Thesis (MBA.) --University of Limpopo, 2006 / This study focused on finding out whether or not the grade nine learners in the Zebediela area displayed an entrepreneurial potential. The main purpose was that those learners with entrepreneurial potential would be considered for appropriate training so that at the end they would contribute positively towards the economic development and growth of the community, province and country. The population consisted of 2 693 learners from 35 secondary schools in the Zebediela area. The sample of 45 respondents (learners) from a total of 658 grade nine learners was drawn from nine secondary schools. The respondents filled in the General Enterprising Tendencies (GET) questionnaire each (to assess five elements such as the need for achievement, the need for autonomy, a creative tendency, moderate risk-taking , as well as drive and determination) and also took part in a group and structured interview. This study discovered that the respondents indeed showed the entrepreneurial potential and therefore, the strategies were recommended in the last chapter in order to nurture this potential.

Thesis (MTech (Electrical Engineering))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2007 / This work examines the challenges facing the Department of Electrical Engineering at CPUT regarding the development of entrepreneurship in the South Africa. Industry and higher education in South Africa face a testing future of profound technological change, a shortage of engineers, as well as an engineering job market that continues to grow ever smaller. There is a pressing need for technology graduates to harbour skills to grow new high technology ventures. The recent report published by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor showed our graduates having the potential to reverse the negative growth in the skills market by way of wealth creation and thus job creation. Therefore, academic institutions, such as CPUT, need to produce not only quality technology graduates, but also effective entrepreneurial graduates. This research examines ways in which the curriculum at the faculty could be expanded to include an engineering-biased entrepreneurship stream, presenting engineering graduates with opportunity to generate income from sources other than the job market. The perception of both first year and BTech (fourth year) students are tested regarding the need for entrepreneurial engineers in the SA economy, and the academic's role in supporting such a need. The perception of senior staff are also sought to provide a more rounded perspective on possible interventions. The results show both entry-level and exit-level students agree an additional stream, focusing on entrepreneurship would empower them to make informed decisions regarding their futures. The results could be used to shape the sustainable inclusion of entrepreneurial imperatives in an engineering context.

M.Comm. / South Africa is one of the most promising tourism destinations of the African continent. There is no doubt that the extremely positive growth experienced in the South African tourism industry after the elections of April 1994, will continue. The rapid growth in the tourism industry resulted in a shortage of informal accommodation. This shortage is an opportunity for potential entrepreneurs to enter the informal accommodation sector and specifically the guesthouse component. Emerging entrepreneurs however perceive a lack of information on how to enter the industry. The aim of this study is to set guidelines for potential entrepreneurs concerning the strategic decisions involved in the establishing, running and management of a guesthouse. This study commences with a literature review followed by the empirical research. With the literature study emphasis was given to the identification of current tourism trends, specifically regarding the accommodation sector. Entrepreneurship was defined and related theories analysed. Thereafter, the functional management and the daily running of the guesthouse were discussed. The empirical research was of a qualitative nature. A convenience sample was used, consisting of eight guesthouse entrepreneurs on the Garden Route, Western Cape. A structured questionnaire was designed with the literature review as a foundation. Personal interviews were conducted with the eight entrepreneurs. The main findings of the empirical research are as follows: Guesthouse entrepreneurs are faced with the unavailability of financial support in the establishing of the business, numerous staff challenges and a 24-hour owner responsibility. The location of the guesthouse is the single most important establishing factor, while the success of the guesthouse is further determined by the character of the buildings, the nature of the cuisine and the unique atmosphere of the guesthouse. Most guesthouse owners are typical entrepreneurs and are extremely creative. Financial-, marketing- and human resource management are often the responsibility of the owner. Most guesthouse entrepreneurs do not posses formal knowledge and experience regarding the management of the guesthouse. The guesthouse is usually an extension of the entrepreneur's personality; a high level of owner involvement is required at all times to ensure profitability. Personalised attention is most often the keyword to the guesthouse entrepreneur's success. The guesthouse is a most rewarding type of business to be involved in.

