Vol. 10 No. 1(J) (2018)

The bottom of the pyramid (BOP) proposition espouses the use of ‘single-serve’ or ‘sachet’ packaging in order to enhance affordability, encourage consumption and offer an assortment of good-quality products to BOP consumers. This study assesses the influence of packaging (in relation to size and price of different quantities) on South African BOP consumers’ purchase decisions. The study analyses whether or not these consumers have a tendency to purchase smaller quantities of products as opposed to making bulk purchases. This study further investigates the impact that packaging criteria (storage, convenience of purchase, prices of different package sizes and reusability of packaging) have on consumers’ decision-making. The aim is to uncover South African BOP consumers’ perceptions of packaging as a decision-making influencer in order to formulate appropriate strategies that businesses can adopt in order to lucratively serve this market. Using area sampling, a sample of 600 BOP consumers living in relative poverty within the rural areas of South Africa was drawn. Data was collected using a self-developed questionnaire whose psychometric properties were statistically analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The study’s results reveal that although South African BOP consumers view small quantities of products as convenient and easy to store, the majority have an inclination to purchase large quantities instead of smaller package sizes. South African BOP consumers are also enticed to purchase products that are packaged in reusable containers, thereby, enabling the containers to be re-used after the consumption of the contents. Practical recommendations are articulated for business organizations.

In the developing nations of the world, poor gross domestic product growth has shown serious vacuum to be filled in order to achieve the sustainable development goals. In that regard, this research article intends to contribute to the sustainable development goals of the United Nation’s goal by explaining the rural food insecurity in the light of climate change dynamic in some selected rural communities of Limpopo Province, South Africa. The data employed in the study were collected from 120 randomly selected rural household heads. Data were analysed with descriptive (frequency, mean etc.) and inferential statistics (Principal component Analysis (PCA), Tobit and Probit Regression) which were properly fitted (P<0.05) for the set research objectives. Descriptive results indicate that the average age of the respondents was 52 years with 60% of the household heads being married and a mean household size of 5.The study concluded that there is climate change effect and food insecurity in the study area and therefore recommended among others that the government of South Africa should endeavour to implement a more rural focused food securityclimate change policies in order to relieve the intensity of food insecurity situations among these disadvantaged rural dwellers of the province as well as to entrench a policy of long term development of agriculture. Finally, the study emphasized that the rural farming households should be enlightened through proper extension services to carry out climate change adaptation and mitigation measures in alleviating the food insecurity situation in the rural communities of the province.

This paper investigates the effects of a US economic policy uncertainty shock on Indian macroeconomic variables with a number of Structural VARs. This study models the economic policy uncertainty index as constructed by Baker et al. (2013). The study also uses a set of macroeconomic variables for India such as inflation, industrial production and nominal interest rate. The objective of the study is to identify the potential impacts of economic policy uncertainty shocks from the US economy to the Indian economy. According to the SVARs, a one standard deviation shock to the US economic policy uncertainty leads to a statistically significant decline in the Indian industrial production of -0.294% and in the Indian inflation of -0.032%. India shows to be resistant to US policy uncertainty. Furthermore, the study finds that the contribution of the US economic policy uncertainty on the Indian macroeconomic variables is shown to be significantly larger than the one exerted by the Indian uncertainty shock.

After the adoption of the multicurrency system in 2009 Zimbabwe’s macroeconomic environment stabilized but the new economic order exposed the economy to a crippling liquidity crisis. Exports remain the only sustainable solution to Zimbabwe’s liquidity crisis in the short to medium term given the current sanctions that limits other international capital flows. This study sort to understand the factors that determine Zimbabwean manufacturing firms’ likelihood and intensity to export. The study a was based on panel data from a 19 manufacturing firms listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange over the period 2009 to 2017. The propensity and intensity to export was estimated using the logit and Tobit regression models respectively. Bigger firms and firms that engage in research and development had a high propensity to export. Foreign owned firms and firms that engage in research and development had a high intensity to export, while those with high domestic turnover tended to export less. The appreciation of the USD increased Zimbabwean manufacturing firms’ propensity and intensity to export. We urge the policy makers to design investment laws that attract foreign investors, and managers to prioritize research and development. We also recommend firm managers to take advantage of periods of currency appreciation to recapitalize at a cheaper cost and export more goods since Zimbabwe’s manufacturing production is highly import dependent.

Internal control activities should provide reasonable assurance surrounding the attainment of business objectives in the foreseeable future, be they financial or non-financial in nature. Recent studies suggest that internal control activities used within South African Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) are inadequate and/or ineffective – they do not provide reasonable assurance surrounding the attainment of relevant objectives. For this study emphasis was placed on whether internal control activities used by South African SMMEs had an adverse influence on their profitability and solvency. Data were obtained from 119 members of management of South African SMMEs, which allowed a total of14 relationships to be tested. Only four relationships were found to be statistically significant which led to the rejection of the two developed hypotheses. Stemming from the results, it appears that there may be a need for the development of formal policies pertaining to internal control within a South African SMME dispensation.

