively to the development of local SMEs. In addition, the unemployed youth gained skills through the various skills development initiatives to become economically active. To tackle poverty, unemployment and inequality in South Africa, a renewed commitment from the various economic sectors is needed, notably the private sector with the influence and resources.
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    Social venture acquisition, in the form of strategic alliance building and earnings generation as a means of achieving scalability of social enterprises
    (2021) Bukula, Sanelisiwe
    Social problems continue to persist and large enterprises, together with social enterprises, can play a role incoming up with innovative solutions to these problems. Social enterprises have the potential to implement business-like approaches to expand, scale up and match the needs of the problem, however, they fail and that makes scaling one of the most important phenomenon to study as it is least understood currently. Extending from existing, mostly conceptual research, the study sought to add empirical evidence on a scaling framework that explored only two variables of the SCALERS model, the earning generation and strategic alliance capabilities of social enterprises and their relationship with scaling of the enterprise. The research purpose was to add to the still limited theory on the field of scaling of social enterprises to enable the social entrepreneurial ventures to strategically move their enterprises beyond the start-up phase and scale for greater impact. The study adopted a cross-sectional quantitative research, utilising an on-line self-administered survey, to collect data with random non-probability sampling of social entrepreneurs in South Africa. Findings suggest that strategic alliance building on its own does not have a significantly positive relationship with scaling and earnings generation is positively and significantly related to the scaling of the social enterprise. Findings also suggest more work on the measurement instrument and the validity of constructs in new geographical contexts is needed. Earnings generation which can be leveraged off CSR investments and other related investments can be prioritised by the social entrepreneur when deciding to scale the social enterprise. More value can be derived from such studies to enable strategic decision-making and assumptions derived from empirical research