The situation in South Africa throws up a trickier and more unconventional challenge. The country has symptoms of a spatial realm that is not fully connected with the urban systems (spatially, socially, or structurally) and is certainly disconnected from the rural economy. This is the realm of the country’s townships and informal settlements. Conceptually, they are relics of the country’s special past, but the policies of post-apartheid South Africa have inadvertently kept their contemporary reality alive. In many ways, the townships and especially the informal settlements are similar to the slums in much of the developing world, although never was a slum formed with as much central planning and purpose as were some of the larger South African townships. This paper undertakes to understand the growth strategies of black township entrepreneurs in South Africa. This paper also undertakes to investigate the perceived influence of education, government policies, access to funding, market constraints, crime and social norms on the development or perceived growth strategies for black township entrepreneurs. Propositions are made and tested through conducting interviews with individuals involved with the dynamics presented by this subject on a day to day basis. Evidence collected is interpreted into knowledge and finally recommendations are made.

This study gives a rich and detailed account of the lived experiences of social entrepreneurs in Gauteng, South Africa. The research seeks to give a better understanding of their day-to-day experiences in their journeys as social entrepreneurs. The paper also sheds light into their motivations, the key resources needed to start the enterprise, the types of support and benefits received and the challenges faced to date. A qualitative research approach was used to gather data through face-to-face in-depth interviews. Judgement and purposive sampling techniques were used to select twelve respondents for the research. Findings of the research show that social entrepreneurs are motivated by a social objective and that this takes precedence over personal wealth creation. Social entrepreneurs need both tangible and intangible resources to begin a social enterprise. Although financial capital is imperative, this does not hinder the social entrepreneur from addressing the identified social need. Social entrepreneurs often receive support from different sources, such as the community and family. A common challenge faced is the inability to balance the double bottom line comprising of social impact and financial sustainability. Despite the challenges faced, these social entrepreneurs are persistent in making a difference. They are often celebrated by their communities, family members, and, most importantly, the beneficiaries for the positive impact they have made / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / zkgibs2014 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

M.Com. (Business Management) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

M.Com. (Business Management) / South Africa is being confronted with escalating unemployment rates. Entrepreneurship is regarded as a probable solution to this problem due to the entrepreneur's ability to create jobs, adapt successfully to changing circumstances and mostly being labour intensive. The main question is though how to assure substantial growth in the amount of entrepreneurs in South Africa. The aim of this study is to contribute to the solution of the above problem by emphasising the training and development of entrepreneurs in creative skills and abilities. The training and development of potential, as well as established entrepreneurs, will contribute to the enhancement of increasing numbers of entrepreneurs and established entrepreneur's success. Why the training and development of creativity? Certain common personality traits of creative people and successful entrepreneurs were compared. It was then concluded that creative ability plays an important role in the establishment as well as functioning of the established entrepreneur. To assure that entrepreneurs are trained and developed successfully in creativity, it must start at a very young age. The training and development in creativity are very subtle at pre-primary and primary school levels. At secondary school training and development of entrepreneurs should become more important and must be integrated into business related subjects. Most tertiary institutions have entrepreneurship courses or entrepreneurship integrated into a subject-related course.

