South African Journal of Business Management

This study probed the influence of information technology adoption by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Gauteng and Free State Provinces of South Africa. The supply chain integration and collaboration of the SMEs was also explored to ascertain the IT influence. A quantitative methodology was used as it was the best way to measure the extent of the information technology (IT) influence. The participants were sent questionnaires via the e-mail and provided feedback to the researcher via the same medium. The sample size of 300 comprised the owner/manager in the manufacturing and service sector SMEs from the two provinces. The data collected was analysed using a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) method and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using AMOS 22 Statistical Analysis software. The findings from the study indicated that information technology adoption enhanced integration and collaboration of SMEs supply chain. It also emerged that there was wide application of information technology amongst most of the SMEs approached. The other benefits that emerged from the increased use of IT in the supply chain included enhancement of customer service, inventory management, lead time, and relationship building. Indeed, Instilling IT skills to the SMEs employees was actually knowledge enhancement in performing business tasks.

This study investigates the prevalence and characteristics of papers published in popular predatory journals by South African academics in economic and management sciences. Our aim is to raise awareness and to deepen understanding of the predatory publishing phenomenon. We collected 728 recent (2013 to mid-2016) articles with South African authors in five popular in the field journals classified as ‘potential, possible, or probable predatory’ according to Beall’s list. Our data shows that publishing in these predatory journals is widespread across authors and universities. However, the data also shows that most of the authors only published once in these journals, suggesting that they perhaps mistakenly perceived the journals as being legitimate research outlets. We found evidence of low-quality publishing by the journals in our data, consistent with deficient peer review and copy editing processes. Thus, low-quality publishing was evident from spelling and grammar mistakes in the titles of articles, publishing the same paper twice in the same journal, so-called ‘salami slicing’, and the publishing of an article already published in another journal. 

If a large number of South African academics publish papers in predatory journals, then those journals become legitimised locally, leading to other South African academics also publishing in them. This can create a dangerous downward spiral in research quality.

Franchisees play an important role in franchise systems, as they are responsible for managing their business and ensuring its overall performance. Since earlier research confirmed the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and performance, this study explores the effect of location on the five dimensions of EO for franchisees. This study assessed franchisees, their risk taking, innovation, pro-activeness, competitive aggression and autonomy, and investigated location clusters related to this. Location was investigated from a geographical and operational stance. A face-to-face survey was conducted among 104 franchisees operating in four major cities in the retail sector in South Africa. Two clusters were identified: ‘operating inside of shopping centres’ (50%) and ‘operating outside of shopping centres’ (50%). Contradictory to what was found in the literature, the results indicate that a franchisee is likely to be more entrepreneurially orientated when operating outside of a shopping mall in the Johannesburg region. The strongest and weakest EO dimensions in terms of cluster construction were identified. Furthermore we found that, since the EO dimensions are highly correlated, it is likely that a franchisee will experience high levels of all of the dimensions simultaneously and therefore share in the positively associated benefits of EO, such as growth and performance.