This study is aimed at investigating the effect of mergers and acquisitions on the share prices and dividends involving South African companies in the food and beverage industry. A sample of 79 mergers from 1999 to 2005 was used. The data was analysed using the event study methodology and descriptive statistics. In addition, the paired t-test was also conducted to test the significance of the results. The results were presented using graphs, tables and charts. The results showed that target companies obtained negative abnormal returns during the announcement of mergers while acquiring companies on the other hand received positive abnormal returns. The results imply that it can no longer be generalized that target companies always win and acquiring companies lose during the merger activity. On the other hand, the dividends for target companies increased significantly after the merger, while the dividends for acquiring companies remained insignificantly negative after the merger. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBL

The case study explores how leveraging on experience, risk and control can be used to enhance a late-entrant globalisation strategy.

This study will focus on the South African sugar generic marketing campaign and compare this initiative with other generic food commodity marketing campaigns with the objective of identifying appropriate methodologies for measuring generic marketing campaign effectiveness / The purpose of the study is to determine if consumer attitude towards sugar is an indicator of sugar consumption behaviour. Attitudinal statements were developed using the results of a segmentation study, which classified sugar consumers into six segments. These statements, which were characteristic of consumer attitudes towards sugar, were included in a national survey of 2 516 respondents to test sugar consumption behaviour relative to consumer attitudes. Conventional statistical methods were applied to analyse the sugar consumption behaviour of respondents within the six attitudinal segments. It was found that there is a direct relationship between consumer attitudes towards sugar and sugar consumption behaviour. Consumers with a positive predisposition towards sugar were found to consume significantly more sugar than those in negatively predisposed segments. According to attitude theory, which suggests that attitude can be influenced and changed, the study concludes that generic advertising is an appropriate communication tool to influence and change the attitudes of negatively predisposed sugar users in order to improve sugar consumption. Furthermore the segmentation based on attitudes provides a method for measuring the success of advertising initiatives by monitoring the movement of consumers between positive and negative segments. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBL

The need for government organizations to become competitive is growing with the huge instability in the economy. In parallel, Knowledge Management (KM) has been rapidly growing in the past decade as a source of influence on organisational development practices. Furthermore, the past decade research approaches largely failed to show the importance of KM initiatives in creating synergy with other initiatives to an extent that would lead towards organizational competitiveness. This study address whether KM holistically influences the different organisational development practices, specifically in the context of the government sector. To ascertain the relationships between KM and four prevalent organisational development practices identified in the literature and increasingly used in practice, a quantitative survey approach was undertaken using a series of researcher-developed scales. Based on the literature review, Organisational Excellence (OE), Organisational Learning (OL), Organisational Innovation (OI) and Organisational Competitiveness (OC) were identified to be the most repeated relations with KM. A conceptual framework was designed to test the concept of the holistic influence of KM on the four identified organisational development practices. A total of 625 valid responses were collected from top and middle management from 54 government organizations in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The model was statistically tested according to the research hypotheses by regression analysis then Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Results reveal strong and significant correlations amongst the five prevalent organisational development practices. Even though the holistic influence of the model could not be confirmed, findings show positive KM influence on the remaining organisational development practices, thus KM is an essential factor for government organisations. Besides illustrating KM as an important source of influence, this research establishes a new direction that helps to integrate all governmental organisations initiatives in relevance to organisation development practices leading to better competitiveness. The study makes a novel contribution since it increases the probability of a holistic approach model that brings support for the decision makers to enhance the overall government organizations competitiveness. The scale developed for the model tested can be generalised and used as a self assessment tool for organisational practices in KE. This work sets a baseline for KM practices in the Government of Bahrain and similar GCC Governments and can act as a reference for researchers on KM and competitiveness in the emerging economies countries. Nevertheless, the model need to be further investigated in future research to explore the missing variables in this model to make it more fit. Therefore, the concept of holistic model needs to be further subject to empirical investigations to explore its viability. The major limitation of this research is it been addressed only in the government sector and in one country.

This study will focus on the South African sugar generic marketing campaign and compare this initiative with other generic food commodity marketing campaigns with the objective of identifying appropriate methodologies for measuring generic marketing campaign effectiveness / The purpose of the study is to determine if consumer attitude towards sugar is an indicator of sugar consumption behaviour. Attitudinal statements were developed using the results of a segmentation study, which classified sugar consumers into six segments. These statements, which were characteristic of consumer attitudes towards sugar, were included in a national survey of 2 516 respondents to test sugar consumption behaviour relative to consumer attitudes. Conventional statistical methods were applied to analyse the sugar consumption behaviour of respondents within the six attitudinal segments. It was found that there is a direct relationship between consumer attitudes towards sugar and sugar consumption behaviour. Consumers with a positive predisposition towards sugar were found to consume significantly more sugar than those in negatively predisposed segments. According to attitude theory, which suggests that attitude can be influenced and changed, the study concludes that generic advertising is an appropriate communication tool to influence and change the attitudes of negatively predisposed sugar users in order to improve sugar consumption. Furthermore the segmentation based on attitudes provides a method for measuring the success of advertising initiatives by monitoring the movement of consumers between positive and negative segments. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBL

The case study explores how leveraging on experience, risk and control can be used to enhance a late-entrant globalisation strategy.

