Kurt April

IC measurement and reporting: establishing a practice in SA mining

This paper presents findings from an investigation of intellectual capital measurement, reporting and management in the South African mining industry. The research methodology employs a combination of content analysis of annual reports for the 20 largest listed companies in South Africa, combined with interviews with senior individuals in mining companies. Data is analysed in accordance with a selected intellectual capital framework consisting of 24 indicators across the three categories of internal, external and human capital. Results show that mining companies tend to report on fewer intellectual capital attributes than other companies and tend to focus more on external attributes such as business collaborations and favourable contracts. Results show that mining companies rate intellectual capital highly, but appear to be lacking in the measurement and reporting of intellectual capital. From these findings it is concluded that mining companies value intellectual capital but lack the appropriate systems and structures to manage intellectual capital meaningfully.

Leading through communication, conversation and dialogue

South Africa has gone through a period of unprecedented change in moving from Apartheid to democracy. These sociological changes have also infiltrated organisational life and behaviour – and new approaches to leadership have become vital. In modern organisational life, dialogue and conversation are core processes for building the organisational intelligence and community which enable other business processes to adapt to change and create results. This paper discusses increasingly important leadership issues – such as diversity, teams, collaboration, trust formation, community, individual change, and relationships – in relation to dialogue and transformation. Where trust is high, change is managed more effectively and, where it is low, communication and co‐operation suffer and there is an increasing tendency to resort to power. It is the author’s concluding opinion that change is a phenomenon that occurs within conversation and dialogue! and is therefore a necessary social construct within twenty‐first century organisations.

Guidelines for developing a k‐strategy

As companies start to engage with the knowledge economy, they have to shift their mindsets to understanding knowledge management more holistically and, more importantly, understand the role of knowledge management as it pertains to sustainable competitive advantage. It requires companies to think of age‐old concepts in new ways, and necessarily requires deep insight into the enablers of business success within the company, and then creative insight is required to reveal the new possibilities. This paper, drawing on resource‐based theory, provides some guidelines for companies to develop business strategies, critically dependent on knowledge management initiatives. A chain of sustainability is introduced and three insightful concepts are highlighted (complementary resource combinations, strategic architecture and pool of resources); however, they do not tell companies specifically what to do, but robustly explain what the requirements of a knowledge strategy are, if they want to attain, and sustain, competitive advantage.

Growing Leaders in Emergent Markets Leadership Enhancement in the New South Africa

South Africa has unique challenges. Thirteen years since becoming democratic, it is still going through its own unprecedented change in joining the global economic network and moving from Apartheid to democracy and from a closed to an open community. These political and sociological changes have also infiltrated business and therefore management education in South Africa, bringing demand for new approaches. At the Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town, the authors adapted their traditional MBA teaching approaches to become more creative. This article summarizes the main themes within a core MBA course that have been guided by their new learning design, growth-stages methodology, a multipronged plan for moving management and leadership students through the growth stages by using ideas from systems thinking, scenario planning, coaching and mentoring, and organizational learning. These Western constructs are being complemented by African knowledge, which the authors are slowly developing and integrating into the traditional business school curricula.

Tackling Whiteness in organizations and management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer a theoretical and methodological framework to overcome knowledge gaps on Whiteness in organizational and management studies. Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on a brief review of literature on ethnic privileges. Findings – The authors propose a relational approach to tackling ethnic privileges in organizations and management research. Research limitations/implications – The framework contributes to a better understanding and deconstruction of ethnic privileges at work. Originality/value – The paper proposes a theoretical and a methodological framework for tackling Whiteness in organizational and management studies. By doing so, it elucidates the topic of Whiteness, bringing new insights from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Diversity management in South Africa: Inclusion, identity, intention, power and expectations

Today’s modern organisations have no choice but to face choices regarding how to implement diversity initiatives and treat their stakeholders, given the globalized nature of capital markets. Unfortunately, their foci appear to be narrowly deployed at the ‘managing diversity’ level, or even the ‘acknowledging diversity’ level, but not getting to the necessary ‘inclusion’ level. This paper reports on an in-depth study which focused beyond multiculturalism to include psychological issues of diversity relating to identity, intention, expectations, power and inclusion. The study sought to investigate this premise through insights gained from the analysis of personal stories relating to individual experiences of diversity, and the outcomes provide new and deeper insights for the design, implementation and success of diversity initiatives.

Cave Canem! The Art (or Science?) of Western Management in an African Context

The West has continued to supply leadership and management ideas, political systems, and economic infrastructures to Africa, from colonial times to the present. Understandably, most Western theories that are continuously being used in organisations in Africa, with their seemingly good intentions, have not achieved the desired outcomes, because many Africans find it difficult to relate to them and have to sacrifice their authenticity in order to fully embrace them. Some have identified the limitations of perspectives and practices formulated solely in the West (Blunt and Jones, 1992; Kamoche, 1993, 1997; Nzelibe, 1986), while others have offered empirical evidence on the nature of extant practices, pointing to their appropriateness or lack thereof (Blunt and Jones, 1986; Kamoche, 2000a; Seddon, 1985). This growing critique has highlighted the need to understand the African context as well as the indigenous thought system and, in particular, the perspective of the African worker.

Managing diversity in higher education : understanding and tackling ethnic stratification in social comfort

Drawing on a higher education comparative study of 184 African-American students in the USA and 310 black South African undergraduate students in SA, we identify patterns of social comfort in relation to ethnic difference and similarity. Respective groups were administered identical Revised Social Scales. Factor analysis suggested two major categories of social comfort for African-American students, while black South African students yielded three major emergent groups. A high correlation between these non-intimate and intimate categories were found among the out-group attitudes of African-American students, indicative of similarity in sample group attitude. The converse was found with black students; low variable correlation indicates high variability in question-answering and low similarity in approach to various social situations with out-group.

Diversity and corporate governance

In the broadest sense, the purpose of corporate governance is to ensure that listed companies are fair and honest with their range of stakeholders. These stakeholders include shareholders, employees, customers and society at large.

Leading ethically: What helps and what hinders

Ethics is concerned with moral obligation, responsibility, social justice, and the common good. It is about defining the practices and rules—written and unwritten — which inform responsible conduct and behaviour between individuals and groups in order to maintain, or enhance, the common good. Everything we do has a consequence, such that ethics is fundamental to the very essence of who we are, and what we value, both as individuals and as people. This chapter presents the findings of a study that aimed to identify those enablers that seem to help individuals to live and act ethically, and those stumbling blocks that prevent them from translating a theoretical knowledge of ethics and morals into action. The sample involved 646 middle managers enrolled on the MBA programmes of the University of Cape Town (South Africa) and Erasmus University (Netherlands). The chapter explains the approach taken and presents the findings, as a contribution to the debate on the practical steps that might increase ethical behaviour in individuals.