To address declining membership, counter switching behaviours and heighten potential exit barriers, brand experience is considered as mediator of loyalty and satisfaction amongst churches in Johannesburg, South Africa and with the aim of influencing attachment decisions. Brand experience is considered to consist of five dimensions, encompassing a behavioural, emotional, intellectual, relational and sensory component. The purpose of the research was to consider whether brand experience as mediator of satisfaction and loyalty is observed in the religious and church industry and whether it differs amongst specific churches. It also aimed to determine whether age, duration of membership, level of education or membership status is a mediating factor of these constructs. By undertaking a quantitative explanatory study, 12 churches participated in obtaining 675 valid responses by means of an electronic survey to achieve the research objectives. Using the Brand Experience Scale, as developed by Brakus, Schmitt and Zarantonello (2009) and enhanced to include a relational dimension as proposed by Nysveen, Pedersen and Skard (2013), 15 statements considered the five dimensions of brand experience, and ten statements evaluated loyalty and satisfaction perceptions. It was found that brand experience as mediator of loyalty and satisfaction is observed within the religious industry and that it differs amongst churches. Age and membership status were shown to influence the constructs, whereas duration of membership or level of education was not confirmed. The findings offer some recommendations for stakeholders that include church leadership, marketing practitioners, youth workers, arts practitioners, and teachers and educators to enhance the brand experiences of their offerings. Suggestions for future research are also set out. / Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / sn2016 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

This qualitative exploratory study was intended to ascertain the enabling abilities of middle managers to facilitate innovation and agility in an organisation in order to achieve competitive advantage. This research indicated the importance of middle management in the organisation and the facilitative role they fulfil. This case study research was conducted in the Halfway Group. The enablers of incremental innovation was of particular interest for the dealerships as they are seen as first movers in the South African context. The motivation for this study is that the researcher found inadequate academic literature focusing on the enabling abilities of middle management in order to continuously improve and in doing so gain a competitive advantage in an ever changing environment. It was the researcher s supposition that this research would aid dealerships to attain a more thoughtful understanding of how they could enable middle management to facilitate the desired innovation and agility to gain the sustained competitive advantage in the market. A sample of eight middle managers in the Halfway Group was selected and semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with them as the data gathering method. The research proposals guided the coding and organising of the data. The analysis, discussions and results were structured to answer the research proposals. This research revealed that middle managers are the likely enablers of innovation and agility in the organisation through the facilitation of the incremental innovation process. Continuous improvement enhances products and services to provide an organisation with a competitive advantage in the market. Resultantly, the dealerships are likely to gain reputational benefits of being continuous improvement leaders , which contributes to the value proposition offering. However, the dealers have to continuously innovate as their competitors are quick to imitate any successful innovations to stay relevant in the market. Various middle management and business recommendations were made to dealerships in the study to aid them take advantage of the enabling abilities they can unlock in middle management to facilitate incremental innovation and agility in the organisation. / Mini-disseration (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / nk2016 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

The current business landscape is vastly different from that of a decade ago, due to the continuous technological advancements influencing all aspects of business strategy. This digital evolution impacting organisations has increased the necessity for organisational leaders to incorporate new digital capabilities into their digital business strategies and the design of their digital business models. There is thus a need for organisations to design digital business models that enable them to not only remain competitive, but to also capitalise on the opportunities available to them in the new digital world. The findings of this research indicate that six business model components that were postulated to form part of a digital business model design are statistically significant in influencing the success of a digital business strategy. In addition, the results indicate the cumulative effect these business model components have in determining the success of the digital business strategy. Furthermore, the results enable the ranking of the various business model components regarding their importance in cumulatively influencing the success of the digital business strategy. Comparative and multivariate data analysis was conducted on 97 employees who operated on a strategic level within organisations, where a digital business strategy was present and/or where the organisation offered digital products and/or services to the market. As such, only middle to senior level employees who were involved with digital strategy development and execution formed part of the research. / Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / vn2016 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

