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The management discourse: collective or strategic performance drive?

- Verhoef, Grietjie

  • Authors: Verhoef, Grietjie
  • Date: 2021
  • Subjects: Family , Ethnic , Collective
  • Language: English
  • Type: Journal article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/495005 , uj:44912 , Citation: Verhoef, G., 2021. The management discourse: collective or strategic performance drive?. Journal of Management History. , DOI: 10.1108/JMH-01-2021-0001 , ISSN: 17587751
  • Description: Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to engage with the discourse on the assumed existence of an distinct “African management” model. It critically deconstructs the concepts and submits an alternative strategy to address the need to understand what is happening in management of business in Africa. Design/methodology/approach – Qualitative critical text analysis is used to understand the discourse on the nature of “African management” from the extant literature. The identity theory informs the understanding of the references to “African” as fundamental to identify a distinct management model. This analysis is supplemented by empirical case study research into successful African business. Findings – Scholars failed to conceptualise what is “African”, and subsequently also what constitutes “African management”. This conceptual void undermines the critical reconstruction of a single African management model. Empirical research into actual management practices emerge as fundamental to systematic progress in this discourse. This research points to diverse management traditions converging into pragmatic practices. Research limitations/implications – Only a limited number of case studies were conducted into management history in Africa. This paper argues for an extended research programme, but this is future work. Practical implications – It suggests a research strategy for scholars in African business studies, business history and management history to collaborate towards making a solid contribution to the economic development of our continent. Social implications – This research has the potential of forging collaboration in business among all of the people in Africa. Originality/value – A critical text analysis is used to expose the conceptual lacunae that undermines progress in the discourse. This paper contributes to the literature on “African management” by systematically deconstructing the concept of “African identity” as a prerequisite to the management discourse. By signalling ethnic nostalgia, the critical reconceptualisation of Africanness offers an intellectually creative strategy out of the stalled discourse.
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What influences online shopping in Nigeria: trust or website quality?

- Esho, Ebes, Verhoef, Grietjie

  • Authors: Esho, Ebes , Verhoef, Grietjie
  • Date: 2021
  • Subjects: Online retail shopping , Trust; website quality , Purchase intention
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/488577 , uj:44514 , Citation: Esho, E., Verhoef, G., 2021. What influences online shopping in Nigeria: trust or website quality?
  • Description: Abstract: Increased access to internet and mobile phones has led to increase in online shopping. However, online retail penetration is still generally low in Africa. This study investigates the relative importance of trust in vendor and perceived website quality on online shopping in Nigeria. Data was collected from a sample of workers in Nigeria’s banking industry. Results show a high correlation between trust and perceived website quality, and that both positively affect consumers’ online purchase intentions. However, perceived website quality has more weight than trust in vendor. The results suggest that in certain markets, trust in internet vendors alone may not be enough to spur consumers to make purchases online. The results also suggest that consumers do not really differentiate between trust in vendors and perceived website quality. These findings are particularly useful to online vendors and foreign companies that want to offer online shopping in Nigeria, and SSA at large.
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A holistic model of human capital for value creation and superior firm performance : the Strategic factor market model

- Esho, Ebes, Verhoef, Grietjie

  • Authors: Esho, Ebes , Verhoef, Grietjie
  • Date: 2020
  • Subjects: Human capital , Strategic factor market , Knowledge
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/415825 , uj:35150 , Citation: Esho, E., Verhoef, G. A holistic model of human capital for value creation and superior firm performance : the Strategic factor market model.
  • Description: Abstract: , Understanding the link between human capital, competitive advantage and firm performance is a major focus of research in strategic human capital studies in strategic management and Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM). Indeed, much progress has been made in understanding this link. However, strategy scholars have emphasized firm-specific human capital as the most strategic form of human capital, and mobility constraints as the route to human capital-based competitive advantage and superior performance. SHRM, on the other hand, have been primarily focused on human resource policies, practices and systems, and more recently on the ability, motivation, and opportunity framework. Consequently, there has been an implicit assumption that there is already an understanding of how human capital actually creates value in firms. This article presents a succinct review of extant studies and a model that explores value creation from human capital. The model, based primarily on the theory of strategic factor market, holds promise in furthering extant understanding of the link between human capital, competitive advantage and firm performance. The model takes a more holistic approach to the role of human capital in value creation in firms.
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The impact of foreign direct investment, foreign aid and trade on poverty reduction : evidence from Sub-Saharan African countries

