Commerce

This paper uses a nationally representative sample of agricultural businesses in Tanzania to empirically investigate the determinants of credit constraint status and its impact on agricultural productivity. In particular, we directly elicit the nature of the credit constraints experienced by crop producers. Subsequently, we evaluate the effect on crop output value per hectare using an endogenous switching regression model, which simultaneously estimates the likelihood of being credit constrained and its impact on productivity. The results provide evidence that the relaxation of all credit constraints would significantly enhance agricultural productivity; hence, contributing favourably to rural development, poverty alleviation, and the improvement of living standards in Tanzania. Moreover, consideration of only quantity constraints was shown to underestimate the full impact of credit constraint status in the presence of transaction costs and risk constraints. We advocate for the Tanz...

New media (eg social networks, blogs and text messaging) has afforded new forms of interactive communication to the masses. New media enables people to create and share content in real time. Its reliance on the internet means it can be accessed via a computer or a mobile device. Conducive to these new innovations is that most people in the developing world rely on mobile phones for communication and as would be expected the use of mobile phones has drastically increased over the years. Owing to this, the use and uptake of new ...

Organisations rely on information and communication technologies (ICT) as an essential part of their operations, as well as providing strategic advantage. Enterprise architecture (EA) is a function within an organisation to maximise return on investment of ICTs, and to ensure that the Information Systems (IS) function in the organisation is not a bottleneck for organisational growth and agility. This study surveyed small and large organisations in South Africa, to determine what the impact (and value) of the IS architecture and maturity of the IS function is on the business processes and the organisation as a whole. We also compared larger versus smaller organisations as well as informative-intensive versus non information-intensive organisations. The key findings were that there is a strong empirical basis for many of the claimed benefits of EA. In particular, EA seems to facilitate business process automation, more so (in our sample) than business agilty. However, EA has real organisational impacts, enabling especially long term cost reduction and enterprise agility. Also, although the higher importance and impact of EA and ICTs in information-intensive organisations was confirmed, surprisingly few significant differences were found between large and small organisations. Index Terms-Enterprise architecture, business process capability, ICT impact, South Africa.

Shortage of computing skills is a global concern as it affects national development and business success. Yet, despite high job availability and high salaries in computing professions, insufficient numbers of students are choosing to study the various computing disciplines. This South African study looks at the Information Systems (IS) major which is misunderstood by high school students. This retroductive case study identifies the events which lead students to change their major to IS. The study confirms the importance of interest in a major as well as the perceived high value of a major, which feature as dominant factors in the literature. Yet these are not the initial events that lead to students changing their major to IS. Events that initiate the process include losing passion for a previous major, experiencing difficulty in a previous major as well as enjoying the introductory IS course. The paper has practical advice for IS Departments and argues for a generic first year for ...

The growing shortage of skills in information communication technology (ICT) is a major concern in Southern Africa and globally. ICT is critical to national development and business success and therefore the need for skills is growing. Yet despite high job availability and high starting salaries in ICT, students are not choosing to study in ICT fields. In this study we look at the Information Systems (IS) major where prior studies have found that misperceptions of the major exist in schools. Yet at university these misperceptions can be addressed. In this inductive and retroductive case study we identify the factors that students consider when changing their major to IS. The perceived value of IS is found to play a major role in students choosing the IS major. Events that trigger the process of changing major to IS include a loss of passion for previous major or difficulty in previous major as well as enjoyment of the introductory IS course. The paper argues for a generic first year for students as well as a focus on enjoyment and skills aligned to IS professional practice in introductory IS courses.

Exploration for aeolian diamond placers within th e southern Sperrgebiet requires a thorough understanding of aeolian transport across a broad r ange of scales from a systemic regional level to a micro-topographic-scale at the individual particle level. Within this arid zone the transport of coars egrained aeolian bedload, including diamonds, is dri ven by the impact of saltating sandflow, which produces a uniquely characteristic diamond dispersa l pattern as well as a variety of coarse-grained bedload features, textures and fabrics. For the first time the Namibian Aeolian System (NAS : see Annex 1 for abbreviations) which runs along the entire continental margin from the Orange River in the south to southern Angola in the north can be studied within the context of the recently d iscovered Benguela Low-Level Coastal Jet (BLLCJ). The structures produced in response to the hydrauli c behaviour of the BLLCJ flow are shown to influence strongly the location of zones of high-en ergy eros...

Ali Corbett arrived in Cape Town in 1989 after living for over two years in Bogenfels, a remote ghost town in the Namib Desert, where she wrote her first book Diamond beaches. Inspired by winning a poetry competition at the age of seven, Ali's passion for writing grew with her children, culminating in the self-publication in 1995 of her first children's book about Monty, the Cape grey mongoose, Monty gets lost.