| 1. |
- Botha, E., et al.
(författare)
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How sociable? : An exploratory study of university brand visibility in social media
- 2011
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Ingår i: South African Journal of Business Management. - : AOSIS. - 0378-9098 .- 2078-5976 .- 2078-5585. ; 42:2, s. 43-51
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Social media has changed both the way in which organizations and their brands interact with their customers and the way in which business gets done. Brands are attempting to utilize social media to reach existing customers, gain new ones and build or maintain credibility and reputation. More importantly, brands need to measure their visibility in the most popular social media relative to that of competitors. This study describes a tool for collecting brand visibility information by looking at the visibility of various South African university brands and their relative positioning from a social media perspective. Correspondence analysis is then used to portray the various university brands in a multi-dimensional space so that they can be contrasted with each other in terms of their visibility in social media. The findings indicate that South African university brands are not distinctly positioned in social media and that none of them seems to currently have a concerted strategy for engaging its stakeholders in a particular social media. This means that there are both opportunities for those who manage these brands, and also threats to these institutions for taking a laissez fair attitude to social media in these times when social media are coming to dominate the Internet in particular and media in general.
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| 2. |
- Botha, E., et al.
(författare)
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South African management literature over the past fifteen years : Content analysis of the three top South African management journals
- 2011
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Ingår i: South African Journal of Business Management. - : AOSIS. - 0378-9098 .- 2078-5976 .- 2078-5585. ; 42:4, s. 89-98
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article analysed 15 years, from 1996 to 2010, of research published in the three leading South African business management journals. The three journals chosen were the South African Journal of Business Management, the South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences and Management Dynamics. Content analysis was used to compare five broad themes in the journals: firstly the nature of authorship was examined, and then the most published as well as most prolific authors were identified. Thirdly, the most prominent universities and departments were identified whereafter the research themes and disciplines of the articles and authors were analysed. Lastly, various manuscript characteristics were investigated. This article provides a clear picture of the evolution of South African management literature over the past fifteen years
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| 3. |
- Page, M.J., et al.
(författare)
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Business schools and lifelong learning : Inquiry, delivery or developing the inquiring mind
- 2006
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Ingår i: South African Journal of Business Management. - : AOSIS. - 0378-9098 .- 2078-5976 .- 2078-5585. ; 37:4, s. 1-5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- ‘[V]irtually all public and private enterprises – including most successful corporations - are becoming dominantly repositories and coordinators of intellect’ (Quinn, 1992: 241). University based management schools play a role in harnessing this intellect by supporting the development of leaders with the capacity to think critically, to make choice and to facilitate implementation. As centers working with a higher proportion of mature executives, management schools are forced to address the complex resource issues surrounding knowledge accumulation and knowledge dissemination. Enhancing the capacity of our future leaders to contribute to society requires gifted academics – academics that expand the desire for inquiry in their students and thereby develop their capacities for self-driven lifelong learning. Are such academics teachers, researchers or hybrids?‘[We, researchers, should] not fall into the trap of answering questions of increasing irrelevance with increasing precision’ (John Gardner – cited in Davenport & Prusak, 2003: 87).
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| 4. |
- Reyneke, Mignon
(författare)
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In the lap of luxury : consumer conversations concerning online advertisements of luxury brands
- 2011
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Ingår i: South African Journal of Business Management. - : AOSIS. - 0378-9098 .- 2078-5976 .- 2078-5585. ; 42:2, s. 27-34
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While branding is an area that is extensively studied in the marketing literature, there is a noticeable lack of attention to the study of luxury brands, and even more so from an online perspective. In this exploratory study, we make use of the content analysis software Leximancer to comprehend the consumer feedback around conversations about luxury brand ads posted online. We study consumer comments posted on YouTube around three different luxury brands and analyse these comment in order to find meaning among the large volume of consumer discussion. We attempt to shed some light on how these conversations can be tracked and interpreted in order to gain valuable insight into the consumer?s role in advertising through discussing the ads for well known luxury brands that were chosen for this study and the subsequent reactions to them. We go on to discuss the Leximancer tool that can be used for deciphering and interpreting the consumer conversations surrounding these ads and the results of the analysis. We conclude by acknowledging the limitations of this methodology, identifying implications for managers, and suggesting avenues for future research.
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| 5. |
- van der Merwe, R., et al.