- Anetor, Friday Osemenshan, Esho, Ebes, Verhoef, Grietjie

“Settlers and comrades”. The Variety of capitalism in South Africa, 1910-2016

- Verhoef, Grietjie

  • Authors: Verhoef, Grietjie
  • Date: 2020
  • Language: English
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/435833 , uj:37782 , Citation: Verhoef, G. 2020. “Settlers and comrades”. The Variety of capitalism in South Africa, 1910-2016.
  • Description: Abstract: The complexities of business in Africa is illustrated through the case study of economic and business development of the different countries. By the time decolonisation brushed across Africa from the late 1950s, South Africa enjoyed political independence under white rule, controlling a viable economy based on mineral and industrial capitalism. This paper shows the change in a powerful state-capitalist nexus from mining to the industry to ethnic or race-based ‘empowerment’. Contesting nationalisms between Afrikaners and loyal British imperial sympathisers, constituted the rationale for inward-looking economic policies for national economic development. The formation of unstable coalitions for market co-ordination managed market distortion to facilitate the development of the leading modern industrial economy in Africa, while the rest of independent Africa experimented with central planning, socialism and state-capitalism. This paper illustrates the peculiarity of capitalist development in Africa, specifically South Africa, considering the particular institutional contexts and broad business environment in which business acts strategically. South African business proactively engaged in a dynamic state/business relationship from national capitalism under minority rule, to an unstable balance of majority black capitalism, socialist worker welfare capitalism and tribal communalism. The manifestation of an unstable but unique state-business nexus involving market and non-market elements, adds innovation to the VoC framework.
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Central banking in Africa : the case of the Bank of Mozambique. 1975-2010

- Verhoef, Grietjie, Pateguana, Carmelia

Context and strategy : managing Sanlam for and in change, 1945-2013

- Adri, Drotskie, Verhoef, Grietjie

South in Africa, metropolitan in culture : industrial development trajectory of South Africa

- Verhoef, Grietjie

  • Authors: Verhoef, Grietjie
  • Date: 2019
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/404346 , uj:33906 , Citation: Verhoef, G. 2019. South in Africa, metropolitan in culture : industrial development trajectory of South Africa.
  • Description: Abstract: Industrialisation in South Africa followed the resource determined forward and backward linkages in Rostowian fashion. From the nineteenth century agro-industries established the initial foundation of Schumpeterian entrepreneurial changes to agrarian life. The transition into industrialisation occurred within the Polanyian state intervention in the market to drive industrial development. The context of the mineral- agrarian economy determined state mitigation of the high cost structure of the economy. Geographical location, factors of production (labour, capital) and policy directives determined a market intervention. Import-substitution as strategic policy option as proposed by Prebisch, was followed, but the state refrained from full socialism or central market planning. The industrialisation of the South African economy gained momentum since the 1920 under protectionist state industrial policies. Powerful business groups, corporate entrepreneurs, especially from the mining sector, collaborated with state protectionism. The Gerschenkronian latecomer effect indeed played itself out in South African industrialisation, but local human capital developed innovative technology locally to enhance the industrialisation process. The trajectory of South African industrialisation reflects the establishment of a near first-world industrial base, grounded in a mix of scare factors of production (capital, entrepreneurship, skilled labour) and abundant factors of production (unskilled labour, natural resources). Weberian traits of the Protestant work ethic is a significant driver of economic, and specifically industrial development in South Africa. The specific context of a European minority population controlling the political economy, eventually impacted negatively on the modernisation and progress of the industrial sector in South Africa by the end of the twentieth century.
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Banca móvil en el Africa Sub-Sahariana: asentando el camino hacia el desarrollo financiero

- Rouse, Marybeth, Verhoef, Grietjie

  • Authors: Rouse, Marybeth , Verhoef, Grietjie
  • Date: 2017
  • Subjects: Financial development , Financial inclusion , Mobile technology
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/256036 , uj:26870 , Citation: Rouse, M. & Verhoef, G. 2017. Banca móvil en el Africa Sub-Sahariana: asentando el camino hacia el desarrollo financiero.
  • Description: Abstract: The importance of financial development for long-term economic growth has been recognised by policy-makers arounds the world. Fast growing economies with limited formal banking services experience greater financial exclusion. The explosion in mobile phone technology in Africa saw the rapid development of mobile banking. Many countries in Africa have poor retail banking network infrastructure especially in the rural areas. Mobile communication networks introduced innovative products to extend mobile banking into remote rural locations. The development of mobile banking has contributed towards enhanced financial inclusion in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In less than ten years, Kenya has become the leading country in SSA for mobile banking penetration and mobile banking has been instrumental in providing access to financial services to the previously unbanked. This article surveys the state of economic development in Africa as contextualisation of subsequent trends in banking developments in SSA.
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Savings and economic growth: a historical analysis of the relationship between savings and economic growth in the Cape Colony economy, 1850-1909

