Research has shown that firms within the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector are innovating and launching new products to sustain and enhance market share. For innovation to be successfully launched and supported, however, resources – especially financial resources – are required. This research aimed to establish the relationship between market share and new product launches. Do firms achieve higher market share through new product launches, or is it those firms with an already strong market share that are best positioned to undertake and leverage from innovation? The research was designed as a causal study. Data from four sub-categories within the Personal Care sector in South Africa over a period of five years were obtained from Datamonitor. The unit of analysis was firm per market, and descriptive statistics were used to analyse patterns of market share and new product launches as variables per firm. The results indicated that market share precedes new product launches. In all categories, it was the three existing market leaders that were launching new products, and the market share of each was increasing or at least holding stable. Market leaders are driving innovation within FMCG. However the findings also underlined new product development as a key factor in a firm‟s ability to hold or improve market share. The findings of this research contribute to the literature by enhancing understanding of the practice of innovation as a competitive advantage for businesses within FMCG in survival, sector leadership and attainment of strategic goals. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The decision to expand the operational base of the company into developing markets is but one of the many decisions that executives of multinational companies should be considering in today’s age of increased globalisation. As foreign direct investment can provide excellent alternatives to formal development capital, developing economies are increasingly leveraging this option to develop their home economy and industries within it. This research paper investigates the determinants of foreign direct investment by multinational United States based chemical companies into the chemical industries of the world. This offers a potential solution as to what the strategic reasons for this investment may be, as well as determines what the local country can do better to improve its position. The research clusters 26 variables into five cluster groupings that include the value of human capital, level of country infrastructure, industry performance factors, governance indicators and environmental compliance indicators. The variables within the cluster groupings are subjected to a regression analysis with the investment of US multinational companies into worldwide chemical industries as the constant variable. The results yield a model with a R² value for the regression of over 0.8 with six variables considered significant contributors to the model. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The question of how mining companies compete is a not a new question. The study looked at the elements of corporate strategy in general but also with specific emphasis to the mining business, the elements of mineral resources management (MRM), and how the business of mining is assisted by such work. The research tapped into the experiences of people at the forefront of MRM work, through a qualitative study of their opinions on the research questions, to contribute to formulation of improved ways of application of MRM as a source of strategic advantage anchored of RBV aligned theory of strategy The research sort to understand whether MRM application over the years has led to strategic competitive advantages for mining companies in South Africa, specifically the following;1.) What are the most important elements of MRM? and 2.) How is MRM used to obtain strategic competitive advantage in the mining business in South Africa? A proposal was made of the key areas of MRM and which elements of it offer strategic advantage to mining business. Copyright / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Poor project performance creates a dilemma for managers in both the public and private sectors. Much research has been conducted on project success, but the relationship between organisational architecture and project success has not been fully explored. This led to the main research question of the study, which was: How can project success be better explained and understood from the perspective of organisational architecture theory? A literature review was conducted on the nature of projects, the project environment, and how project success can be defined and measured, including a discussion on success criteria and critical success factors. Organisational architecture was broken down into its core components. These components were further categorised into structural, operational or procedural, and behavioural (culture, motivation and leadership) components after which literature within each of these components were analysed and discussed. The study used a positivistic paradigm and collected quantitative data that was statistically analysed. An electronic questionnaire was successfully launched and distributed via an email link, which worked through the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) web survey system. This was done within the framework of built environment projects that are typically implemented through partnerships between the public and private sector. A satisfactory response rate was obtained from built environment professionals in South Africa to allow inference of the sample results to the population. The following hypotheses were tested in this study: H1.1: The perception of South African built environment professionals is that there is a significant relationship between organisational structure and project success. H1.2: The perception of South African built environment professionals is that there is a significant relationship between the use and application of traditional operations management tools and techniques and project success. H1.3: The perception of South African built environment professionals is that there is a significant relationship between organisational culture and project success. H1.4: The perception of South African built environment professionals is that there is a significant relationship between motivation and project success. H1.5: The perception of South African built environment professionals is that there is a significant relationship between leadership and project success. An analysis of the survey results revealed that, according to South African built environment professionals, there is an overall significant relationship between organisational architecture and project success. Following an overview of the main findings, an Organisational Architecture – Project Success (OAPS) framework was presented as a recommendation of how to better explain and understand the relationship between organisational architecture and project success.

Effective leadership is one of the most important factors that influence the performance of an organization. Effective leadership together with supervision are similar in terms of their influence on others towards achieving the goals of the organization. Therefore, effective leadership and supervision are principal activities through which organizational goals and objectives are achieved.

