M. Tech. Organisational Leadership / Entrepreneurs can make valuable contributions to the economic value of a country. These contributions range ranging from employment for the citizens to exports that help capital to flow into the country. An entrepreneur possesses certain personality characteristics or traits that distinguish him or her from others. These characteristics are quite likely to play a very important role in the establishment, performance and success of any enterprise. The aim of this research was to develop greater insight into how certain personality traits can have a bearing on the way in which business is run. Consequently, the study focused on establishing which personality traits are associated with highly successful entrepreneurs. In other words, the study focused on how personality traits relate to high levels of business success irrespective of the era, or of the business and culture settings.

M.Tech. Business Administration. Business School. / Literature suggests that there are three main theories that explore the rate of entrepreneurialism amongst immigrants: the middleman minority, the ethnic market niche and the ethnic enclave economy. Immigrant entrepreneurs tend to target markets that are abandoned or neglected by local entrepreneurs and large chain stores. As a result, immigrant entrepreneurs often occupy business premises that would otherwise have been left vacant, thus providing the owners of the premises with a return on their asset and other benefits to the local community in which these businesses operate. However, there are few studies that have considered the extent to which immigrants contribute to the local economy of Brits in particular and South Africa in general. The study drew parallels between what is deemed as Foreign Direct Investment by multinational enterprises, and the actions of immigrant entrepreneurs in establishing their businesses in a host country. However, there are other characteristics that are associated with immigrant entrepreneurship that are not synonymous with multinational cooperatives, such as contribution to the informal economy and unregulated business practices. The study evaluated the impact of this form of Foreign Direct Investment on the economy of Madibeng Municipality, specifically the town of Brits. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of small businesses owned by immigrant entrepreneurs on the local community of Brits. This impact was analysed by assessing the impact of these businesses on employment creation, revenue to the municipality and investment in real estate, and called micro Foreign Direct Investment by small owned by immigrant entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship as a source of economic growth and competitiveness as well as job creation and the advancement of social interests is well documented. Despite these important contributions to the economies of countries, a shortage of entrepreneurial activity exists across borders and specifically in developing countries such as South Africa. The purpose of this study was to determine the perception and image of an entrepreneur in the eyes of various stakeholders. The reasoning behind this was that if the image of an entrepreneur could be determined, one could establish whether the image positively or negatively influences entrepreneurial intentions as well as potential future entrepreneurial activity. More specifically, the primary objective was to identify the perception and image that potential entrepreneurs (students) and existing entrepreneurs (small business owners) have of an entrepreneur. In the body of knowledge or general literature on entrepreneurship, the most commonly discussed topics are the nature and importance of entrepreneurship, the attributes (personality traits, characteristics and skills) associated with an entrepreneur, various push and pull factors, various rewards and drawbacks of such a career and the challenges entrepreneurs face. It is these aspects of entrepreneurship that stakeholders will most likely have been exposed to, and that most possibly have influenced their perception and image of an entrepreneur. The aforementioned aspects provided an overview of the theoretical body of knowledge on which the perception and image of an entrepreneur is based. The present study adopted a qualitative research paradigm with a phenomenological approach to achieve the research objectives of the study. Within this context, the study made use of a qualitative method for data collection and a quantitative method for data analysis. As such, a mixed methods approach was adopted. More specifically, a qualitative dominant mixed research method was implemented. A continuous word association test, which is a projective technique, was adopted as the qualitative means of data collection. This test involved asking participants to recall the words that come to mind when presented with the word “entrepreneur”. This method was selected because of its ability to reveal both affective and cognitive associations with the concept “entrepreneur”. A quantitative summative (manifest) content analysis was used as the quantitative research method for analysing the data. The continuous word association test was conducted among three sample groups, namely students prior to commencing, and students after completing a module in entrepreneurship, and small business owners. Student and small business owner participants were asked to write down as many words or phrases as possible that came to mind when they thought of the word “entrepreneur”, which was the stimulus word, within a ten-minute period. These responses were then collated and coded by developing a coding framework based on brand image and entrepreneurship literature. In studies on brand image, the components of image are considered to be tristructured in nature, consisting of cognitive (what the individual knows), affective (how the individual feels) and holistic (overall symbolism, combination of affective and cognitive) evaluations. The words generated by the participants in this study were broadly coded according to these categories and further subcategorised by searching for themes within the broad categories, which was facilitated and guided by an in-depth investigation of the entrepreneurship literature. The findings of this study show that the words generated by all three groups of participants were mostly of a cognitive nature, followed by words of a general or affective nature. As such, the vast majority of words generated by all three groups related to what the participants knew about an entrepreneur (cognitive) versus how they felt about one (affective), and were grounded in the management or entrepreneurship literature. When comparing the top ten words most frequently associated with the term “entrepreneur” by the three groups of participants, the attribute risk-taker was the most frequently recalled word among all three groups. Students prior to undertaking the entrepreneurship module associated an entrepreneur with being creative and a risk-taker, having a business enterprise and being involved in the selling of goods and services. Students after completing the module in entrepreneurship associated an entrepreneur with being profit-orientated, a risk-taker, innovative and original, and being opportunistic. Small business owners, on the other hand, associated an entrepreneur with being a risk-taker, innovative and original, goal- and achievement-orientated and profit-orientated. The findings show that all groups of participants associated an entrepreneur principally with certain attributes rather than with learned skills and competencies, and that all groups had a more positive than negative image of an entrepreneur. It was also found that exposure to entrepreneurship literature has an influence on the perception and image that students have of an entrepreneur. Because the words recalled by students after completing the entrepreneurship module were more in line with those recalled by small business owners, than with those recalled by students before starting the module, it can be suggested that entrepreneurship literature contributes to a more realistic image of an entrepreneur among students. This study has contributed to the field of entrepreneurship research by adopting a qualitative dominant research paradigm in conjunction with quantitative research methods to explore the complexity of the term “entrepreneur”. Furthermore, this study has been able to establish how individuals feel about entrepreneurship, in terms of being either positive or negative, by adding an affective aspect to the cognitive aspect of entrepreneurial decision-making. By conducting a continuous word association test among students prior to beginning and after completing a module in entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial knowledge of students before being exposed to entrepreneurship literature was established, and subsequently the effectiveness of the entrepreneurship module determined. It is hoped that the findings of this study have added value to the entrepreneurship body of knowledge and can be used in future studies as a tool to address the problem of low entrepreneurial intention and activity among South Africans. Furthermore, it is hoped that by creating a positive image of an entrepreneur, entrepreneurship as a desirable career choice can be promoted and an entrepreneurial culture developed within communities and broader society.

