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Theses and dissertations (Management Sciences)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://ir-dev.dut.ac.za/handle/10321/14

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    Evaluating the influence of social responsibility practices on the performance of small and medium automotive manufacturers in the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality
    (2023-03) Mvakwendlu, Nonophela Buhle; Zondo, Robert Walter Dumisani
    Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are an important business sector in South Africa, while also contributing to new job opportunities and development all over the world. It is assumed the implementation of a strategic philosophy such as Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) can enhance performance of SMEs, as it involves organisations acting responsibly and ethically towards society, the environment and other stakeholders to maximise positive impact, not merely increase profit. CSR has received much attention in the business world, nevertheless, several SMEs in the manufacturing sector do not recognise how their practice closely affects employees, society, and the environment. Studies show manufacturers deposit their waste into some of the country’s main rivers, which affects individuals in the surroundings, demonstrating the lack of business manufacturers involvement in CSR practices. Hence, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the extent to which CSR practices influence SME performance in the automotive manufacturing sector of the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality. The study objective is thus to evaluate the influence of environmental CSR practices, ethical CSR labour practices, and the public good of CSR, on SME performance. Being quantitative in nature, structured questionnaires were employed to gather data from the targeted population of 120 SME owners in the automotive manufacturing sector, with the sampling size of 110 SME owners and 10 SME owners for pilot study. The study reveals the demographic variables that have a relationship with CSR practices, as well as variables that do not. This includes environmental, ethical labour and public good CSR practices and their relationship with demographic variables. Ethical CSR labour practices showed no relationship with any demographic variable when using ANOVA technique. All statistical results are achieved with Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) techniques, including descriptive statistics, chisquare, Pearson correlation co-efficient and ANOVA techniques. The study is limited to automotive manufacturing SMEs and CSR practices.
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    The impact of e-marketing on business performance: A case study of the Midlands Meander Association members
    (2015) Wisdom, Elizabeth; Veerasamy, Dayaneethie
    The study was undertaken to establish to what extent the use of e-marketing has impacted on the Midlands Meander Association (MMA) members relationship with their customers and influenced their business performance (during the period August 2013 to January 2014). As stated in the literature review, the utilisation of technology and e-marketing are important areas of future research. The literature review incorporates various studies such as Mathfield (2000), Lourens (2007) and McLaren (2011) which focus on the MMA members and their customers. Moreover, the literature review includes a discussion of several definitions of e-marketing, while the importance of a number of e-marketing techniques was examined. The study was an empirical, descriptive investigation which applied a mixed methods approach. The study utilised three types of data collection methods: online survey, telephone interviews and the analysis of public domain documentation. The research found an extensive difference between how the various MMA members implemented e-marketing within their businesses. The research showed that e-marketing was not utilised or exploited by the majority of the MMA members to its full potential. Also, the study revealed the need for the MMA members to increase their utilisation of social media, search engine optimiser and complementary links to other websites in order to realise the advantages which may be gained. The study found that over half of the MMA members held a moderately positive perception of e-marketing and that the members’ ages might impact on their perceptions of e-marketing. The research suggested that the majority of the respondents recognised that their business performance had increased due to the use of e-marketing. Furthermore, the research found that two thirds of the MMA members acknowledged the importance of e-marketing to connect and build relationships with their customers. Finally, the research highlighted the need for future research to be undertaken to incorporate other tourism routes within South Africa in order to examine the use of e-marketing and its effect on both customer relationships and business performance.