(författare)
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Finding and utilizing opinion leaders: Social networks and the power of relationships
- 2009
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Ingår i: South African Journal of Business Management. - : AOSIS. - 0378-9098 .- 2078-5976 .- 2078-5585. ; 40:3, s. 65-76
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Research suggests that consumer choice is sub-optimal: simply we satisfice. Limited data, time and expertise render our rationality ‘bounded'. The opinion leader offers a solution to this problem: when faced with a complex choice, we often seek the opinion of an expert. The Web has fueled an unprecedented expansion of this strategy by enabling ‘virtual' opinion leaders (see Web sites such as Epinions.com and Amazon.com). However, despite its rise in popularity, opinion leadership has received limited attention in the advertising literature. It is this hiatus that we address and in doing so seek to make two potentially important contributions to the wider research on opinion leadership. First, we link opinion leadership to social network theory and show that, those at individuals who are central to social networks serve as opinion leaders. Second, we challenge the assumption that opinion leadership is monomorphic (topic specific) by showing that domain-specific opinion leadership is strongly related to general opinion leadership.Our paper is set out as follows. First, we provide overviews of the literatures on opinion leadership and social networks. Second, we outline our methodology and present the results of an empirical study. Finally, we delimit the research, present a framework for identifying opinion leaders, identify key implications, and explore potential avenues for future research.
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| 6. |
- Pantelic, Darko, et al.
(författare)
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Marketing and sustainability from the perspective of future decision makers
- 2016
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Ingår i: South African Journal of Business Management. - 2078-5585 .- 2078-5976. ; 47:1, s. 37-47
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Contemporary research on sustainability is fragmented between multiple disciplines and areas, with on-going debates about methodological as well as practical issues. The core value of sustainability is embedded in the long-term maintenance of quality of life and contains environmental, economic and social components. Business organizations have a substantial responsibility for preserving the quality of life for future generations, as a result of the role they play in transforming natural and societal resources into goods and services. The marketing function is a major force in strategic decision-making in contemporary organizations. With its arsenal of tools for influencing (managing) consumption patterns, marketing must take responsibility for sustainable behaviour of both organizations and consumers. This article discusses the role of marketing in facilitating sustainable behaviour. Contemporary marketing education may not prepare students to use marketing’s influence to support sustainability. This study, using senior level Marketing students, assesses the perceptions,opinions and attitudes towards sustainability at three different universities in Austria, Portugal and Serbia. These students represent future decision makers shaping marketing and business strategies. The results of this research inform the marketing academic community about its ability to build contemporary curricula, as well as marketing professionals who seek justification for sustainable marketing strategies. Business schools, in their role of educators, should assume more active role in shaping students’ attitudes towards sustainability.
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| 7. |
- Pienaar, Jaco, et al.
(författare)
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Work locus of control and sense of coherence as antecedents of job insecurity
- 2016
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Ingår i: South African Journal of Business Management. - 2078-5585 .- 2078-5976. ; 47:3, s. 35-43
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Previous research has highlighted various antecedents of job insecurity, both in cross-sectional research and in a recent meta-analysis. A review of this literature indicates that work locus of control actually is the only personality antecedent that has received considerable attention, while sense of coherence may also be an important factor to consider. Data on biographical variables, cognitive and affective job insecurity, work locus of control and sense of coherence were gathered from employees across 3 organisations (N=718), presenting two different sectors (chemical industry and financial services), by means of anonymous surveys. Data were analysed by means of correlations and regression analyses. Results indicate that both work locus of control and sense of coherence play a role in predicting job insecurity, even after controlling for biographical variables. Considering their individual contributions, it is suggested here that sense of coherence may be even more important than work locus of control as a personality antecedent of job insecurity.
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| 8. |
- Thomas, Amos Owen, et al.
(författare)
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Rhetoric and realities of regional integration : Botswana SME perspectives on Southern African trade
- 2017
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Ingår i: South African Journal of Business Management. - : AOSIS. - 2078-5585 .- 2078-5976. ; 48:2, s. 75-86
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Despite political pronouncements about facilitating development through economic integration of geographic regions in Africa, intra-regional trade remains limited and unbalanced. While tariff barriers have declined within Southern Africa, non-tariff trade barriers to export-import growth persist, impacting on the smaller economies. Utilising interviews with small-to-medium enterprises in land-locked Botswana, this study generated in-depth qualitative data on their experience of barriers to trading regionally. The research found that administrative procedures at the national level, ambiguity of implementation at borders and constraints on logistics constitute their most daunting impediments. Among the key imperatives then for effective regional integration and economic growth among developing countries in Africa and elsewhere are standards harmonization, regulatory streamlining, process transparency and improvement of infrastructure.
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