South African management literature over the past fifteen years: content analysis of the three top South African management journals

This article analysed 15 years, from 1996 to 2010, of research published in the three leading South African business management journals. The three journals chosen were the South African Journal of Business Management, the South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences and Management Dynamics. Content analysis was used to compare five broad themes in the journals: firstly the nature of authorship was examined, and then the most published as well as most prolific authors were identified. Thirdly, the most prominent universities and departments were identified whereafter the research themes and disciplines of the articles and authors were analysed. Lastly, various manuscript characteristics were investigated. This article provides a clear picture of the evolution of South African management literature over the past fifteen years

Is integrated reporting the silver bullet of financial communication? A stakeholder perspective from South Africa

Companies are being forced to critically re-evaluate how they communicate their financial information to stakeholders. Integrated Reporting, as mandated by the King III Report seeks to combine the reporting of financial and nonfinancial performance measures in away that promotes corporate strategy. South Africa is leading the way in corporate governance and financial reporting with the first large-scale adoption of Integrated Reporting by listed companies. While there is a marked increase in financial communication from companies, it is not clear how all stakeholders use and value this information. The primary aim of this paper was to investigate how financial information is consumed within the ambit of the new financial reporting standards. Through a national online survey, this study found that very few stakeholders use the Integrated Reports as their main source of financial and investment information, and that these reports are seen as additional information. Annual and interim financial reports by companies are still the mainstay for corporate financial information. While stakeholders currently seldom use the Internet for financial information, they have indicated that they would increasingly prefer to do so. The paper concludes with a discussion of opportunities and challenges that future Integrated Reporting faces based on these findings.http:// www.sciencedirect.comhb201

Where to visit, what to drink? A cross-national perspective on wine estate brand personalities

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how brand personality and its dimensions can be applied to wine tourism, and how a content analysis of the text taken from a wine estate’s website can be used to derive a snapshot of how brand personality is communicated. Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses the text analysis software DICTION to identify the extent to which each estate’s website communicates the brand personality dimensions of excitement, competence, ruggedness, sincerity and sophistication, and then agglomerates the scores of individual estates within a region to overall scores for the country or wine region in which they are located. Findings – Major findings are that the southern hemisphere producers, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, communicate all five brand personality dimensions to a greater extent than do the northern hemisphere regions of Bordeaux and Napa. Furthermore, while the levels of brand personality communication may differ, all countries and regions seem to follow the same pattern, or stated differently, emphasize the same brand personalities as their international counterparts. Excitement is the main dimension communicated, and then sincerity. Ruggedness and competence are communicated to a lesser extent and sophistication is hardly communicated at all. Research limitations/implications – The countries/regions selected for the study are among the most popular tourist destination wineries within five of the world’s prominent wine producing countries and regions. However, this selection is arbitrary and were also carefully chosen merely by the simplicity and convenience afforded by a Google search. The results are also an aggregation of the wineries within a region and does not give any indication of the brand personality of a single website for a winery with in a region, which might be very different from the aggregation. Practical implications – Wine tourism is a big business for many wine estates as well as regional and national economies, generating huge potential for economic growth and job creation above and beyond the production and sale of wine. The paper offers a practical insight for wineries that want to portray themselves to the world and especially to their target customers. At a general level, the approach illustrated here provides a way for those who manage wine tourism at the national, regional and estate levels to gauge whether the personality of their brand is being communicated online as they intend it to be. Social implications – Wine tourism is very social in nature, and the findings in this study offers a unique understanding of how customers could perceive their destination especially where they are looking to experience the wine estate among similar minded people. A wine estate marketer might wish to be conveying a personality of sophistication and competence, and then be informed by a study like this that the brand is instead being communicated as exciting and sincere. Originality/value – The paper illustrates the use of powerful content analysis software, DICTION, to determine the extent to which this text specifically communicates dimensions of brand personality, and in broader terms gives a feel for the tone of text. Regular use of the technique helps wine marketing decision makers to track their own brand’s personality as well those of competitors over time.peer-reviewe

Perceptions of South African practitioners on the structuring and tasks of marketing and communication managers within organisations

