Enhancing female entrepreneurship by enabling access to skills

Literature reveals the need for entrepreneurship training programmes that focus on the skills required by female entrepreneurs. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the Women Entrepreneurship Programme (WEP) as an initiative to provide entrepreneurial and business skills to female entrepreneurs. An experimental group of 116 women attended this training intervention whereas 64 women formed the control group who did not attend the WEP. The findings highlight that through the WEP the experimental group gained new skills and knowledge relevant to running a business; increased their confidence in their entrepreneurial abilities; and used these skills to start new ventures.     

Skill and Earnings Amongst Golfers on the Southern-African Sunshine Tour

This paper estimates the determinants of the success of golfers on the Southern-African Sunshine Tour. Using a simultaneous-quantile regression approach and real earnings per tournament as a measure of success, a higher greens-in-regulation percentage and a lower number of putts per greens-in-regulation are associated with higher earnings. Calculations of the value of the marginal product of key golfer skills suggest a dynamic human capital acquisition process for many Sunshine Tour golfers at the earliest stages of their professional golf career.     

Developing an understanding of problems being experienced by traditional healers living on the western border of the Kruger National Park: Foundations for an integrated conservation and development programme

The World Health Organisation estimates that 70‐80 per cent of Third World populations utilise traditional medicines. In South Africa this number is increasing due to population growth, rapid urbanisation, lack of alternative medical facilities, widespread poverty, violence and a belief that certain diseases can only be cured with traditional medicine. In 1994, traditional healers living on the western boundary of the Kruger National Park in South Africa requested assistance in obtaining scarce medicinal plant and animal species. It soon became apparent that developing a participative programme would require a deeper understanding by conservationists of the sociological, cultural and environmental factors affecting traditional healers. This research project was aimed at investigating these factors, as well as providing traditional healers with an opportunity for learning more about the problems conservationists are experiencing, thus building a foundation for a future integrated conservation and development programme.     

Product Involvement and the Relative Importance of Health Endorsements

Product involvement is a fundamental part of the buyer decision processes, during supermarket visits, as individuals respond differently to stimuli under differing involvement conditions. This study aims to provide a better understanding of the role of nutritional endorsements in consumers’ food purchasing decisions, when evaluated across high and low involvement products. Although past research in this area does exist, a major limitation is that nutritional endorsements have been studied only for their direct effect as a single, isolated product cue on product perception—rather than its importance relative to other product cues, such as price and product branding. This study overcomes this limitation through a conjoint analysis involving a sample of supermarket consumers. The findings suggest that a health endorsement plays a smaller role in influencing consumer decision-making relative to brand or price, but it is stronger for the higher involvement product. These findings provide nutritional foundations and product managers with quantifiable evidence of nutritional programs’ influence in consumer decision-making, justifying the relevance of such endorsements and giving nutritional foundations specific leads for adaptions in their marketing and educational efforts.     

A Note on the (Continued) Ability of the Yield Curve to Forecast Economic Downturns in South Africa

In 2002‐2003, the South African yield spread falsely signalled a downswing that never materialised. This paper provides two reasons for this false signal. First, while the Reserve Bank never actually officially declared the start of a downswing, by alternative measures a downswing did actually occur. It is this severe weakness in economic activity at that time that the yield curve pointed to. Second, short‐term interest rates in 2003 were higher than they should have been because of a mistake made in measuring consumer price inflation. Because South Africa had recently introduced an inflation‐targeting regime, policy interest rates were, as a result of this error, kept too high for too long. This policy mistake was rectified as soon as the error in the Consumer Price Index was discovered. Thus, the yield curve in 2003 pointed to the reality that short‐term interest rates were too high and risked pushing the economy into full blown recession. This is demonstrated by the fact that it was a fall in long bond interest rates that caused the yield spread to turn negative, indicating expectations that short‐term interest rates would need to be cut – as indeed they were.