- Greyling, Lorraine, Verhoef, Grietjie

  • Authors: Greyling, Lorraine , Verhoef, Grietjie
  • Date: 2017
  • Subjects: Cape Colony , Economic growth , Financial deepening
  • Language: English
  • Type: Articles
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/244413 , uj:25272 , Citation: Lorraine Greyling & Grietjie Verhoef (2017) Savings and economic growth: a historical analysis of the Cape Colony economy, 1850–1909, Economic History of Developing Regions, 32:2, 127-176, DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2017.1327808
  • Description: Abstract: The savings-development nexus is a topical issue in current development literature.No study has yet explored this relationship in nineteenth-century ‘SouthAfrican’ colonies. An historical analysis of the development of the savings’ trends in South Africa may assist in understanding development trends in the twentieth century. Apart from general descriptions of the nature of economic activity in the Cape Colony very little is known about the role of savings and financial sector development in the growing colonial economy. This paper describes and surveys the nature of financial markets in the Cape Colony between 1850 and 1909 and seeks to explain the relationship between savings and economic growth. Savings is defined in the broad sense of monetary and non-monetary savings and would be assumed to be a proxy for financial development in the Cape Colony. This paper contributes to the economic history literature on the colonial past of South Africa by using recently compiled data on the GDP (Greyling & Verhoef 2015) as well as monetary savings and non-monetary savings (livestock) to test whether the general view that ‘financial development is robustly growth promoting’ can be substantiated in the last half of the nineteenth-century Cape Colony. The Johansen vector error correction model technique is applied to determine the relationship between savings and economic growth. It is found that despite the expectations in the literature that financial deepening contributes to economic growth, the Cape Colony did not display such causal relationship in the period under review.
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The accounting profession and education : the development of disengaged scholarly activity in accounting in South Africa

- Verhoef, Grietjie, Samkin, Grant

  • Authors: Verhoef, Grietjie , Samkin, Grant
  • Date: 2017
  • Subjects: Accounting education , Actor network theory , Professional education
  • Language: English
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/244405 , uj:25271 , Citation: Verhoef, G. & Samkin, G. 2017. The accounting profession and education : the development of disengaged scholarly activity in accounting in South Africa.
  • Description: Abstract: Purpose - This paper examines how the actions of the accounting profession, the state, universities and accounting academics have inhibited the development of South African accounting research. Design/methodology/approach - A multiple history approach of traditional archival material and oral history is used. Findings - Since the late nineteenth century, a network of human and non-human (including regulation and transformation) ‘actants’ ensured that accounting education retained a technical focus. By prescribing and detailing the accounting syllabi required for accreditation, the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants and its predecessors exercise direct control over accounting education. While the professional body claims to support accounting research, this is conditional on it meeting the professional body’s particular view of scholarship. Research limitations/implications – The limitations associated with this research is that it focuses on one particular professional body in one jurisdiction. However, the South African situation provides a cautionary tale of how universities, particularly those in developing countries, should take care not to abdicate their responsibilities for setting of syllabi or course content to professional bodies. Accounting academics, particularly those in a developing country that is experiencing major social, political and economic problems, are in a prime position to engage in research that will benefit society as a whole. Originality – Although Actor Network Theory has been widely used in accounting research and in particular to explain accounting knowledge creation the use of this particular theoretical lens to examine the construction of professional knowledge is limited. This study draws on Callon’s (1986) four moments to explain how various human actors including: the accounting profession; the state; universities; accounting academics, and non-human actors including: accreditation; regulation; and transformation, have brought about South African academic disengagement with the discipline.
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Die radikale geskiedskrywing oor Suid-Afrika : 'n historiografiese studie