The current study investigates the impact of the 2008 US financial crises on the real exchange rate in South Africa. The data used in this empirical analysis covers the period from January 2000 to June 2017. The seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) intervention charter was used to carry out the analysis. Results revealed that the financial crises period in South Africa occurred in March 2008 and significantly affected the exchange rate. Hence, the impact pattern was abrupt. Using the SARIMA model as a benchmark, four error metrics; to be precise mean absolute error (MAE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), mean error (ME) and mean percentage error (MPE) was used to assess the performance of the intervention model and SARIMA model. The results of the SARIMA intervention model produced better forecasts as compared to that one of SARIMA model. Furthermore, the results of this empirical analysis provided practical information for the monetary policy committee of SA to make informed policy decisions related to exchange rate movements and we further give sound relevance in using the intervention model to model interrupted time series such as exchange rates.

For more than two decades, 21st March has been canonised and celebrated among South Africans as Human Rights Day. Earmarked by the newly democratic and inclusive South Africa, it commemorates the Sharpeville and Langa massacres. As history recorded, on the 21st March 1960, residents of Sharpeville and subsequently, Langa embarked on a peaceful anti-pass campaign led by the African National Congress (ANC) breakaway party, the Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC). The pass (also known as dompas ) was one of the most despised symbols of apartheid; a system declared internationally as a crime against humanity. In the post-apartheid era, it is expectedthat all South Africans enjoy and celebrate the full extent of their human rights. However, it appears that the envisaged rights are not equally enjoyed by all. This is because widening inequalities in the health-care system, in schooling, and in the lucrative sporting arena have not been amicably and irrevocably resolved. Furthermore, it is still the norm that the most vulnerable of South Africans, especially rural Africans, find it difficult, and sometimes, impossible to access adequate and even essential healthcare services. Central to the possible questions to emerge from this discourse are the following(i) What is the current state of South Africa’s health system at the turn of 23 years of its majority rule? (ii) Why is the South African health system still unable to sufficiently deliver the socioeconomic health rights of most South African people? It is against this background that this article uses a critical discourse analysis approach in its broadest form to provide a nuanced Afrocentric assessment of South Africa’s human rights record in the health sector since the year 1994. Data for this article is generated through the review of the cauldron of published and unpublished academic, official and popular literature.

Knowledge hiding can have many adverse effects on organizational development, and it is consequently important to look at its various causes, and also the impact such activities haveon targets, perpetrators, and organizations as a whole. Various studies investigate the effects of knowledge hiding on organizations, and the employees surveyed in these studies have identified some of the possible drivers of knowledge hiding to be: a lack of employee trust; poor employee incentives; employee retaliation; employee insecurity; the intentional withholding of knowledge; the workplace environment; a craving for competitive advantage over fellow staff members; and also, feelings of psychological ownership. This paper investigates the influence of servant leadership on knowledge hiding, and proposes a mediating variable: that of the influence of psychological ownership of knowledge on the relationship between servant leadership and knowledge hiding attitudes in staff within organizations. A model is therefore proposed to achieve this, since it could be argued that increased servant leadership, through the psychological ownership of knowledge, can have a positive effect on staff attitudes towards knowledge hiding, and can also be used to encourage them to share knowledge to improve their overall performances, and the competitive advantages of organizations. The proposed model can also be used to assist managers in developing strategies for motivating staff to become more committed to the visions of organizations, in order to improve the performances of both themselves and their organizations overall.

The purposes of this research were to understand and analyze the behavior of the psychological bias experienced by investors in making investment decisions. Psychological bias experienced by investors led to wrong decision making and fatal losses. This research used qualitative interpretive phenomenology method to understand the phenomenon of decision making based on the perspective of investors. The result showed that: (1) The phenomenon of cognitive bias and psychological bias behavior occur in nearly all informants, (2) The Psychology bias could be divided by two types, namely: expected emotion bias behavior and immediate emotion bias behavior, (3) experience, knowledge of the capital markets and the management of good emotions determine the level of psychological stability and reduce bias behavior that could be raising the return.

Domestic violence is a global public health problem. It is prevalent in both the developed world and developing countries. The objective of this study is to identify the factors that are associated with domestic violence against women of reproductive age in Rwanda. The data from the 2014/2015 Rwanda demographic and health survey were used. Generalized linear mixed model was used to account for random effects, overdispersion of residual and heterogeneity. The findings of this study revealed that wealth quintiles, education level of the husband or partner, polygamy, alcohol status of husband or partner, size of the family, number of sexual partners including the husband in the last 12 months, the province the victim lived in, the ownership of an asset in the form of a house or land and the societal attitude towards wife-beating, were the determinants of domestic violence in women of reproductive age. The findings of the risk factors in the current study can help the policy makers, public health workers and institutions in charge of gender monitoring in Rwanda to come up with effective strategies to reduce the domestic violence levels directed against women.