Patient Rambe

Integrated corporate reporting (ICR), which entails the process of compiling, documenting and reporting on company’s resources, its ongoing relationships with key stakeholders; business models; products (services); and the impact of such products (or services) on stakeholders, society, as well as the environment to optimize company value, has generated considerable interest among top 100 Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) listed companies in South Africa over the last decade. Despite the surging interest in ICR to leverage the social responsibility, transparency and public accountability of companies in the developing African countries, little is known about the combined influence of ICR and internal company resources and/ capabilities (e.g., age and experience of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO)) on the performance of South African listed companies. The main objective of this study, therefore, is to examine the impact of Integrated Reporting Ratings (IRR); the company CEO’s age; and his/her years as a CEO on the share price of the company within the South African context. The top-106 JSE listed companies for the period Year-end 2014 constitute the sample for this study. Multivariate non-parametric regression is used to model the relationship between the predictor (i.e., independent) variables and the response (i.e., dependent) variable using MATLAB. The model developed in this study is, then, used to evaluate the impact of IRR; the CEO’s age and years of experience as CEO on the share price of individual companies. The proposed methodology is illustrated step-by-step. The finding of the study reveal that the share price of a company tended to increase with an increase in IRR, age and years of experience of the CEO, demonstrating that a company’s established history in integrated reporting and corporate experience positively impact its performance (i.e., the share price).

Keywords: integrated corporate reporting, corporate responsibility, JSE listed companies, MATLAB.
JEL Classification: G17

In view of the increasingly competitive business world, prudent spending and cost recovery have become the driving force for the optimal performance of large public organizations. This study, therefore, examined the cost-effectiveness of a Large Energy Utility (LEU) in a Southern African country by exploring the relationship between extraction of transactional customer data (that is, data on the servicing and repairing energy faults) and the Utility’s recurrent expenditure (especially its technicians’ overtime bill). Using data mining, a large corpus of the LEU Area Centre (AC) data was extracted to establish the relationship between transactional customer data extraction including capture and the financial cost of the LEU (e.g., recurrent expenditure on overtime bill). Results indicate that incorrect extraction and capturing of transactional customer service data has contributed significantly to the LEU’s escalating overtime wage bill. The data also demonstrate that the correct extraction and capturing of transactional customer service data can positively reduce the financial costs of this LEU. The paper demonstrates one of the few attempts to examine the effects of correct data extraction and capture on the financial resources of struggling large public energy utility. Using Resource Based Theory, the study also demonstrates how technicians’ feedback on incorrect transactions enhances the measurement of inaccurate transactional data albeit a burgeoning overtime wage bill incentives.

Keywords: Large Energy Utility, inaccurate transactional data extraction, financial costs, Resource Based View.
JEL Classification: L94, L97, C8

The rich body of literature examining the entrepreneurship education-entrepreneurship intention relations tends to neglect the influence of contingent and other mediating factors on the relationship. This elusion creates an erroneous assumption that entrepreneurship intentions are insulated from external influences and the entrepreneurship education-intentions relationship is an automatic, directly linear interaction. Contesting this premise, this research explores the influence of exposure to entrepreneurship education (EE), mediated by precursors (such as attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control) to entrepreneurial intentions on the actual entrepreneurship intentions (EI) of vocational education students at a particular institution in Zimbabwe. Drawing on a cross-sectional research design and 154 randomly selected students, the study examines the extent to which they intended to engage in entrepreneurship careers in the near future. A non-parametric technique, the Spearman correlation test, and regression analysis were employed to test the relationships between EE on the direct determinants of EI, between the immediate determinants of EI and actual EI and to test a number of predictive effects. The results demonstrate that EE had a positive correlation with the direct determinants of EI. In addition, EE predicted all the immediate determinants of EI, except for subjective norms. Lastly, there was no evidence to support a direct predictive effect of EE on EI, controlling for other psychological factors. To a large extent, the results validated the Theory of Planned Behavior as a guiding tool for estimating any premeditated entrepreneurial behavior. Thus, the Theory remains an invaluable theoretical lens for academics, educators and policymakers’ evaluation of effective ways of enhancing the grooming of potential entrepreneurs.

The increasing prominence of social media marketing in advancing the global reach and visibility of products and services is ideal for the South African tourism industry, which depends on local and international visitors for leveraging its business activities and competitiveness. However, what remains under-explored in tourism literature is the depth of integration of social media marketing into the competitive strategies of emerging tourism small, micro and medium enterprises (SMMEs). To address this grey area, this study explored the extent to which tourism SMMEs utilize social media technologies (SMTs) to extend their market share and the implications thereof for the competitiveness of their business operations. Drawing on a quantitative approach, a survey was conducted on 234 tourism SMMEs’ owner/managers in the Free State province of South Africa to establish the impact of social media marketing on the competitiveness of their businesses. Evidence suggests that tourism SMMEs employed social media marketing predominantly for online marketing of their products/services, promoting their products/services, attracting existing customers, and sometimes, for integrating it into their marketing strategies. Results of correlation analysis revealed that social media marketing is positively and significantly related to the competitiveness of tourism SMMEs. The recommendations for leveraging the integration of social media marketing into the competitive strategy of the small business are provided.