Vol. 9 No. 3(J) (2017)

Sample size requirements are common in many multivariate analysis techniques as one of the measures taken to ensure the robustness of such techniques, such requirements have not been of interest in the area of count data models. As such, this study investigated the effect of sample size on the efficiency of six commonly used count data models namely: Poisson regression model (PRM), Negative binomial regression model (NBRM), Zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP), Zero-inflated negative binomial (ZINB), Poisson Hurdle model (PHM) and Negative binomial hurdle model (NBHM). The data used in this study were sourced from Data First and were collected by Statistics South Africa through the Marriage and Divorce database. PRM, NBRM, ZIP, ZINB, PHM and NBHM were applied to ten randomly selected samples ranging from 4392 to 43916 and differing by 10% in size. The six models were compared using the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC), Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), Vuong’s test for over-dispersion, McFadden RSQ, Mean Square Error (MSE) and Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD).The results revealed that generally, the Negative Binomial-based models outperformed Poisson-based models. However, the results did not reveal the effect of sample size variations on the efficiency of the models since there was no consistency in the change in AIC, BIC, Vuong’s test for over-dispersion, McFadden RSQ, MSE and MAD as the sample size increased.

South Africa has a very high rate of murders, assaults, rapes and other crimes compared to most countries. Most South Africans who immigrate to other countries cite crime as the major reason. Crime has become a concern for all, the police, private security industry, real estate developer, car manufacturers, businessmen, etc. There is a high demand for crime prevention; and this calls for a continuous use of new, advanced and reliable methods to prevent crime. How bad is the level of crime in Limpopo and what are the major crime types? This study uses secondary data from the 2011 Census conducted by Statistics South Africa; and tries to look at the composition of crime in the province and the variables that influence crime, in order to propose measures to tackle and minimize crime in the province. Multivariate statistical analysis has been employed, and the study shows that the following variables; the population size, number of households, youth unemployment, growth rate, and dependency ratio; have a positive influence in the occurrence of crime. The study recommends the slowing down of population growth rate, decrease in household size and the reduction of youth unemployment to curb crime in the province.

South African alcoholic beverage suppliers (SAABS) have to focus their efforts on quality customer service as a means of differentiation. Quality of service is a competitive advantage and serves as a marketing tool for many companies; it also contributes to customer loyalty and retention. Offering quality service is considered an essential strategy for success and survival in today’s competitive business market. A commitment to quality must start from the top of any organisation, be it a service delivery company or a manufacturing or merchandising business, and spiral down to the bottom. SAABS need to understand their customers’ perceptions of the service offering, their existing relationship with the company and their levels of satisfaction. The study set out to measure the service delivery expectations and realisations of customers that receive delivery from SAABS based on their geographical location. It required the implementation of a descriptive research method. The target population comprised customers of SAABS situated in the Gauteng, Western Cape and North West Provinces of South Africa. A sample size of 926 was realised. The results from the study indicate that customers expect the SAABS to deliver on all five service quality dimensions but fail to do so to their satisfaction. If the SAABS used the proposed customer relationship management (CRM) framework, it can improve on their service delivery and customer service. This, in the long run, will improve customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention.

China is viewed as the pillar of Emerging Market Economies (EMEs), deems to surpassed United State, and become the topmost industrialized country in the world with the prospects of major shift in the future world power. However, growth rate has slow down since the third quarter of 2014. Through this paper, we aim at investigating the impacts of monetary policy on industrial sector growth, and determine whether the long-run industrial sector growth in China can be foster by the effectiveness of monetary policy. It also examines the interrelationships among the variables employed and determines the steady-state relationships between industrial sector growth and monetary policy. Time-series econometric techniques such as unit roots, ARDL and ECM are employed to monthly data for the year 1994:1 to 2013:12.According to the empirical results derived, the effectiveness of monetary policy significantly affects industrial sector growth and the short-run impact of monetary policy on industrial output production is established.

In South Africa, with the advent of democracy, the Expanded Public Works Programme was conceived as an employment strategy by government in order to alleviate poverty and promote a better standard of living for marginalised groups, particularly youth and women in South Africa. This is a qualitative exploratory research in which the data was collected through face-to-face interviews with beneficiaries. The researcher utilised the exploratory research in order to explore the effectiveness of the Zibambele Project at the local level, and to see how it creates employment opportunities for marginalised groups. The key focus of the literature review is on local economic development, with special reference to the poverty alleviation strategies as a guideline for economic growth at local levels. The findings show that the government-led programmes that eliminate poverty at the grassroots level as well as creating employment opportunities for marginalised are crucial. Furthermore, the study shows that the government programmes are more needed in order to tackle poverty and also increase local economic development in South Africa.

In this present paper we investigate the relationship between mining infrastructure and economic growth in South Africa from 1980-2013. The importance of this paper is to examine if there is both short and long run significant relationship between mining infrastructure and economic growth in South Africa. The data mining was collected from South African Reserve Bank (SARB) covering the range from 1980-2013 of the paper. Both Augmented Dickey Fuller (ADF) and Phillip Perron (PP) where used for stationarity tests. Johansen Cointegration test is employed in this paper; also Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) is also employed in this paper. In the results we obtained that there is a positive significant relationship between mining infrastructure and economic growth. There is also a causal relationship between mining infrastructure and economic growth, meaning the development of mining infrastructure does promote economic growth. In conclusion the policy makers should improve private infrastructure which will equip human capital to be more useful in contributing towards knowledge and innovation. This means South African government and mining industry should priorities the development of infrastructure as component that will be sufficient towards economic development.

