Abstract
M.Comm.
Attraction of new inward FDI globally, especially in the developing countries, is problematic. Economic development practitioners have recently started to prioritise the retention and growing of existing investments to enhance their economic development agenda. There are few studies that provide any guidance to investment aftercare practitioners faced with this alternative economic development option.
The main aim of this study is to obtain a better understanding of and to investigate the relationship between investment aftercare and inward FDI in South Africa. Investment aftercare is defined as post-investment services that an investment promotion agency (IPA) can offer to existing investors (Loewendahl 2001:25). Six research questions were investigated in this study, namely, how do IPAs allocate financial and human resources to investment aftercare function in relation to other investment promotion functions? Do IPAs in South Africa have dedicated and comprehensive investment aftercare strategies and how often are they reviewing these strategies? What factors limit IPAs’ ability to provide effective investment aftercare services? What investment aftercare models are used by IPAs within South Africa? Are IPAs evaluating the impact of their investment aftercare programmes? Which government level is most appropriate to offer investment aftercare services?
Both quantitative and qualitative research methodologies are used in this study to address these six research questions and theoretical frameworks are selected to define the scope of the research. A structured questionnaire was used to collate data and 30 face-to-face interviews were conducted with 16 investment aftercare practitioners and 14 investment aftercare executives from IPAs in seven of the nine provinces of South Africa.