- Verhoef, Grietjie

  • Authors: Verhoef, Grietjie
  • Date: 2015-09-01
  • Subjects: Radicalism - South Africa , Historiography - South Africa , South Africa - History
  • Type: Thesis
  • Identifier: uj:14032 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/14401
  • Description: M.A. , Marxist historiography started during the late sixties and early seventies in response to the so-called "crisis" in the social sciences. The inability of these sciences to explain prolonged poverty and backwardness in areas of capitalist development and dependency in areas in close connection with the capitalist core, directed social scientists towards Marxist explanations. The conventional explanation of the implacability of capitalist development with racial stratification no longer rendered any explanation of Third World circumstances, since, especially in the South African case, the economy maintained high growth rates in spite of and under circumstances of sustained and intensified racial differentiation...
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Die geskiedenis van Nedbank, 1945-1973

- Verhoef, Grietjie

  • Authors: Verhoef, Grietjie
  • Date: 2015-02-11
  • Subjects: Nedbank - History
  • Type: Thesis
  • Identifier: uj:13261 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/13283
  • Description: D.Litt.et Phil. , When the Second World War came to an end the Chief Agent of the Nederlandsche Bank voor Zuid-Afrika, realized that the future of the bank's operations in South Africa lay in the formation of a South African banking company. In the Netherlands one of the Directeuren, J. Keuning, gave his support to the idea, but the Raad van Commissarisse (Board of Directors) of the bank in Amsterdam was reluctant to allow such a move without prior confirmation that the parent company in Amsterdam would retain full control. The bank in Amsterdam had to revive its activities after it had been forced to cease all transactions from the Netherlands during the war. The South Africa and London offices of the bank continued their operations under the watchful eye of a Controller, J. Dommisse, appointed in South Africa. Further consolidation and expansion of the business of the bank, both in Amsterdam and South Africa, neccessitated further capital. When war broke out the Netherlands economy was unable to provide the necessary capital and Kakebeeke, the Chief Agent in South Africa, urged the formation of a South African company in order to enable the bank to secure working capital in South Africa. The Board in Amsterdam finally decided, in principle, in 1946 to establish a subsidiary company in South Africa and to incorporate the London office with the new South African bank. After a lengthy selection period, the Board in Amsterdam decided on members for the South African Board, making Kakebeeke the Managing Director of the new bank to enable him to act as Chairman of the local Board ...
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Mutuality and regulation : the transition from mutual to public in the South African long-term insurance industry

- Verhoef, Grietjie

  • Authors: Verhoef, Grietjie
  • Date: 2012
  • Subjects: Financial institutions - Demutualisation , Insurance companies - Demutualisation
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: uj:5411 , ISSN 19957076 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/10429
  • Description: The mutual structure of various financial institutions has changed internationally, especially during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Various explanations have been offered. Some commentators argue the mutual organisational form has become redundant, others consider structural changes in the financial services industry as the main reason for organisational changes. In the United Kingdom the stronger emphasis on profitability had a profound impact on the decision to demutualise many building societies. In the USA the failure of mutual savings and loan associations resulted in demutualisation as a rescue strategy. This paper will explore the specific circumstances in South Africa of the changes in the mutual organisational form of the building societies and insurance companies. The mutual form of organisation has a long history in South Africa. This paper will explore the reasons for the early choice of mutuality and the recent forces leading to the demutualisation of companies in order to list as public entities on stock exchanges, both in South Africa as well as abroad. South Africa experienced varying degrees of international isolation and sanctions, but in the financial services industry a strong international connection was sustained. The South African experience will be considered against the international changes in the financial services industry as well as the regulatory changes in South Africa. The paper will explain the peculiar South African conditions as the context for the organisational changes in South African mutual.
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South Africa : leading African insurance : insurance in the nineteenth century pre-union

- Verhoef, Grietjie

  • Authors: Verhoef, Grietjie
  • Date: 2012
  • Subjects: Zuid-Afrikaansche Brand en Levensversekering Maatschappij , Scottish Equitable Mutual Life Assurance , Insurance - South Africa - History
  • Type: Book chapter
  • Identifier: uj:1694 , ISBN 9780191744709 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/9886
  • Description: The Cape of Good Hope was the supply station of the Dutch Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie ( VOC ), but was transferred to Britain in 1803 after the defeat of Napoleon. Between 1803 and 1806, the Cape was under the control of the Dutch government (the Batavian Government), until Britain finally conquered the colony in 1806. After 1836, the majority of the Afrikaans-speaking Boers, primarily Dutch immigrants who had been arriving since the sixteenth century, left the Cape to found their own Boer Republics further north in Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal. As early as 1842, however, the British were able to annex Natal and combine it with the Cape Colony. The arrival of the imperial banks from 1862 further consolidated British financial services and British commercial domination in the region, a fact which affected the republics in the interior negatively. 1 With the discovery of diamonds in 1867 and gold in 1886, the economic attraction of the South African market underwent a sea change, and British institutions were well-positioned and suffi ciently capitalized to service the fi nancial requirements of the growing railway infrastructure, mining expansion, and subsequent industrial manufacturing. 2 These mineral discoveries also led to the two wars of independence between the Voortrekkers and the British Empire, the most important of which, the South African War (Boer War) of 1899–1902, secured British domination in the entire subregion, and led in 1910 to the integration of the Cape Colony, Natal, Orange Free State, and Transvaal into the Union of South Africa.
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Waardes in die rekeningkundige professie : ’n historiese ondersoek na die vestiging van die professie in Suid-Afrika

