Adrian Saville

Ensuring that Africa keeps rising: The economic integration imperative

Cyclical factors and the commodities boom have played a big part in Africas impressive growth record since 2000. Yet the ‘Africa rising’ narrative is increasingly supported by significant macroeconomic reforms and structural changes that bode well for sustained levels of growth and development. A critical determinant of whether this positive growth trend continues will be the extent of Africas economic integration with the rest of the world and within the continent. The TCIP framework – tracking the flow of trade, capital, information and people – developed by Pankaj Ghemawat demonstrates how economic openness and integration facilitate economic growth and socio-economic advancement. However, poor levels of integration, a lack of understanding and the data deficit that measure these flows have left Africa out of these empirical studies. In this article, data from traditional sources together with the TCIP framework provide insights into the state, nature and contribution of these flows in Africa. In addition, a look at proprietary data from Visa further elucidates the changes and opportunities presented by Africas economic integration.

Preserving the delicate balance to manage a thriving business in South Africa – the adventure of OneLogix

Study level/applicability This teaching case is specially designed for students who are in their advanced stage of their undergraduate business degree program. It can also be used in a Master of Business program. Case overview This teaching case documents that roller coaster ride of failures and success of OneLogix (a niche logistic service providers) from its birth in 2000 till present day. It seeks to present a rich contextual information about how difficult it is for businesses to survive and become profitable in South Africa. Expected learning outcomes On completion of the case, students will be able to analyze the external environment of an organization, determine what factors will impact the organization’s profitability and survivability, analyze the evolution of an industry, apply and discuss how the evolution of an industry can affect an organization’s profitability and survivability, explain the difference between entrepreneurial versus efficiency management approach, discuss how each approach will conflict the other and identify ways that can harmonize the two approaches, explain strategies for organization to develop capabilities to be responsive to changes in its business environment and compose and apply strategies according to the contextual information provided within the teaching case. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS 11: Strategy

Exchange Rate Policy and Export Performance in Efficiency-Driven Economies

Increased globalisation, coupled with rising domestic competition, has led a growing number of firms to search beyond their traditional domestic markets for business opportunities in recent years. As a result, export-led economic growth has gained renewed attention amongst policy makers, particularly amongst those in industrialising nations, or so-called efficiency-driven economies. This search for drivers of economic growth has gained further impetus from the economic pressures brought about by the fall in growth in advanced markets following the global financial crisis coupled with the rising competitiveness of other industrialising emerging economies. A common policy proposal amongst countries trying to improve their competitiveness is to weaken the domestic exchange rate as a means to stimulate exports. However, depreciation also increases exchange rate risk. Given the renewed emphasis on this policy lever, this research examines the impact of exchange rate on export performance in a sample of nine efficiency-driven economies over the period 1990 to 2009. These economies that we survey include Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Peru, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey, which all have floating exchange rate arrangements during the survey period. Panel data models using a fixed-effects method were used, and it was found that a weakening of the exchange rate does not necessarily improve export performance. To the contrary, for the nine countries surveyed, export growth seems to be associated with stronger exchange rates. Whilst our results suggest that the lag effect of exchange rate movement on export performance is slightly more pronounced, the relationship nevertheless remains statistically insignificant.

Distance Learning: The Experience of Accounting at the University of Natal (Durban), South Africa

The South African university system consists of 21 universities. These universities serve approximately 400 000 students spanning a wide spectrum of qualifications and educational platforms. However, under the banner of apartheid, South Africa’s past policy of racial segregation led to universities establishing themselves along race-determined lines during the second-half of the 20th Century. Additionally, arbitrary government regulation produced further artificial divides within the education system. By way of example, prior to 1994 South Africa’s tertiary education sector was divided into two distinct parts. These were residential universities, which adopted direct teaching methods and accounted for the bulk of student enrolments, and “open” universities that adopted distance learning as their educational platform. Within this sharply divided educational context, the University of South Africa (UNISA) and Technikon RSA dominated distance-learning programs. The two institutions collectively accounted for the bulk of tertiary education enrolments by distance learners and were responsible for just under 30% of all higher education enrolments in the first-half of the 1990s. The country’s historically White universities, on the other hand, dominated residence-based teaching, accounting for almost two-thirds of student enrolments.

A comment on the management of South Africa's commercial fishing industry

Oceanographic conditions along the South African coastline provide a favourable habitat for a rich variety of renewable marine resources that provide the base for the fertile and diverse fishing grounds located along the countrys west and east coasts. These fishing grounds, in turn, provide the backbone for the countrys fishing industry, which enjoyed particularly rapid growth over the period 1940-70.

Environmental economics and cost–benefit analysis: the choice of an appropriate discount rate

Notwithstanding earlier approbation from economists on the use of the discounting technique, the past twenty or thirty years have witnessed a growing acceptance of the use of this technique in cost–benefit analysis. Nevertheless, there is no general agreement on the type of discount rate to be employed, nor whether it would be more appropriate to employ a (lower) social discount rate, especially in the case of long–term projects or those which are assessed to have significant environmental impacts. Furthermore, in recent years, the earlier debate against the use of the discounting technique has re–emerged in somewhat different form. Against this background, this paper seeks to explain the different types of market discount rates available - namely, the consumption rate of interest, the investment rate of interest and the accounting rate of interest - and explores the argument for employing a (lower) social discount rate. Thereafter, attention is focused on the more recent debate against the use of the discounting technique in general. Finally, an attempt is made to assess alternative approaches to the conventional discounting technique: a zero discount rate, the internal rate of return and the use of so–called quasi–discount rates. The latter is found to offer a more pragmatic approach to the use of the discounting technique, and is considered more appropriate for cost–benefit analysis involving projects which have significant environmental impacts.