The purpose of this study was to explore the strategising practices of sustainability champions at Transnet, a South African state-owned enterprise (SOE). The study set out to discover what these micro-strategising practices were and what strategic outcomes they had for the organisation at the corporate level of strategy praxis. The problem that this research sought to address was the need for greater progress towards corporate sustainability and the lack of research into the role, contributions and practices of sustainability champions in formal sustainability roles within relatively large organisations. This exploration was carried out in the form of a qualitative single-case study which drew on serial interviews (two per participant) and case documentation as sources of evidence. The data were analysed using Applied Thematic Analysis (ATA) in the CAQDAS software Atlas.ti. The study answered the research questions and found that sustainability champions engaged in seven sets of strategising practices with seven corresponding strategic outcomes. While it was not the intention of the study to develop a conceptual model, the process of synthesising the main findings resulted in a model termed the web of sustainable strategising. The study concludes that sustainability champions are strategists who aid their organisation in the pursuit of corporate sustainability while influencing the direction of macro-institutional arrangements towards sustainable development. These results cannot be generalised, but they are transferrable to similar contexts. / Business Management / M. Com. (Business Management)

This study set out to explore how Official Development Assistance was practised in South Africa. An exploratory narrative design was followed to uncover the ‘strategy in the skin’ of strategy practitioners in the unit of analysis and to respond, therefore, to the research questions. This study has contributed to the body of knowledge in that it has brought together an alternative confluence of three theoretical perspectives of strategy as practice; complex adaptive systems and organisational hypocrisy and has explored the impact of the practice lens on these standpoints. While there has been extensive research on each of the theoretical perspectives, there has not yet been a study that has drawn together the three perspectives in relation to an empirical unit of analysis such as Official Development Assistance practices and practitioners. The study responded to a knowledge gap in relation to how public sector organisations, such as government units and the strategy practitioners of such units, practice strategy beyond the reified, formalised conceptions of strategy and in relation to their inhabiting complex, political organisational systems. The study arrived at two central theoretical findings. Firstly, that strategising represents a calibration of strategic practices towards strategic outcomes through the activities of complex adaptive practitioners v within the more politically inclined organisation. Secondly, that beyond the text of strategy, there is sub-text that is equally part of the micro strategy towards strategic outcomes.The skilful and sometimes delicate balancing act, that strategists perform to legitimise the calibrated combinations of action and politics in organisational strategy, equally needs nuanced, subtle and more complex forms of organisational communication. The study, therefore, makes the claim that complex adaptive systems and the characteristics of political organisations (as not being geared to action) are inherently broadened through the multiple dimensions of the practice turn and strategy as sub-text. The research confirmed that strategy as practice is a useful lens to understand strategy beyond the formally documented scripts and espoused pronouncements of strategy within organisational studies / Business Management / D.B.L.