- Verhoef, Grietjie

  • Authors: Verhoef, Grietjie
  • Date: 2011
  • Subjects: Accountants , Auditors , Accountancy profession , Professional ethics , Professional autonomy
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: uj:5813 , ISSN 0041-4751 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/7821
  • Description: Die professie van rekeningkundiges, rekenmeesters en ouditeure word met agterdog bejëen na die Enron skandaal. Die rekenmeestersprofessie het egter op 'n sterk grondslag van etiese waardes en professionele standaarde 'n worstelstryd gevoer om erkenning en professionele domein beskerming te bewerkstellig. Hierdie artikel ondersoek die waardes van die rekeningkundige professie waarmee die vroegste verteenwoordigers van die professie die stryd gevoer het om erkenning en statutêre beskerming. Wat was die onderliggende waardes en standaarde van die professie soos dit uit Brittanje in Suid-Afrika beslag gekry het? Hoe het die professionele etiek en waardes in die rekeningkundige professie in Suid-Afrika ontwikkel? Die ondersoek sal die sosiale konteks van die professie in historiese perspektief ontleed en probeer aantoon hoe 'n Enron moontlik kon wees. Vir die Suid-Afrikaanse samelewing is hierdie vraagstuk eweseer van belang teen die agtergrond van bemagtigingsbeleidsrigtings en toenemende voorbeelde van korrupsie. Hierdie artikel ondersoek die proses van professionele domeinvestiging in Suid-Afrika en wys hoe die rekenmeestersprofessie 'n eie professionele kode probeer vestig het. Uiteindelik het intra-professionele verskille die inmenging van die staat teen 1951 meegebring. Hierdie ontwikkeling het bepaalde konsekwensies vir professionele outonomie ingehou.
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“Global since Gold” the globalisation of conglomerates : explaining the experience from South Africa, 1990-2009

- Verhoef, Grietjie

  • Authors: Verhoef, Grietjie
  • Date: 2011
  • Subjects: Outward foreign direct investment , Sovereign wealth funds , International enterprises
  • Type: Article
  • Identifier: uj:5840 , http://hdl.handle.net/10210/7870
  • Description: The internationalisation of enterprises is one of the essential ways to strengthen the competitiveness of firms from developing countries (UNCTAD, 2005c: 3). Strong growth in outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) from developing countries has become the distinguishing feature of the twenty-first century. This OFDI flows from state-owned enterprises, sovereign wealth funds (SWF) as well as private enterprises operating as multinational companies from a home base or as free-standing companies. Multinational corporations have commenced activities since the 1960s by moving operations to resource-rich, low-cost labour and capital markets (Wilkins, 1970; 1974; 1988; Jones, 1994; 2005). The first wave of OFDI during the 1960s and 1970s was motivated by efficiency and market-seeking factors. This wave was dominated by firms from Asia and Latin America. A second wave of OFDI followed in the 1980s, led by strategic asset seeking enterprises from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea (Dunning et al., 1996; UNCTAD, 2005b: 3s). Since the 1990s China, Brazil, India, Russia (the so-called BRIC countries) Malaysia, Turkey and South Africa are among the countries expected to add significantly to OFDI growth (UNCTAD, 2005c: 4). The flow of investment funds from developed countries was expected, but the reverse trend displayed the emerging capacities in countries and firms outside the core of the international economy, which challenged the dominance of developed countries and companies from developed countries. These developments have prompted several questions: how do developing country firms succeed in entering global markets? Do these firms improve their competitiveness through OFDI? This paper investigates this phenomenon from the experience of South Africa. The emergence of EMNC (Emerging Market Multinational Corporations) prompted extensive analysis and debates about the nature of and motives for EMNCs, but has also led to more in-depth analysis of specific country characteristics and firm-specific reasons for OFDI.
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