Executives and managers are required to develop the required competencies to ensure the long term success of their organisations. In the competitive and dynamic business environment organisations are faced with, strategic management and planning has gained momentum as a management science which aids managers and executives in circumventing the challenges that such a dynamic environment can present. Strategic management and planning is, however, of no consequence unless the strategic plan is deployed and implemented in an organisation and the implemented plan is evaluated in action. Many organisations find the process of strategy implementation much more of a challenge than the process of strategy formulation. Consequently, many of these organisations have utilised project management to assist in the strategic management implementation process. The competitive and dynamic business environment also requires organisations to constantly develop and execute more innovative business strategies to remain competitive. In order to do this, many organisations have started to explore the alignment between business strategy and project management strategy. Various commentators note that successful implementation of strategy is challenging, especially considering the 70 per cent execution failure rate. It is further noted that organisations only realise 60 per cent of the potential value of their intended strategies due to failures in planning and implementation. Consequently, projects are often chosen as vehicles to implement these business strategies. The primary objective of this research is to improve the implementation of strategic management initiatives within organisations. This was achieved by investigating whether Shenhar’s strategic project leadership elements (i.e. organisational structure, process definition, implementation metrics, implementation tools and organisational culture) have an impact on the successful implementation of strategic management initiatives. The study also aims to investigate whether age, gender, race, designation, education, industry experience and tenure at Eskom Telecommunications, have an impact on the perception of the following variables under investigation: Implementation metrics; Implementation tools; Organisational structure; Organisational culture; Process definition; and Strategic management implementation. If the correlation between strategic management implementation and Shenhar’s strategic project leadership elements is established, it would assist organisations in the implementation of successful strategic management initiatives, by aiding an understanding of how these independent variables affect the implementation process. Improved implementation of strategic management initiatives would assist management teams in organisations to overcome the unique challenges that change in an organisation’s internal and external environment cause. The scope of this study was limited to be conducted in Eskom Telecommunications only. The study is concluded with a number of recommendations that Eskom Telecommunications could implement to improve strategic management implementation and a synopsis of this study’s contribution to theory is provided, in addition to recommendations for future research.

Leadership and planning requires more strategic thinkers on all management levels in an organization. Historically, senior management does not effectively identify those leaders that posses the core traits and competencies to adequately influence the corporate culture by way of transformational and visionary leadership styles, so that it is aligned to the long-term strategy. In this research the author first embarked on a theoretical study into leadership and the associated contingency models, which have lead to the emergence of new styles of leadership, such as transformational, situational and visionary leadership. Thereafter, successful strategy planning and implementation was investigated to determine which leadership styles did the literature reveal are more conducive to successfully executing strategy in adaptive and culturally diverse corporate cultures. Thirdly, an empirical study was conducted to ascertain to what extent transformational and transactional leadership practices by South African firms are being adopted, and the amount of emphasis placed on the strategic thinking process between the leadership styles. Lastly, the data was analysed to explain the relationship between transformational and transactional leadership and strategic planning, and to make recommendations based on the research.

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In the past decade a lot of attention has been devoted to the option valuation approach to i~vestments in financial economics. This theory provides a fl exible way of incorporating uncertainty and irreversibility into the making of the investment decision. The primary purpose of this study is to extend the contingent claim approach by introducing a strategic dimension into the investment decision. In particular we focus on the case where an investor may be preempted by one or more competitors, and where there is an advantage of acting first. Secondly, we apply the strategic options approach to some important areas in financial economics, such as corporate investment under uncertainty, corporate default , market micro-structure . and the timing of arbitrage. Apart from illustrating the wide applicability and relevance of the techniques, this also clarifies some important issues in financial economics. 'Option Games' (jointly written with William Perraudin) describes a way of incorporating strategic behaviour and asymmetric information into optimal stopping decisions under uncertainty. vVe derive optimal stopping rules when each agent's payoff is affected by the actions of other agents and these latter are of unknown type. 'Strategic Sequential Investments: an Application to Preemptive Patenting' derives the optimal investment rules for an incumbent and a challenger who both have an option to patent an innovation with stochastic payoff. We find that the optimal trigger rule is determined by a trade-off between the benefit of waiting to invest and the need to act quickly due to the competitive threat. In particular, we demonstrate that both the strategic Marshallian break-even investment trigger and the trigger obtained by the option valuation approach are in fact limit_ing polar cases of the strategic investment trigger developed in this paper. We then extend the model to a two-stage sequential investment situation where the first and the second stage respectively consist of patenting and launching the product. The model allows us to explain and analyse the phenomenon of sleeping patents. It appears that sleeping patents are more likely to occur when interest rates are low, price volatility is high or when the first stage_ cost is small relative to the second stage cost. 'Creditor Races and Contingent Claims' (jointly written with William Perraudin) presents a simple pricing model in which two debt-holders with incomplete information about each other's type decide when to foreclose on a financially-distressed firm. 'The Timing of Arbitrage: an Options Approach' presents a continuous-time modei for the timing of riskless arbitrage when the mispricing between two equivalent portfolios varies stochastically through time under the exogenous impact of liquidity trades and when there is a persistent prospect that the arbitrage bubble can 'burst'. The model endows the arbitrageur with n options to do arbitrage. When endogenously determined arbitrage bounds a re violated one or more arbitrage trades bring asset prices back within the bounds. The model is extended to the case where there are two competing arbitrageurs who have incomplete information about each other's type.

M.Comm. / The case method can serve as an instrument to improve the learner's skills across a wide spectrum. It is extremely important that the theoretical background of the learner be focused in such a way to be of practical use for the embryo-manager. The correct use of the case method is a powerful tool for the developer, but incorrectly used, it can have negative results. The case method relies on the learning-by-doing principle. The learner does not merely hear or read about situations within the work place, but experiences analysis and problem solving first-hand during the class discussion.The facilitator ought not use the first case study he lays his hands on when planning a class discussion. Cases must be selected with great care, to suit the learning objectives and must take into account the learners' level of knowledge and development. The use of a standardised classification matrix can assist the facilitator to identify the appropriate case study. Before a learner can be expected to analyse and discuss cases, he/she should receive the necessary guidance beforehand. The use of a set of generic guidelines in case analysis, should enable the learner to solve virtually any case he/she is confronted with. As the learner gains experience in case analysis, the generic guidelines can be adapted to conform with the learners specific needs as well as with the specific nature of the case under discussion. Research regarding the use of the case method to develop managerial skills is still totally inadequate.