Bibliography: pages 183-200. / The fundamental question is not whether South Africa should have a National Information Technology Policy to exploit Information Technology (IT), but more fundamentally what kind of government policies and programs for IT make sense. In today's competitive world what kind of policies and programs will be for the betterment of South Africa's economic and social structures? How can the South African government use IT to increase international competitiveness, and at the same time enhance economic and technological progress and create social improvement in the country? These and many other fundamental questions are the basis for this investigation. The starting point of this research was to compare South African IT to that in other countries; Expert opinion was obtained to identify specific issues, goals and technologies, and to propose ideas for government policies to: i) increase the country's competitiveness, ii) enhance its economic and technological progress, and iii) uplift its people. The main points emerging from this research are that the South African government needs to formulate a National IT Policy in order to direct the development of IT. Competitiveness, progress and social upliftment are inseparable and must be balanced when positioning such a policy. The policy should be directed from a high level to ensure that its recommendations are followed.

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This is a theoretical research report that advocates the achievement of competitiveness in formulating strategies of co-operation with industry participants through the establishment of collaborative networks. A collaborative network is reviewed from a theoretical perspective to add insight into the subject as a mechanism for firms to achieve competitiveness and sustainability. The theory of collaborative networks is explored further in identifying the interdependent components of collaborative networks to better understand their establishment and management. The literature on government policy is also examined from an industry competitiveness perspective, with particular emphasis on the influence of government policy in ensuring successful collaborative networks that achieve industry competitiveness.By using a single case design in the South African Automotive Sector, the interdependent components are linked to the organisational design of the collaborative network. The research was exploratory in developing and extending the theory into an integrated model in assessing the competitiveness of the automotive industry.The research found that the ability to participate in a collaborative network is a strategic resource that firms need to acquire. The research confirmed the establishment and development of the network structure, strategy, dynamics and culture as the enabling platform for successful collaboration with in a network. The research found that the governance structures within the collaborative network are critical in establishing the balance between competition and co-operation and in evolving relationships into partnerships that define the collaborative network as a strategic organisation. The research also found collaborative networks are unique manifestations that achieve efficiencies beyond economic benefit for the participants of the network to the achievement of socio-economic benefit for the industry in the form of entrepreneurship development, job creation and skills transfer. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

This dissertation comprises three essays in the field of empirical corporate finance and it contributes to the literature on the financial and real effects of corporate governance. Broadly defined, corporate governance encompasses all mechanisms that remove frictions in the relationship between firm insiders and outside stakeholders with claims on the cash flows of the company. The field has focused on the relationships between concentrated equity-holders and managers, but there are many other firm claimants. I consider two that are understudied: (1) The government, which holds a claim on firm cash flows through its taxation power. This stake motivates the government to detect and punish manager expropriation. And (2) passive investors, which appear not to engage with the running of individual firms in their maximally diversified portfolios but which may have a portfolio-maximization incentive to do so. In the first two chapters I hypothesize that credible government monitoring creates firm value by reducing frictions between firms and their bank lenders, allowing them to access more and cheaper financing to fund new investments. I quantify the effect in the context of a tax audit program in Ecuador wherein a sub-group of firms were chosen to be audited every year indefinitely. In the first chapter, I show that banks lend more to firms that are known to be under higher government scrutiny, both on the intensive and extensive margins, and do so at lower interest rates and longer maturities. I control for selection bias using a regression discontinuity design based on the procedure the tax authority used to choose which firms to add to the auditing program. In the second chapter, I use the same Ecuadorian setting as in the first chapter to show that government monitoring affects the real economy: Firms subject to more government monitoring increase their employment and their investment in physical capital. This is true even though the firms increase their average tax payments. The estimated employment effects jointly estimate new employment and formalization of existing employees. Investment effects are concentrated in physical capital investments, rather than in intangibles. But what mechanism is driving these results? I determine that the financial and real effects act primarily through government monitoring reducing ``hidden action'' frictions between firms and their lenders. The corporate governance effects of tax enforcement are valuable to firm investors, which update their beliefs on firms' abilities to divert firm resources going forward, making firm actions more predictable under the monitoring regime. The combination of a larger supply of bank credit at a lower price supports this mechanism. Moreover, monitored firms became more likely to borrow from a bank that they had never borrowed from before and to attract investments from new private investors. Finally, it is those firms that appear to be most likely to divert ex ante, by both tax and accounting measures of diversion, that receive the largest decrease in their cost of borrowing once they are chosen for the program. I conclude that this government monitoring, even when it was designed to maximize tax collection, had a meaningful effect on firm access to capital and on the real economy. This evidence supports the hypothesis that predictable government enforcement of laws is an important part of a comprehensive corporate governance system, lowering frictions that are not mitigated through other means and complimenting other mechanisms, such as bank monitoring. The policy implication is that an increase in tax enforcement can benefit both the government and outside firm stakeholders by generating greater tax revenue and increasing the value of the firm to outsiders. In the third chapter I test the hypothesis that shareholder governance, the primary mechanism for inducing managers to maximize own-firm value, may in some circumstances lower manager incentives to maximize the value of their firm when to do so they would need to engage in fierce competition with other firms that their shareholders also own. One way that cross-holding shareholders could incentivize managers to internalize their competition preferences is to influence the composition of executive compensation by increasing the payouts to managers when their industry does well relative to the payouts when their own firm does well. I find no robust relationship between the cross-holdings of minority shareholders and the competition incentives embedded in the compensation of top firm executives. Rather, I find that firms with shareholders that hold relatively more cross-holdings in direct competitor firms are more likely to adopt performance pay that expressly rewards out-performing peers. This chapter contributes to the current policy debate on how to regulate diversified investors by casting doubt on the anti-competitive effects of these holdings, at least through the mechanism of executive compensation, the main way that firms align shareholder and executive incentives.

