This study examined the development of the University of Rhodesia (UR) and identified a pattern that developed in a path dependent way. Path dependency captures the notion that choices, that are made when an institution is being formed, tend to have a continuing and lasting influence on the institution far into the future. It is the tendency for a step in one direction to encourage the next step to be in a similar direction, thus keeping the development of an organisation in the same path. Studies have criticised the resource-based view of the firm (RBV) and path dependency concepts as being under-theorised and under-served empirically. This study examined and clarified factors that were crucial in the emergence of UR, and helped to perpetuate its dominance over time.

The prominence of executive management failures brings to the fore concerns with a perceived lack of management scholarship impact. Executive managers should be better prepared for a complex world of work and there is a growing scholarly awareness that this requires more focus on practical knowledge (developed though phronesis), which has largely been ignored in favour of theoretical knowledge (developed through episteme) and specialist craft skills (developed through technê). This thesis contributes to the discourse by analysing phronesis, as the virtue underpinning practical knowledge within the managerial scholarship domain. The thesis highlights the fact that, despite its utility, phronesis is generally absent from management scholarship, from professional development and from executive management practice. A phronesis-infused, practice-focused pedagogy is required. However, given the abstruseness of phronesis as a concept in the executive management context, what should a phronesis-pedagogy entail? How can the progress of executive managers in developing their phronesis be gauged? In seeking answers to these questions, this study crystallises a definition and conceptual typology of managerial phronesis through an inductive Gioia Grounded Theory analysis of relevant literature published over the past decade. Managerial phronesis is defined as a morally-imbued capacity for sense-making and managerial action aimed at virtuous outcomes. It is characterised as a situationally embedded developmental and practical skill characterised by interrelated Modes of Engaging, Knowing and Thinking, Being, and Acting. However, understanding phronesis in the applied executive management context demands that the theory be extended to practice. The theory was therefore tested through a two-phased Qualitative Content Analysis. The first analysis of transcripts of interviews with practicing phronetic social scientists was followed by an analysis of minor dissertations submitted by Executive MBA students from the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business. In this context, Phronetic Social Science embodies phronesis-in-action and the Executive MBA represents a phronetic executive management practice programme. The analysis validated the Grounded Theory typology and extended it by highlighting the existence of “embraces paradox” as a further characteristic of a phronetic Mode of Knowing and Thinking. A credible typology of managerial phronesis emerges from the research. This thesis therefore contributes to the discourse on the training of executive managers. It clarifies how phronesis as a vital managerial competence manifests in practice. In so doing, this research offers the management scholarship discipline a framework for developing good executive managers.

This PhD thesis studies the Swartland Independent Producers (SIP) meta-organisation, located in the Western Cape wine region of South Africa, and asks: how and why the collective rendering of authenticity creates markets? Seventy-one interviews were realised with producers making “authentic wine” and other market participants active in the South African wine industry between 2010 and 2016. How and why businesses create markets by rendering authenticity through collective action organised within meta-organisations has not been fully explored in the organisational authenticity literature. The framework developed through a qualitative analysis of the SIP case, contributes to filling this gap by showing that authenticity can be constructed, and new markets created for meta-organisations, via the interplay of two sets of intersecting meta-framings: authenticity work and authentication work, and hot and cool authenticity framing. This thesis demonstrates that authenticity work may comprise three meso-framings: claiming purity, performing charisma and meta-organisational tethering. Simultaneously, this study conceptualises how market participants purposively engage in authentication work through meso-framings of polarising evaluation, valorising status, and reframing meaning. The theoretical framework refines the current scholarly explanation of why rendered authenticity creates markets. By bridging the sociology and organisational literatures dedicated to authenticity, this PhD developed four novel authenticity meta-framing constructs: hot and cool authenticity work and hot and cool authentication work. Through further theorising their interactions, this study advances current academic knowledge on how and why rendering authenticity is a central concern for businesses intending to create markets through meta-organisational collective action.

Innovation activities vary over time as organisations evolve towards more exploitative innovation to extract maximum performance from existing knowledge and operations. This is a natural evolution, where past innovators become the leaders, capital allocators and managers. Well-run and continuous improvement programmes deeply embed organisational preferences, inadvertently raising barriers to explorative innovation which seeks new knowledges and, with it, a divergence from current thinking. The prospect of new discovery induces paradox as it threatens obsolescence. It seeks high variance, in the face of a low variance focus. Enabling an ambidexterity capability will synergise these tensions and gain the benefits of both types of innovation. Synergising both offers long-term sustained innovation and enhanced performance, and so ambidexterity capability is of significant importance. The researcher's objective is to explore how an individual ambidexterity capability is able to improve an organisation's ability to synergise the paradoxical tensions in the innovation process. This thesis has a focus on how organisations may scale their internal ambidexterity capabilities. Individual ambidexterity proposes a reframing of the role of the individual towards taking a far more central role, and one from which the ambidexterity capability is scaled. It promises a richer, more generative capability which breaks beyond the limits and boundaries of the structural or leadership limitations. This thesis heeds a call for more theorising on how individuals experience paradox tensions and provides revelatory ambidexterity insights into real world of work situations. The work of this thesis has been to enter the real world of work through the interviewing of 12 participants from a selected case study on an explorative innovation, in an environment more familiar with exploitative innovation performance. The researcher also interviewed 3 functional experts to gain insights into current individual capability support and enablement. Through this thesis the researcher's findings contribute that the paradox tensions are complex layers of interrelated tensions, that they have severe implications for the individual in their ability to respond, that this ability to respond should be deliberately supported by competency, trait, behavioural and other capability models, but also that leaders play a critical role in creatings a supportive context for the individual to enact ambidexterity and lastly that there is also a need for the right instrumental support for the varying needs in the innovation process. This thesis supports the notion that with a lack of awareness and intentionality for ambidexterity, individuals are left to face complex paradoxical tensions but their response is left to chance or individual intuition. Their individual ambidexterity is a rich source of sustained innovation capability but requires a strategic approach to enable it. It requires the reframing of the role of the leader in shifting to a supportive and enabling role, emancipating the agency of the individual in creating a supportive organisational context, a context which normalises the empowerment of individuals, exploration, divergence and experimentation. It is critical to ensure that personal career risks do not inhibit the exploration or agency of individuals.