The majority of large IT projects fail completely costing businesses billions with very little benefit to show for the money they ve spent. This has prompted considerable, but indecisive, amounts of research regarding the reasons for project success and failure. This exploratory study uses a current case study to provide a high level conceptual model for project success. This model serves as both an academic summary of recent research as well as a high level blue print that can be used by organisations looking to implement large information systems. The study further concludes by providing a detailed risk formula that can be empirically tested in future research and used as an indicative measure of project specific risk. / Mini-disseration (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / nk2016 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

Economies with weak or inefficient institutions are often replete with structural holes that if filled lead to the expansion of network structures and new intelligence regarding market opportunities. South African companies embarking on an internationalisation strategy into Sub-Saharan Africa could benefit from the insights and experiences of some of South Africa s biggest companies currently investing in the region. This research analyses these experiences and offers contribution to the understanding of how inter-organisational partnerships and employment decisions impact on a company s ability to bridge the structural holes they face in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using a qualitative research process, semi-structured interviews were conducted with eleven senior managers from South African companies. The findings from the research suggests that inter-organisational partnerships and employment decisions, if conducted properly, positively impacts on a company s ability to navigate these structural holes. South African expatriates, deployed as senior managers in the host country operation, are highly valued for their ability to transfer skills and knowledge to the local workforce. However, the knowledge gaps displaye / Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / ms2016 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

The ability to effectively persuade in the context of the highly competitive, fast-paced, but tight global economy is arguably an elixir to organisational growth in these challenging times. Sustainable growth is dependant not only on carving out a distinctive value proposition, but also on convincing the market of the merits thereof in order to remain competitive. The need for this research originated from the gap in literature on the interconnectedness of persuasive instruments, and their effectiveness as mechanisms for organisational growth. Rhetoric and social influence are complex phenomena, and their impact as persuasive instruments incompletely understood. By better understanding their interconnectedness, the researcher hoped to appreciate how executives could possibly leverage them, from an organisational perspective, as instruments of growth. A hypothetical framework was generated based on the themes that emerged from the literature review. The framework was sense tested through in-depth interviews with executives and the subsequent data analysis process, with the aim of validating its rationale and a number of assumptions made in its creation. Interviews were conducted with fourteen research respondents from a cross-section of industries, comprising of eight executives in the listed corporate environment as well as six owners of private entities. The stated objective of the research was to debunk growth strategy in the context of the arduous current economic environment, and to explore executives experiences and perspectives of growth strategy. The underlying objective of the research was to investigate executives instinctive use of rhetoric and social influence as persuasive instruments, as observed in the description of their growth strategies. Research respondents were only made aware of the underlying research objective after interview completion, so as to ensure the integrity of the data. Through their narratives, research respondents enabled triangulation of the various phenomena investigated. A refined model, dubbed the contemporary model of persuasive instruments emerged from the findings of the research. It presented a conceptualised framework of the combinations of rhetoric and social influence which were observed in the interviews with executives. The research contributed toward the facilitation of a better understanding of the interplay of persuasive instruments in practice, which provided valuable insight on how to utilise these to the benefit of business. The model, whilst only conceptual in nature, requires more rigorous strength testing through the collection of quantitative data to further validate the findings. / Mini-disseration (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / nk2016 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

The purpose of this research was to investigate the extent to which strategic foresight was used by business leaders with a focus on the South African Platinum Mining Industry. The motivation for the research was the reports of prevailing conditions in the mining sector, which brought into question the level at which strategic foresight was used in planning. This raised a further question of whether academic research of the past 50 years was perceived as valuable by organisational leaders. Because strategic foresight is a managerial tool that, among other things, takes into consideration the value of employees and other stakeholders, the researcher interviewed corporate Heads of Strategy, Business Development and Sustainability, and Risk, Assurance and Sustainability. Finance, Risk and Operations Managers in the operations were also interviewed. Conclusions reached in this research were that use of strategic foresight, as explained by Rohrbeck & Gemünden, (2008), Slaughter, (1995) and Godet, (2008), seemed to be limited in the area of focus which was the South African Platinum Mining sector. This was due to the fact that all participating organisations seemed to have an idea of what it was but, either had no resources to properly implement it; lacked the understanding of the concepts; or simply felt that parts of the process, rather than the whole process, would be sufficient to guarantee success. / Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / ms2016 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