Includes bibliographies. / This paper explores possible future policy options for a democratically elected South African government as regards private schools. The paper establishes the context of contemporary and historical state policy for private schools in South Africa in combination with a comparative international perspective, a summary of arguments in the literature for and against private schools, and principles identified by a recent (non-governmental) policy investigation into education in South Africa (NEPI) as encapsulating the demands of the democratic movement concerning education. These principles therefore serve as evaluative criteria for the examination of future fiscal and regulatory policy for private schools in South Africa. It will be shown that, as compared to many countries, private schools in South Africa are moderately regulated and receive only moderate financial assistance. However, the historical (and current social and political) context of state policy for private schools will be shown to be one of increasing state support since the early 1980s. It will be argued that this increased level of ideological and fiscal support for private schools in the past decade is a consequence of the government's reformist strategy, and its identification with the politics of 'New Right' parties, which dominated Britain and the USA in particular during the 1980s. It will also be demonstrated that changes in state policy have resulted in large-scale growth in the private schooling sector over the past decade. It is against this background that the lens of democratic principles and fiscal implications will be used to focus on possible future policies for private schooling in South Africa.

Small business enterprises (SBEs) are major contributors to national job creation and employment, but small businesses face a myriad of challenges which lead to their failure before 5 years of operation. Some small business owners lack the skills to create strategies that will lead to long term business survival. Porter'€™s 5 forces competition was used as the conceptual framework for this multiple case study. The purpose of the study was to explore the strategies Nigerian SBEs use to sustain their first 5 years of operation. Semistructured interviews served to collect data from the chief executive officers of 2 SBEs in the maritime industry in Lagos, Nigeria. Data analysis entailed the use of qualitative analysis to capture and organize data and identify emerging themes. Some emerging themes included the securing of the necessary finances, the ability to respond to the effects of government policy, and providing excellent customer service. The implications of this study for social change include the mitigation of the negative effects of business failure on the people of the host community. Small business owners and leaders, partners of small business owners, and policymakers might benefit from this research by deploying the findings to appropriate business domains.

This paper examines national Internet control from a policy regime perspective. The mechanisms through which governments attempt to control the Internet may be developed and implemented by different institutions and agencies, or fall outside of a formal regulatory structure entirely. As such, the totality of the institutions and practices of national Internet control is better conceptualized not as a regulatory regime, but as a control regime. After a survey of the critical policy and control dimensions, a six-part typology of control regimes is proposed. The purpose of this study and typology is exploratory. With comparative research about Internet control regimes at a relatively early stage, this paper aims to enable the formation of concepts and hypotheses about the interrelationship, or co-presence, of key distinguishing variables in different Internet control regimes.

Thesis (M.M. (ICT Policy and Regulation))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Public and Development Management, 2013. / This study examined different elements within the classroom, school and environment in order to establish their influence on technology implementation in schools. A review of the literature suggests that the integration of computers in schools is influenced by a number of separate but inter-related factors. If technology implementations in schools are to achieve the desired objectives as outlined in the e- Education White Paper, it is important that such efforts are cognizant of the unique characteristics of each school setting. Eight schools in Polokwane (Limpopo, South Africa) were chosen for this study, which was intended to evaluate current technology integration efforts against existing policy; and to see what policy lessons may be drawn from this.

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