This study seeks to understand the role of organisational values as an apt candidate for organising principles to manage and adapt effectively in complexity. A starting interest of this research was the reflection that a strong set of shared values has the potential to enables a range of positive outcomes, particularly in complexity, where shared values act as schemata to guide behaviour and enhance an organisation's reflexivity and resilience in times of turbulence. My stance is informed by the pragmatist research paradigm, recognising the interrelationship of research, action, theory, and practice. The literature review draws on two theoretical lenses, values theory and systems thinking, to trace the parallels between the developments in systems thinking and management thought. While the chosen topic ranges across a wide scholarly terrain, it is grounded in the narrative of a particular organisation, a South African clothing retailer facing challenges in the face of increasing volatility and change in the market. Case studies are narratives, which can provide a rich and descriptive picture of the investigated object, portraying the complexities and ambiguities of the context and a socially constructed world (Tsoukas & Hatch, 2001). We live in a world with ever-increasing uncertainty, inter-connectedness, and interdependence. Businesses are increasingly challenged to redefine how they manage and develop in complexity and adapt during turbulent times in their environments. Conceptions of management practices are being challenged by increasing unpredictability brought forward by technology, global trade, and the speed of cultural change, amongst other variables. One of the starting deliberations of this thesis is whether in such times, informal behaviour-guiding principles, such as values, gain importance to enable the emergence of systemic outcomes. The project does this by articulating an analytical framework of systems thinking and values research and synthesising a combined lens for the primary case study. I utilise a mixed-methods approach for the organising of data, including interviews and documentation. Values arrange what we do in organisations, and during change, can be effective and meaningful rudders for direction and adaptation if they are shared among members of the organisation and successfully influence decision-making and behaviour.

Financial markets have shown that there is a growing interest in funding investments that help address the climate challenge alongside financial returns. As the market has developed, so too has the need to cover a wider sector of the global economy. High carbon emitters, however, are still absent and this presents an opportunity for financial actors to support their sustainable transition towards a greener economy through transition bonds. Transition bonds represent an evident market opportunity to provide financing to companies, whose business is not environmental-friendly today, but who have plans to become sustainable in the future. The study followed an inductive design method to explore the determinants for using transition bonds and the outlook towards the instrument. Moreover, it aimed at identifying the practitioners' approach in valuing transition bonds. The author of this dissertation undertook a qualitative exploration through interviews with investment practitioners to assess what constructs are considered to understand investments in and the issuance of transition bonds. The analysis found that sustainability-linked incentives for engagement with transition bonds are the most cited determinants, signalling the willingness to support the transition plans of brown industries. The establishment of clear standards and disclosure was perceived to be of crucial importance to enhance the credibility of transition bonds. Moreover, practitioners confessed to not yet being equipped with the specific tools and knowledge to measure and report transition objectives. The findings further highlighted that supportive policy and regulation were considered to play an enabling role for the success of transition bonds. The author recommends intensifying the development of transition bond guidelines, enhancing disclosure and implement measurement and reporting procedures. The author also urges public and private institutions to cooperate in the establishment of appropriate institutional arrangements that facilitate the growth of transition bonds. The author suggests expanding the geographical scope of the research and widen the segments of market participants, thus incorporating practitioners residing in other regions and retail investors. Another area of research would be to gain insights into the transition measurement techniques. Future research could also explore the emergence of a pricing premium compared to traditional bond instruments and any pricing discrepancies with green bonds.