The essence of entrepreneurship spanning many decades, from, broadly put, seen as any attempt to create something new to current times including concepts of economic value creation and uncertainties. The urgency of small businesses contributing to the creation of this value is visible to the country due to unemployment stagnating at 25.5% and the 2008 financial crisis not a so distant memory. Entrepreneurship breeds innovation which can be turned into an economic value. Small businesses are a breeding place for innovation. Entrepreneurship Orientation (EO), a concept in entrepreneurship literature highlights the innovativeness, pro-activeness and risk taking businesses can be positively on business performance. However, with the high mortalities of small business at stages of business inception, a need has been created in relooking at what the factors impacting business are critical for to improve on SMEs life expectancy. By inferring age of the business as a measure of business performance, a quantitative cross sectional study was conducted on 62 owners of small businesses with age of 10 years and beyond to investigate what the owners perceived as factors critical for SME survival. Through the ranking of the factors deemed to impact on SME performance, an understanding of what factors were deemed critical was found. A focus on managerial skills on managing business resources and value offering moderated by / Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / pa2016 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

An innovation deficit may exist due to cycles of Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) as managers of innovation driven business use a strategy of buying growth at the expense of innovation. It is recognised that innovations are vital for economic growth and society depends on innovations from industries such as pharmaceutical and biotechnology as a matter of public health. Empirical studies exist that explain why companies engage in M&A and the impact thereof on company performance but with a non-specific industry focus. The impact of M&A on innovation driven businesses is less well documented. This identified a gap in the knowledge in this area and to address it, this research examined specifically the effects of M&A activity on innovation-driven businesses as proxied by the pharmaceutical and biotechnological industries. A quantitative, causal design using a time series approach was employed for the research. Specifically event study methodology, which measured the impact of a specific event on the value of a company and a joint set of variables, was the main tool used for this research. Cumulative average abnormal returns (CAARs) were calculated to assess the impact of the M&A event on the value of the companies. An accounting study was used to determine abnormal operating financial performance. Parametric tests, non-parametric tests, and descriptive statistics were used to assess variables, namely research and development intensity, sales performance, and cost efficiency. Secondary company data used for the analysis such as data on the M&A transactions, stock prices, and data from company financial statements was sourced mainly from the Zephyr database. A sample of 35 transactions in the period 2005-2015 was selected based on purposive sampling. Parametric (paired-sample t-tests, matched pairs t-tests, paired sample correlations) and non-metric tests (Wilcoxon Signed Rank Sum tests and the Friedman test) were performed at the 95% confidence interval. A bootstrapping technique was used to test the statistical significance of the results of the CAARs. This research concluded that post the transaction the acquirers shareholders earn positive but statistically insignificant returns in the short-term; up to one year post the transaction the acquirers face a significant decline in research and development intensity and are less cost effective while the operating financial performance and sales performance, are not significantly impacted. / Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / sn2016 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

One of the commodities in the commercial world has become access to data, specifically personal information. The Internet has rapidly expanded a company s ability to access consumers and individuals personal information, however consumers privacy-concerns regarding the disclosure of their personal information have continued to increase. Using an e-mail marketing campaign, this research explored the impact of using third-party privacy seal (lock) as signals to facilitate consumers disclosing private information. The study employed a live experimental randomised two-group post-test only design, whereby an e-mail advertisement, identical in design except for the image of a third party seal (lock) placed on the non-control group s e-mail. The test explored whether the e-mail advertisement containing the third-party privacy signal (lock) had an impact on whether or not the recipient behaved in a certain way in comparison to the e-mail advertisement that did not contain a lock. The results showed no real significant difference of the third-party seal (lock) on the consumer s preparedness to disclose personal information. Whilst the lock may be used as a trust symbol it is not enough, within the online advertising context, to entice disclosure of personal information. To remain competitive, companies will need to reassess their advertising strategies and further research will need to identify high value signals to encourage consumer disclosure. / Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2015. / vn2016 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted