Graduate School of Management

Previously thought of as a 'hopeless' case by some, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has experienced economic growth, technological progress, and communications leading to revisions about its prowess. For some, the rise of GDP, capacitation and ease of doing business, increase in exports, foreign direct investment (FDI), and societal indicators of well-being are moving SSA into the 'hopeful' stage and this is a sure sign of movement in the right direction. Some believe that the role of the state is crucial to the development of African countries. Others question both the free market view and the 'developmentalist' view for not taking sufficient account of historical experience. To what extent do these perspectives explain the economic development and performance of SSA?

Mission statements are an important component of marketing audits and marketing plans. Campbell and Yeung's Ashridge mission model is one of the methodologies suggested in academic literature for use in the analysis and design of mission statements. This paper measures marketing managers' perceptions of the usefulness of the Ashridge mission model as a tool for assessing the quality of organisational mission statements in Zimbabwe. To fulfill this objective, the perceptions of a convenience sample of 25 marketing managers enrolled on a postgraduate marketing programme at a leading Zimbabwean university are gathered and content-analysed. The Ashridge mission model prescribes that an ideal mission statement should have four elements-i.e. purpose, strategy, behaviour standards and values. The study finds that nearly all the mission statements in the sample reflect the purpose and strategy elements. More than half of them are in conformity with the values component. Less than half are in compliance with the behaviour standards aspect. Although the study is exploratory in 'nature, considering the convenient nature of the sample, the practical implication of this paper is that marketing managers in Zimbabwe can draw on the Ashridge mission model to analyse existing mission statements and design new ones.

This study provides the model to be used when estimating the cost of unserved utility especially electricity. It also identified different impacts of outages for different stakeholders. A three model framework has been provided to show the demand and supply of electricity with outages. The segment demand model assesses demand for electricity given outages and backup supply from own private sources. The modeling framework for electricity outages highlights two cost of outages, the direct cost and backup cost and if summed provides total outage cost. The framework can also be used in assessing direct cost for interruption in services such as water supply and telephone services.

Zimbabwe's mining sector has been hit hard by electricity load shedding from the power utility. Load shedding was seen as a solution to the inability of power utility to supply electricity to meet demand. Electricity supply problems has so many cause and some of which are; inability to expand generation capacity, aging equipment, droughts, cost coal supply to thermal plants, vandalism and political disturbances. Mines flooded as a result poor pumping of water outside the tunnels and mine shafts, and also lost productive hours of production. The researchers applied the direct assessment approach to estimate the cost of load shedding. A survey method was adopted for the mines as they are scattered. A questionnaire was opted as a research instrument and was administered face to face to mine captains. The results revealed that low capacity mines incurred higher load shedding cost compared to high capacity mines. It is also seen that high valued mineral mines (gold, diamond and plati...

The study assesses the sectorial cost of electricity outages and cost of expanding own generation to avert outages in Zimbabwe. The main sectors used were agriculture, mining, industry and households. These sectors lost significantly due to electricity outages. The cost has been assessed on the basis of direct and indirect cost. Sector surveys were carried out. Questionnaires were used as the main research instruments. Results revealed that households were exposed to more outages and other sectors were priorities. Mining reported the highest both direct and indirect outage cost per mine and in total industrial sector reported the highest. For the overall sector cost, industry reported the highest cost and households the least. Total outage cost for one year represents a quarter of total expansion cost required to avert the problem. The study concluded that expansion is a must to avoid electricity outages. The study recommends large scale expansion in generation.

The study investigates how consumers use cash or electronic (plastic) money in the multicurrency period. The objective was to find out how easy consumers found plastic money use to be, whether they liked using it and in particular how they compared it to using cash. A qualitative survey of consumer use of plastic money, Debit/ATM cards, Credit cards and VISA/Master cards was undertaken. Attitudes and opinions were sought and were extracted using a questionnaire as research instrument. It was found that individual factors such as education level and gender had a bearing on the use of plastic money. The study also found a number of problems that were encountered by consumers in relation to security, speed and complexity of use, although in some situations it was a preferred alternative. The research concludes that these issues will need to be addressed and that plastic money may have advantages in certain situations but marketing effort should be concentrated on identifying niche oppo...

Africa has many electricity supply problems with major causes being natural causes (drought), oil price shock, system disruption by conflict, and low investment in electricity generation. To solve the problem, many countries adopted several reforms. However, the reforms failed to bring solutions. Electricity sector privatisation has received great criticism. Individual firms and households resorted to own private power generation due to electricity supply inadequacy from the public grid supply, as is the feature of many African countries. This paper focuses on sub-Saran Africa's electricity supply inadequacy. It provides the economic implications of power outages.