It is estimated that the failure rate of small, medium and micro enterprises in South Africa’s (SMME’s) are between 70 percent and 80 percent. As a result, millions of rand are lost on business ventures because of essentially avoidable mistakes and problems. Difficulties encountered by small business owner-managers can be described as environmental, marketing, financial or managerial in nature. The primary objective of this study was to investigate the nature and importance of problems experience by small business owner-managers in the private health sector. The design that was used in this study was qualitative, descriptive, exploratory and contextual in nature. This study fell within the broad framework of qualitative research, as interviews were employed to do the research project (Baker, 1999:247). A purposive sample was used to identify the participants for inclusion. The target population was small business owner-managers operating within the private health sector in the Nelson Mandela Metropole. The sample comprised eight business owner-managers in the health sector within the boundaries of the Nelson Mandela Metropole, purposely identified. Before doing the empirical research, a pilot study was conducted with one small business owner-manager that fulfilled the required criteria of the research population. Data was collected by means of naïve sketches and semi-structured interviews. Data was analyzed according to the framework provided by Tesch (in Creswell, 1994). Guba’s model (in Krefting, 1991) was employed for data verification. Interviews were conducted in both Afrikaans and English. iii Direct transcriptions from the tape-recorded interviews ensured that all data was gathered and saved for reference when needed during the data analysis as described by Field and Morse (1996:64). The researcher took observational, theoretical, methodological and personal notes as described in Wilson (1989: 433-435). Transcriptions from sketches and interviews served as the database for the study. Only literature pertaining to the research process was consulted prior to the data collection of the primary data, in order to establish an effective research format. The problems experienced by small business owner-managers in the health sector were discussed under four major themes and several sub-themes identified by the researcher and the independent coder. The main themes that emerged from the study were: small business ownermanagers in the health sector lacked business skills and experience; had financial problems regarding their businesses; had difficulty building a customer base; and were uncertain in terms of their businesses’ future. Conclusions were drawn from the findings of the study and limiting factors were identified and acknowledged in the report. Recommendations that could assist practitioners, educators and trainers were suggested.

MRDV / Institute for Rural Development / Given that successful enterprises globally, play pivotal roles in job creation, income generation, and sustainable livelihood, they can contribute to the economic development of South Africa if such activities are supported. Unfortunately, many youth-run enterprises fail in the first year of operation. This study distilled inherent success driving attributes which could provide learning points for future youth entrepreneurs. A mixed design was applied in which qualitative and quantitative data was gathered. Yamane’s (1973) formula was used to identify a sample of 140 youth entrepreneurs from Dididi, Dumasi, Hasane, and Botsoleni villages in Thulamela Local Municipality. Simple random sampling techniques were used to select the respondents. Open-ended and closed-ended questionnaires were used to collect data through one-on-one interviews. The analysis was done using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 25, where descriptive statistics and other related inferential statistics were performed. Atlas-ti software version 8 was used to analyse the qualitative data. Five major factors, namely: survey, entrepreneurs’ standards, advertisements, clients, and employees and several attributes linked to each factor were identified. Entrepreneurs’ ability to explore existing markets, follow-up trends of innovation, and evaluate ideas were core attributes of survey. Youths’ potential to set goals and targets, make savings for reinvestments, and introduce new businesses were linked to entrepreneurs’ standards. Advertisements, skills to use social media, communicate with clients, and relate with other entrepreneurs were mentioned. Ability to follow up with clients, and give quality services at competitive price were the main attributes associated to clients, while the ability to define task and allocate duties, make timely and healthy payments were identified under employee factor. These attributes informed a model for the enhancement of success endogenous attributes of entrepreneurs. The study recommends the implementation of the model to enhance improved entrepreneurship capacity building through formal and informal education. / NRF