The social problems that exist within South Africa cannot be ignored. The magnitude of poverty, unemployment and crime that exist are ever increasing while HIV/Aids has left 10 percent of the children within this country orphaned. Discrepancies in the access to proper healthcare and education between the private sector and the public sector is evident, mainly due to the failure of the public sector (government) to effectively implement and manage the healthcare and education systems in South Africa. In the last decade, there has been a significant increase in the number of registered non-profit organisations which can be attributed to a greater awareness of the social problems that exist, as well as the inability of the government and the public sector to address the social problems on their own. Social entrepreneurs are attempting to find innovative solutions to these problems by starting non-profit organisations and then implementing projects and programmes that will help alleviate these social problems. Social entrepreneurship is a fairly new concept, particularly within the realm of academic research. Previous studies on social entrepreneurship have highlighted the need for social entrepreneurs and have also emphasised the many challenges these social entrepreneurs face, one of which is the lack of education and business skills training. Research indicates that a non-profit organisation should be run like a small business in order to be successful, which highlights the importance for social entrepreneurs to be equipped with the appropriate business skills. The impact that a social entrepreneur’s education and business skills training has on the success of a non-profit organisation is however still largely unknown. The purpose of this study was three-fold: firstly, to study the relationship between the education and business skills training of a social entrepreneur and the successful functioning of their non-profit organisations; secondly, to develop recommendations for social entrepreneurs on how to more effectively manage their non-profit organisations and guide them in what business training will benefit them as a social entrepreneur; and lastly, to add to the already existing knowledge on social entrepreneurs, particularly within a South African context. The main research methodology used to conduct the empirical investigation in this study was qualitative in nature. Elements of quantitative data collection were adopted in the instruments in order to ensure standardisation when measuring a social entrepreneur’s education and business skills training, as well as the success of their respective non-profit organisation. In-depth interviews were conducted with fourteen social entrepreneurs who work in a variety of social developmental sectors within South Africa. An interview guide was developed to record the formal levels of education and business skills training received by the respondents and to discuss the impact of other types of education and business skills training on their capabilities as managers of non-profit organisations. A tool was developed to measure the success of the respective non-profit organisations and the results were compared to the social entrepreneur’s levels of education and business skills training. Global analysis was the data analysis technique adopted in this study and was used to identify common themes among the transcripts as well as possible relationships between different variables. There were two main findings with regard to the impact a social entrepreneur’s education and business skills training has on the successful functioning of his/her respective non-profit organisation. Firstly, the formal types of education and business skills training of a social entrepreneur have a direct impact on the success of a nonprofit organisation. Secondly, once a social entrepreneur has completed school level education, informal types of education and business skills training play a bigger role than formal types in the effective management and success of his/her respective non-profit organisation. The findings of the empirical investigation showed that the most valuable three types of informal education and business skills training include workshops and conferences, business experience and networks. The most important recommendation for social entrepreneurs is that their school level education should be completed, in order to access further education and business skills training opportunities. The social entrepreneurs must equip themselves with certain skills and knowledge, namely: financial management, legal knowledge, human resource management, strategic management, monitoring and evaluation skills, technical skills and research skills, in order to ensure the successful functioning of their respective non-profit organization.

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.

With soaring unemployment rates coupled with stifled growth and rising inequality, the economic outlook in South Africa is disheartening. Entrepreneurial activity is viewed as a catalyst of economic development, and as such, government and policy makers should be creating an environment in which the determinants of entrepreneurship can be fostered. Entrepreneurial intention has been shown to be a leading indicator of future entrepreneurial activity. With an understanding of the links between entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurial activity, and economic growth, it is clear that the South African economy faces a challenge; not only is economic development slow, but levels of entrepreneurial intention are low. This research paper planned to study the significance of the Theory of Planned Behaviour through structural equation modelling, as a predictor of entrepreneurial intention within a sample that has previously received little attention, and is commonly known to produce numerous entrepreneurs including high impact entrepreneurs; the South African Jewish Community. The results illustrate that the Theory of Planned Behaviour was a sound model with the sample data; however the Theory of Planned Behaviour did not provide a significant prediction of entrepreneurial intention within the South African Jewish Community. Further analysis discovered that within the Jewish Community of South Africa, perceived behavioural control provided powerful predictive strength of entrepreneurial intention. Attitude toward the behaviour and subjective norms provided insignificant predictive strength of entrepreneurial intention. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / zkgibs2015 / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / Unrestricted