Electricity utilities in most African countries have failed to deliver adequate, reliable and competitively priced electricity to support economic growth and improve the welfare of their populations. Despite more than two decades of power sector reforms, outcomes have been varied and often disappointing with many utilities still experiencing challenges in service delivery, operational efficiency and financial sustainability. Power sector and regulatory reforms involve changes to structural, regulatory and governance frameworks and incentives that potentially impact utility performance in Africa. This thesis draws on the literature of power sector reforms and applies a Principal–Agent theory lens to obtain a deeper understanding of the dynamics between principals (government/regulators/capital providers) and agents (utility managers) and how these impact on performance. A comparative case study analysis was undertaken of power utilities in three East Africa countries that have experienced different levels of reform: TANESCO in Tanzania, KPLC in Kenya and Umeme in Uganda. TANESCO remains a vertically integrated, state-owned utility and has performed the worst. KPLC is an unbundled, mixed capital utility, with a partial listing on the Nairobi Stock Exchange, but still majority government owned, and has performed better. Umeme is fully unbundled, operates as a private concession, is also listed on the stock exchange, and is the most financially sustainable of the three utilities. However, this ranking between the three utilities is not consistent across all performance measures, and an analysis of structural, governance and regulatory incentives, principal–agent dynamics – examining issues such as information asymmetry, moral hazard, adverse selection, amongst others – provides deeper insights into how reforms have impacted technical and economic performance. Findings also show that: (i) the deeper and more extensive the power sector reforms, the more incentives there are for improved performance; (ii) while the existence of an independent regulator is important, capability issues are also critical; (iii) private concessions provide deeper incentives for improved performance; (iv) strong management incentives are critical for the success of any utility; and (v) private capital, either through equity or debt financing, imposes additional compliance obligations and incentives for improved utility performance.

This study uses Generalised Meod of Moments to investigate the roles of political risk and institutional quality determinants of Foreign Direct Investment inflows to 20 countries in SubSaharan Africa between 2003 and 2019. The results show that both political risk and weak institutional quality significantly and negatively affect FDI in Sub-Saharan Africa. The GMM interaction terms for institutional quality are larger than those for political risk. These results emphasize the importance of institutional quality above that of the political system, suggesting that institutional quality is more attractive to foreign investors than a sound political system. This is probably because foreign investors are more concerned with long-run regulatory enforcement and investment protection than by short-run political dynamics.

The lack of racial transformation in most industries has led the government to craft policies geared towards distributing the pillars of power and influence of all races, especially the previously disadvantaged people of South Africa. A policy is not standalone; hence, on its own will not lead to the materialisation of any of government's plans. It is on the back of this that a solution to any problem needs to be a product of a collaborative system. In 2015, over 80% of all prospecting rights held by black owners expired and changed ownership from blacks to whites. The purpose of this research study is to investigate the proportion of black junior miners holding prospecting rights that manage to advance to obtain a mining license and then to production. Moreover, this study aims to describe and explain attributes that influence the investigated phenomenon to derive mitigations and remedies. It is assumed that since black people could participate in natural resources, economic activity post the apartheid era of the nation, the representation of blacks in this industry regarding ownership of productive assets is still less than 15%. This study uses a qualitative research methodology by examining the funding challenges experienced by black junior miners in taking their projects forward by investigating the proportion of allocated prospecting rights to blacks that reach production. A literature review was undertaken as a backbone to the phenomenon being researched. The researcher conducted qualitative research, interviewing 12 respondents; 8 of whom are middle to senior managers in their prospective companies and 4 of whom are aspiring mining owners with prospecting rights. The research findings revealed predominant themes, among which are the inefficient application process, poor quality applications, little to no government support to help execute their transformation agenda within mineral economics, limited funding allocated towards the development of early-stage mineral resources projects and the nation's deficiency of experienced early-stage funders and funding mechanics. Practical recommendations were provided, and these show a correlation between a participant-private-public relationship that needs to happen to achieve the intended purpose of the study. In absence of funding commitment from private entities, the only option the country has might be to constitute a consolidation policy, forcing majors to financially adopt juniors with a clawback option.

This study seeks to investigate the relationship between public debt and economic growth in South Africa for the period 1977 – 2019. This study also seeks to review economic theories related to public debt and economic growth namely: Neoclassical, Ricardian and Keynesian theory. To achieve the research objective, this study uses the time series technique, namely, the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach of cointegration test and the Granger causality approach to test the causal relationship between variables. Analysis of variance decomposition and impulse response functions are used to illustrate the proportions of movements of variables due to its own shock relative to other variables by shocking one standard deviation. The study results indicate there is a positive relationship between public debt and economic growth . However, causality runs from economic growth to public debt. Overall, the study results indicate a significant negative long-run relationship between the public debt and economic growth when inflation and gross capital formation are used as controlled variables. However, the relationship is significant in the short run. The impulse response function indicated that there is responsiveness in public debt and GDP growth to shocks of public debt and GDP growth. However, the result of variance decomposition test in explaining the GDP growth and public debt co-movement. In the short run, self-variance of GDP growth comovement is almost 100%, which reduces to 91.79% percent in the long term. Aside from selfvariation, public debt induced no notable variation in bilateral co-movement in short term. In the long-run however, maximum variation of 8.22% is provided by public debt. The above statistics suggest that shock in economic growth accounts for 91.78% fluctuations. A shock to public debt causes fluctuations to GDP growth significantly over time. Last, as a policy recommendation, South Africa needs undertake aggressive economic strategies with clear objectives and strong commitments, driven by accountable bureaucrats to ensure that public funds are used efficiently. Public debt also needs to be directed through economic growth driven projects and productive expenditures.