The research aims to establish a framework whereby performance management systems can be assessed in terms of its effectiveness. The industry in which research is conducted is the call centre industry in South Africa. / The field of Performance Management is receiving more attention today than ever before. This is due to the fact that many companies are becoming more and more frustrated by the ‘disconnect’ that exists between formulating their strategy and successful delivery against it. The aim of this research is to determine how performance is managed in organisations, but more importantly, how it should be managed. To this end, this research considers the total endeavour required to manage performance as a system, and wishes to contribute towards specifying how this system must ‘hang together’. This research is conducted against the backdrop of the call centre industry in South Africa. The call centre industry is an area of potential growth in South Africa and in need of evaluating and improving their performance results to meet or exceed the international benchmarks. This level of global pressure makes call centres an appropriate subject of analysis on a topic such as Performance Management. The nature of this research was mostly exploratory, by firstly reviewing existing theory and literature relevant to this subject. Subsequent to this, two assessment instruments were used to assess the desired situation with regards to Performance Management Systems in South African call centres. The one instrument was developed as a result of the theory and literature reviewed during this research project (the PMSAI). Another, existing, instrument, the PMA®, (De Waal, 2004) was also used to provide a different view and provides an opportunity to triangulate this project. It also addresses the current status of Performance Management Systems in South African call centres to highlight shortcomings as a basis to review and improve these systems. The main findings of this research are that a successful Performance Management System should take cognisance of a number of factors in- and outside of the organisation as well as the interplay between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ elements in the system. Examples of these factors are the industry and focus of the organisation, as well as what the Performance Management System must be used for. Examples of ‘hard’ vs ‘soft’ elements are responsibilities for performance targets (hard) and the level of buy-in to achieve the targets (‘soft’). In the end, a perfect ‘answer’ to Performance Management is elusive and is likely to remain so mainly due to the inherent complexity and level of variety that this system must cater for.

This study is aimed at investigating the effect of mergers and acquisitions on the share prices and dividends involving South African companies in the food and beverage industry. A sample of 79 mergers from 1999 to 2005 was used. The data was analysed using the event study methodology and descriptive statistics. In addition, the paired t-test was also conducted to test the significance of the results. The results were presented using graphs, tables and charts. The results showed that target companies obtained negative abnormal returns during the announcement of mergers while acquiring companies on the other hand received positive abnormal returns. The results imply that it can no longer be generalized that target companies always win and acquiring companies lose during the merger activity. On the other hand, the dividends for target companies increased significantly after the merger, while the dividends for acquiring companies remained insignificantly negative after the merger. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBL

The aim of the diploma thesis is the analysis of enhancing the competitiveness of small-sized enterprise applied to a particular company. The theoretical part specifies the basic characteristics of "small and medium-sized enterprises" and the factors of competitiveness, which are divided into four basic areas of business management -- management, marketing, human resource management and financial management. The practical part is related to theoretical piece of knowledge applied to the company "FCC Industrial Systems Ltd.". The result of the company analysis is suggesting of recommendations aimed for enhancing the competetiveness.

A Research Report presented to the Graduate School of Business Leadership University of South Africa. In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the MASTERS DEGREE IN BUSINESS LEADERSHIP, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA / The purpose of this research is to analyse the changes in housing values in Windhoek, Namibia over the past ten years and explore links in property value variation to macroeconomic changes during that period. The objectives of this research are twofold. Firstly this research compiles and assesses the movement of housing values over the past ten years. Secondly this research assesses if there is a causal relationship between changes in macroeconomic factors and housing values, and to define the nature of this relationship. The timing and magnitude of response by housing values to changes in macroeconomic factors are investigated. The primary data requirements for this study are a monthly relative value index of housing prices for the Windhoek area and macroeconomic factors. Macroeconomic data collected relates to macroeconomic conditions within Namibia that could have an effect on housing prices. This includes information on housing supply, GDP, population levels, inflation and interest rates. The results of this study explore the relationship between these factors and changes in housing prices as reflected by changes in the housing index. The most significant result of this study is the effect of housing availability on housing values. Changes in the total supply of housing as estimated by the number of houses built in a month affect changes in housing values after 5 and 6 months. A total of 20.5% of the change in housing values can be explained by the change in total housing supply. The effect of interest rates found by this study was lower than the theory and literature reviews would have led us to expect. The results of the Pearson correlation test for the relationship between percentage changes in interest rates and percentage changes in future housing values found that a relationship exists 8 months after the change in interest rates occurred. Interest rates were found to explain 5.5% of the change in housing values 8 months later. No significant effects were noted for changes in inflation. For population and income changes there was insufficient data to perform more than a high level look at possible interactions with the level of housing prices. / Graduate School of Business Leadership / MBL