Micro-economic drivers of the South African foundry industry

South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Micro-economic drivers of the South African foundry industry
 
Creator Phiri, Luckson Tolmay, Aletta S. Dirkse van Schalkwyk, Riaan
 
Subject Sustainable competitive advantage; strategy South African foundry industry; sustainable competitive advantage; micro-economic drivers, explanatory sequential mixed-method, foundries closing down
Description Background: The foundry industry plays an important economic role in South Africa and all efforts should be made to sustain the industry. However, the problem is that many foundries are closing down due to economic factors.Aim: The primary research objective was to identify from literature the micro-economic drivers applicable to the sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) of foundries in South Africa. The secondary objectives were to benchmark the perceptions of stakeholders in the most prominent micro-economic drivers identified from literature.Setting: With micro-economic drivers identified, management can then compile a SCA strategy to retain the industry. Foundry representatives from foundries located in all nine provinces of South Africa were invited to participate in the study.Method: An explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach was followed by first employing a quantitative approach, followed by a qualitative approach to identify the most prominent micro-economic drivers. Descriptive data analysis was utilised for the quantitative data and thematic analysis was utilised for the qualitative phase.Results: It was found that the most prominent micro-economic drivers are product quality, the ability to innovate, employees’ skills development, and investment in plant infrastructure.Conclusion and contribution: The article contributes towards the deficiency in literature by presenting the most prominent micro-economic drivers for the South African foundry industry. The article also makes recommendations on SCA strategies for foundries in South Africa based on the four micro-economic drivers.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor
Date 2023-01-27
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Mixed Method
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajems.v26i1.4758
 
Source South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences; Vol 26, No 1 (2023); 12 pages 2222-3436 1015-8812
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/4758/2673 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/4758/2674 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/4758/2675 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/view/4758/2676 https://sajems.org/index.php/sajems/article/downloadSuppFile/4758/4959
 
Coverage South Africa 2019-2022 M11
Rights Copyright (c) 2023 Luckson Phiri, Aletta S. Tolmay, Riaan Dirkse van Schalkwyk https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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