M. Tech. Business Administration / Provision of grants by financial institutions, government units and state owned agencies is of paramount importance in the development of entrepreneurs to the level of self-sustainability. Grants should be given on merit and also according to the needs of entrepreneurs; this can be established by means of feasibility studies done by entrepreneurs and effective funding models. Gert Sibande District is a municipality within the Mpumalanga Province which can be categorised as one of the areas that has previously disadvantaged individuals and most of the areas are rural, semi-rural and declared poverty pocket areas by the Provincial Government. This study was undertaken to analyse the impact of grants on the effective development of entrepreneurs and their sustainability in Gert Sibande District of Mpumalanga Province. The capability of the entrepreneurs and the roles of the support structures in addressing this problem were explored.

The positive role and fundamental contribution of entrepreneurship on a global and national level is an unconditional phenomenon pertaining to economic growth. There are though various perspectives and opinions on the format and context of contribution. One of these perspectives embraces the obstacles involved in the entrepreneurial process hindering contribution and economic catalisation. This study follows a focused approach towards investigating a critical obstacle and specifically the access to finance, within an indicated geographical area. The research intervention has obtained a large and reliable data set to examine the contention that there are obstacles faced by entrepreneurs in accessing small business finance in the Tshwane area. The findings of the study support this contention and also the fact that conventional financing mechanisms do not allow for cost-effective provision of finance to large numbers of entrepreneurs seeking small quantities of finance. Poverty and lack of assets mean that many people do not have the collateral needed to access formal financing. / Business Management / M. Comm. (Business Management)

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) contribute substantially in economies around the world and in South Africa in particular. This study aimed to explore and describe the financial performance measures currently used by manufacturing SMEs in Pretoria. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at the participant SMEs’ premises in order to gather the information. It was found that most of the respondents use financial ratios, but to a limited extent, when measuring their financial performance. The use of bankruptcy prediction models is totally absent among the participants. It has been recommended that SMEs use more ratios from the literature that have been proven to be the best financial measures, and the six ratios that have worked well for some of the participants in the study. It is also recommended that SME owners enrol their financial staff for training in bankruptcy prediction models, and use financial software packages if they can afford them. / Graduate School for Business Leadership / (M.Tech. (Business Administration))

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2015. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The lack of jobs in South Africa and eMalahleni has caused many young people to seek their own job opportunities in the form of setting up their own business. Despite this, many young business people fail in their ventures due to low capital. In response to this, organisations such as the National Youth Development Agency have created support structures to support young business owners in their local area. The purpose of this study is to explore the extent to which the structures and programmes to support youth development – as far as entrepreneurship is concerned – help to cultivate the creation of businesses among the black youth in eMalahleni. Thirty participants who are young entrepreneurs (under 35 years) participated in interviews that helped to elucidate qualitative information about the support structures. They were asked how the support structures had helped them if they participated, or the reasons why they chose not to use the support structure. They were also asked to identify potential bottlenecks or issues with the support structures that may be preventing them from being fully accessible. The results showed that a lack of trust in the support structures, particularly those created by the National Youth Development Agency, was a major reason for non-participation or choice not to use. Additionally, many felt that the hierarchy and unwelcoming atmosphere of the support structures prevented young people from applying. Other reasons given were the fact that the support structures may not always be geographically accessible and the fact that staff members were not fully trained to be as helpful as possible. There are several ways in which these support structures could be improved that are detailed in this research document. The most important recommendation relates to ensuring that the red tape is removed to make the support structures more helpful to a larger number of young black entrepreneurs. Creating a more local atmosphere may also help the support structures to reach their full potential.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) contribute substantially in economies around the world and in South Africa in particular. This study aimed to explore and describe the financial performance measures currently used by manufacturing SMEs in Pretoria. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at the participant SMEs’ premises in order to gather the information. It was found that most of the respondents use financial ratios, but to a limited extent, when measuring their financial performance. The use of bankruptcy prediction models is totally absent among the participants. It has been recommended that SMEs use more ratios from the literature that have been proven to be the best financial measures, and the six ratios that have worked well for some of the participants in the study. It is also recommended that SME owners enrol their financial staff for training in bankruptcy prediction models, and use financial software packages if they can afford them. / Graduate School for Business Leadership / (M.Tech. (Business Administration))