Doctoral Degrees (Business Management)

Permanent URI for this collection

https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/696

Browse

Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Business Management) by Author "Maas, Gideon Johannes Pieter"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Kreatiwiteit in Suid-Afrikaanse klein- en mediumgroot ondernemings
    (Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 1996-03) Maas, Gideon Johannes Pieter; De Coning, T. J.; Smit, E. van der M.; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. Dept. of Business Management.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The development of small to medium enterprises (SME's) has various advantages for a country's economy, inter alia the creation of job opportunities. South African SME's are expected to realise these advantages, as set out in the national strategy for SME's. The turbulent national and international environment offers unique challenges to SME' s, but could also be the cause of them not meeting expectations. One possible way to secure dynamic behaviour of SME's in such a turbulent environment is to stimulate creativity. The question arises whether South African SME's are creative, and what can be done to promote their creativity. This study therefore focuses on two issues, namely creativity and SME' s. Creativity is discussed on the basis of existing theories and definitions. The primary aim of the discussion is to identify elements which can explain creativity in SME's. The following four elements are discussed: • characteristics of creative persons; • creative processes; • an environment which can support creativity; and • manifestations of creativity. The second issue under discussion framework of D'Amboise and Muldoney is SME's. An adapted (1984) was used as basis to discuss characteristics of 8ME owners, 8ME behaviour practices, and how 8ME's interact with the task environment. Conclusions regarding 8ME owners and 8ME behaviour patterns indicate that an entrepreneurial approach is conducive to creativity, and that 8ME's that interact dynamically with the environment tend to be creative. These conclusions are then integrated. Characteristics of 8ME owners, 8ME behaviour practices, creative processes, and manifestations of creativity are discussed. It was not possible to provide a list of manifestations, and therefore only an instrument for identification and classification is provided. Evaluation is subjective, which supports findings in the literature that objective evaluation is probably not possible. The integrated 8ME profile is an adapted conceptual model which serves as basis for the empirical research. This model suggests that there could be associations between characteristics of 8ME owners and 8ME behaviour practices, and manifestations of creativity. It was decided on a questionnaire for data collecting, because it is inter alia less expensive, and less time consuming for 8ME owners to complete. Questionnaires were forwarded to 3310 addresses, and 342 usable questionnaires were returned. Telephone inquiries confirmed that the low response could not be attributed to either the study or the questionnaire, but rather to factors unique to 8ME's, such as owners' limited time. After the descriptive statistics were reported, a stepwise logistic regression for binary dependant variables (creativity) and multiway analysis for categorical and ordinal explanatory variables were executed in an explorative way, in order to identify possible predictors of creativity. These predictors were then compared with the descriptive statistics to establish possible deficiencies. The most important deficiency is that the present profile of SME owners is not in equilibrium with predictors, and is therefore regarded as the most important reason why SME's are not creative. There is greater equilibrium between SME behaviour factors and predictors, but this is neutralised by non-creative SME owners. Internal (SME's) and external interventions which can create an environment conducive to creativity in SME's, are finally discussed. This approach can be visualised as an iceberg, which implies that manifestations of creativity are only perceptible if the imperceptible phase has a sound basis. This development approach is not an instant, but rather a long term process. If, however, deliberate efforts are not made to promote creativity in SME's, they will not be able to meet expectations, which could have serious consequences for the economy.