Bottom of the pyramid (BOP) consumers are not just basing their purchase decisions on price and affordability but on the value derived from good-quality brands. Hence, this study assesses the brandconsciousness of South African BOP consumers in terms of brand awareness, differentiation, recognition, loyalty, trust and preferences for leading brands. The aim is to understand the brand consciousness of the South African BOP market so that suitable brand management strategies may be formulated to profitably serve the needs of this market. The population (2 556 422 elements) included BOP consumers living in relative poverty within the rural areas of South Africa from which a sample of 600 subjects was drawn using area sampling. Data was collected using a self-development questionnaire whose psychometric properties were statistically assessed and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings reflect that there is a high degree of brand awareness amongst BOP consumers, the majority of BOP consumers are able to easily differentiate between the various brands based on the brands’ logos, design and/or coloring, a significant segment displays brand loyalty which alters when price becomes a factor for consideration and BOP consumers lack trust where new brands are concerned and prefer good quality brands. Furthermore, BOP consumers’ brand consciousness and purchase decisions are influenced by education and income respectively. It can also be concluded that the majority of South African BOP consumers are brand-conscious; hence, brands play an influential role in their consumer decision-making process. Beneficial recommendations are presented for business organizations.

Recent studies which investigated the determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) in BRICS include Hsin-Hong and Shou-Ronne (2012), Nandi (2012), Jadhav (2012), Darzini and Amirmojahedi (2013), Nischith (2013), Ho et al. (2013), Kaur et al. (2013) and Priya and Archana (2014). The findings from these studies shows lack of consensus and confirm that a list of agreeable determinants of FDI in BRICS countries is still an unsettled matter. This paper was therefore initiated in order to contribute to the debate on the discourse on FDI determinants in BRICS countries.This paper deviates from earlier similar studies in five ways: (1) uses most recent data, (2) is the first to investigate whether a combination of financial development, trade openness, human capital, economic growth and inflation influence FDI in BRICS countries, (3) uses different proxies of the variables that affect FDI, (4) employed both fixed effects and pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) approaches and (5) used a stacked data approach.The results of the study showed that economic growth, trade openness and exchange rate stability positively impacted on FDI, financial development positively influenced FDI under fixed effects, FDI was positively influenced by human capital development using the pooled OLS and inflation negatively affected FDI in line with literature. Taking into account these findings, this study urges BRICS to implement policies that increase financial sector efficiency and economic growth, maintain stable exchange rates, keep inflation rates at lower levels, enhance trade openness and human capital development in order to increase FDI inflows.

In an effort to strengthen bank liquidity-risk management practices, the Basel Committee proposed new liquidity requirements for banks in 2010 under the Basel III framework. However, despite the good intentions of the liquidity requirements the new regulations are likely to present some challenges for banks in the course of managing their liquidity. However, before any inference can be made about the possible implications of the liquidity standards on bank liquidity management practices, it is imperative to have insight into the current liquidity management strategies of banks. This paper seeks to determine the current liquidity management practices of banks in South Africa by examining whether South African banks have target liquidity levels which they pursue and also by determining the variables that drive bank liquidity ratios. The study sample comprised six commercial banks operating in South Africa over the period 1993 to 2009. For analysis, a partial adjustment model was developed and estimated using the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator. The rate at which South African banks adjust their balance sheets was estimated at 8%. This adjustment speed implies that South African banks adjust their balance sheets slowly – probably due to high adjustment costs. Thus, South African listed banks have passively managed their liquidity and partially adjust their liquidity levels in an attempt to reach the optimal level. Furthermore, the following variables were considered to be the main drivers of liquidity ratios in South Africa: bank size, capital adequacy, loan loss reserves, and financial crisis.

In this paper, affective events theory (AET) is used to develop a model that can be used by organizations to enhance propitious work conditions that will encourage human resource management (HRM) practitioners to be affectively committed to their organizations. AET states that there are certain antecedents (i.e. distributive justice, job-related well-being, and employee engagement) that positively correlate with job satisfaction. According to AET, positive emotions have a positive indirect correlation between antecedents and job satisfaction. AET states that job satisfaction positively relates to affective commitment. The research design was cross-sectional and correlational, and the sample size was (n=205).From the 300 questionnaires distributed to HRM practitioners, the response rate was 68.33%. The main finding is that respondents rated the positive emotions items below the mean, and there was a significant positive relationship between distributive justice and job satisfaction (β = 0.61; p≤ 0.001). The data showed that job satisfaction positively correlated with affective commitment (β = 0.70; p ≤ 0.001).Positive emotions only mediated the relationship between distributive justice and job satisfaction (β = 0.36; p ≤ 0.001). The study results have implications for managers’ efforts to keep HRM practitioners affectively committed, as the latter were not satisfied with their remuneration. The data created awareness that when a remuneration policy is drafted, it should take cognisance that HRM practitioners who have positive emotions will be affectively committed and stay longer in organizations.