Banks in Zimbabwe are facing challenges in attracting deposits from customers due to several reasons. The banking sector has implemented a wide range of strategies in a bid to attract deposits. These strategies can be broadly classified as promotional, distribution and customer relationship management. The study used the whole population of banks in Zimbabwe. The study reveals that only a few of the strategies implemented seem to work while the rest are ineffective. The study concludes that banks are not exhaustively using distribution strategies and CRM strategies. The study recommends that banks should get into strategic-alliances with local or international partners and introduce information technology frameworks and processes in order to secure customer information and funds.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are regarded as the seedbed of entrepreneurship development. The government and other support institutions are making efforts to support the growth of the sector. Despite all these efforts and initiatives, there has been an insignificant corresponding growth of SMEs in terms of size. This study adopted both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The research used random sampling focusing on owner/managers. Primary data was collected using questionnaires. The Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) was used to analyse the data. The results show that the main factors constraining the growth of SMEs at Glenview Furniture Complex are limited access to finance, limited access to infrastructure, competition, limited access to markets, HIV/AIDS and lack of access to appropriate technology. It was also found that SMEs at GFC grow through joint ventures, product differentiation, focus strategy and low cost strategy. The study recommended that SMEs at GFC should pull their resources together in acquiring raw materials as a group and selling their products through cooperative shops in town where they can display their products.

Virtual Banking is a new phenomenon emerging in the Zimbabwean banking sector. It has assisted in offering low cost and convenient banking solutions to the traditionally unbanked lower end of the market through the use of internet technology and Information Communication Technologies (ICTs). The rivalry among players in the financial services sector has given birth to such innovative banking solutions. Literature revealed that Virtual Banking has many benefits compared to branch banking. The research used random sampling focusing on commercial banks customers and employees across the banking sector. Primary data were collected using questionnaire for this descriptive research. The study revealed that education, age and income play an important role in Virtual banking adoption by customers. It recommended that the banking sector should fully recapitalize itself, acquire the latest Information and Communication Technology and partner with key stakeholders to form formidable business e...

This study investigated the possible impact that trading automation of Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) could have on the development of the local capital market from an ex-ante perspective. An assessment of the current level of development of the local capital market was looked at with a view of making recommendations for further improvement from the current levels. In measuring capital market development, four parameters namely, liquidity, volume and value traded, price discovery process and regulation of the market, were used as proxies for capital market development. In determining the current level of capital market development in Zimbabwe, a Capital Market Diagnostic Model was used. A survey was used to collect data from the capital market stakeholders through a structured questionnaire. The results indicated that trading automation has got statistical significant relationships with local market liquidity, volumes and value traded, price discovery process and local market regulat...

The mining sector has been the cornerstone of economic growth in Zimbabwe hence funding becomes very crucial to resuscitate the economy. The study aimed to assess the funding mechanisms for the mining sector of Zimbabwe and the effect of these on the performance of the sector. A quantitative study was carried out in the mining sector. The research findings showed that respondents pointed out that the funding mechanisms used in the mining sector of Zimbabwe are project finance, finance by private equity, public bonds and loans from banks and other financial institutions. It was also revealed that over and above available mechanisms, investment in the mining sector is being influenced by Interest rate, Business economic empowerment policies, bank lending criteria and Technical information, simultaneously. Furthermore, the study established that the mining sector needs skilled and technical staff, Technical information, banks’ lending criteria and Capital markets to get funding from in...

This studyaimed at providing the approach to be followed by researchers when estimating cost of unserved utility service mostly electricity. It examined the different cost components that can be used to identify total direct cost using a typical direct assessment method. It was revealed that there are variations to direct cost assessment which involved production loss approach and systems outage customer cost approach. Direct Assessment method provides the richest source of information for tracking trends in interruption cost and had a number of weaknesses such as ignoring indirect cost, self assessment problem and nonconsideration for makeup cost. The method can also be used in assessing direct cost for interruption in services such as water supply and telephone services.

Zimbabwe went through an unprecedented political and economic crisis between 1999 and 2009 which had severe effects on its tourism and other productive sectors. The main objective of this study was to identify the critical issues Zimbabwe needed to address to re-brand itself as a competitive tourist destination since the subsiding of the crisis in March 2009. Data to fulfill the study's objective was gathered through a questionnaire administered to employees of the country's national tourism organisation, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority. Six critical issues that influence nation re-branding were extracted from the data using principal component analysis. The tentative managerial implication of the paper was that Zimbabwe needed to consider the six key issues in its tourism destination re-branding effort. The academic implication of the study was that the issues need to be further empirically tested with data from representative samples of respondents drawn from a wide range o...

This research study investigates the factors affecting the financial performance of MFIs in Zimbabwe. The research study is important to Zimbabwe because of the crucial role MFIs are expected to play in the economy which has become to be dominated by the informal sector. The informal sector has become a source of employment and livelihood for the large proportion of the population who are faced with high levels of formal unemployment and poverty. The analytical framework developed and used in this study was examined using data collected from the successful administration of 92 questionnaires and 2 interview sessions. In terms of data analysis, the research study utilized techniques which included descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. In inferential statistics, the research study employed regression analysis and correlation analysis. The research study found different levels of influences on financial performance and these included MFI specific factors, macroeconomic cou...

Innovative approach to revitalizing Disease Surveillance System in Zimbabwe using cell-phone mediated data transmission has been a huge success. Cell phones have been successfully integrated into disease surveillance system resulting in expansion of surveillance coverage, improved completeness and timeliness. Decision makers are now able to access disease surveillance data in near real-time.