The structuring of marketing and communication management within key organisations in South Africa is changing. These changes are affecting the relationship between marketing and communication practitioners, as well as the key tasks they are responsible for within the organisation. Globally, companies are downsizing, restructuring and eliminating hierarchy. This article investigates how key South African companies have responded to these changes, by looking at how the marketing and communication functions are structured within the organisation. Marketing and communication managers from top South African companies were interviewed telephonically. Findings from the study indicate that the two functions are progressively moving towards an integrated approach. However, a commonly agreed organisational structure is still not pervasive. Each organisation structured the marketing and communication functions differently, and various perspectives existed on the key tasks of both marketing and communication managers. From these findings, it is evident that the relationship between marketing and communication, as well as the role and tasks of marketing and communication managers, is still very diverse in the South African context

Relationship antecedents that impact on outcomes of strategic stakeholder alliances

The research aims to measure the reliability of applying the three-stage model to strategic alliances and to propose relationship antecedents that may impact on the outcome of strategic alliances. Four relationship outcomes were used to measure strategic alliances and were adopted from the seminal work by Grunig and Huang (2000): ‘Trust’ relates to the reliability and integrity of relationship partners; ‘Commitment’ results from relationship partners’ effort to maintain the organisational relationship; ‘Satisfaction’ encompasses both affection and emotion and is conceptualised as a response to the reinforcement of positive expectations and ‘Control mutuality’ refers to the equality of power and decision-making practices that take place within an organisational relationship. An electronic survey from a sampling population of 2,500 members of The Institute for Procurement and Supply, South Africa (IPSA), materialised in only 154 workable questionnaires (n = 154). This study investigates the impact on the outcome of the types of strategic alliance, the industry, the size of the partnering organisations and the duration thereof. Results indicated that the antecedents did not have a significant influence on the outcomes of strategic alliances. This introduces directions for future research into whether and which antecedents impact on the outcome of organisational relationships

Conveniently healthy : the impact of health endorsements on brand trust, brand loyalty and brand equity in fast moving consumer goods convenience versus shopping goods

CITATION: Botha, E., Creaven, G. & Mandy, J. 2020. Conveniently healthy : the impact of health endorsements on brand trust, brand loyalty and brand equity in Fast Moving Consumer Goods convenience versus shopping goods. South African Journal of Business Management, 51(1):a1535, doi:10.4102/sajbm.v51i1.1535.The original publication is available at https://sajbm.orgPurpose: While millions of dollars is spent yearly on health endorsements, and its associated research, findings in studies where product category wasn’t considered might be inaccurate. Design/methodology/approach: An experimental research design was used to investigate the effect of health endorsements on FMCG brand loyalty, brand trust and brand equity of both convenience and shopping goods for 160 shoppers. Findings/results: The study found that when looking at the impact of health endorsements overall, only brand trust was impacted. However, when distinguishing between product categories, health endorsements did not impact the brand trust, brand equity or brand loyalty of shopping goods, while having a great influence on those of convenience goods. Practical implications: While most health endorsements are for shopping goods, these findings present an opportunity for marketers, to make better use of health endorsements in their packaging design. It presents an opportunity for health endorsers to target an untapped market, and it presents a challenge to producers to design convenience products worthy of health endorsements. Originality/value: Studies considering the return on investment of health endorsements must consider the product category, in order to decrease the likelihood of encountering misleading results as the influence of health endorsements greatly differ between products.National Research Foundationhttps://sajbm.org/index.php/sajbm/article/view/1535Publisher's versio

Game changers: A generative AI prompt protocol to enhance human-AI knowledge co-construction

The democratization of powerful artificial intelligence (AI) tools, including ChatGPT, has sparked the interest of business practitioners given their ability to fundamentally change the way we work. While AI tools are positioned to augment human capabilities, their effective implementation requires the skill to understand where, when and how to best utilize them efficiently. Furthermore, meaningful engagement with the content produced by generative AI (GenAI) necessitates the intricacy of appropriate prompt engineering to optimize the learning process. As the field of GenAI continues to advance, the art of developing impactful prompts has become a necessary skill for harnessing its full potential. This research develops an AI prompting protocol through a constructivist theory lens. Based on the principles of constructivism, where individuals assimilate new knowledge by bridging it with their existing understanding, this research suggests an active engagement process in the human-AI co-construction of knowledge through GenAI. The goal is to empower business managers and their teams to construct effective AI prompts and validate responses, thereby enhancing user interaction, optimizing workflows, and maximizing the potential outcomes of AI chatbots.Full text license: CC BY</p