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Management and Change in South Africa

One of the perspectives of this project is that South Africa is important to developments in sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. South Africa, for many different peoples and stakeholders in Africa, is seen as a beacon of hope. Multinational organizations are seeing the country as a springboard to the rest of the sub-continent. Bodies of management thought are developing, such as the ubuntu movement, and starting to be applied in other sub-Saharan African countries.

Interest in South Africa

Events since the ending of apartheid and lifting of sanctions has meant a renewed investment interest in South Africa from multinational companies, and possibly decreasing interest from the international donor and development community with a perspective that the job is now done. Yet the development of effective managers and organizations in South Africa is just beginning. Major social problems and inequities still exist. Major problems of illiteracy and a lack of basic skills, let alone management skills, are just beginning to be addressed. Yet South Africa, for many different peoples and stakeholders in sub-Saharan Africa, is seen as a beacon of hope.

Multinational organizations are seeing the country as a springboard to the rest of the sub-continent. Bodies of management thought are developing, such as the ubuntu movement (see African renaissance management systems), and starting to be applied in other sub-Saharan African countries. Management principles and practices are being adapted and hybrid systems being developed (Koopman, 1991, presents one such successful case of Cashbuild). Thought and effort are being given to addressing basic problems in organizations like illiteracy, and more complex management problems such as developing multi-ethnic teams out of the ravages of blatant race discrimination. Equity programmes, including positive discrimination towards previously disadvantaged groups, are being initiated, some successfully, some not so successful. Yet no other country is like South Africa.

Problems and Potential

However, its depths of problems and possible solutions, plus its huge potential means that in many ways South Africa is seen as pointing the way forward. This particularly applies to the cross-cultural management of people and change. The role of South Africa, its emerging management practices and organizational capacities are looked at in this project both positively and critically here in relation to sub-Saharan Africa generally. This analysis is undertaken by presenting findings from a number of case studies of organizations in different sectors: an American corporation in the health care product market; a manufacturer and distributor of Japanese motor vehicles; a parastatal organization; a local government district municipality undergoing major transformations; a South African manufacturer and distributor of generic drugs; a private sector hospital; and a South African owned bank. It is hoped through this analysis, successes and failures may be identified, and lessons drawn for other African countries in their attempts at managing rapid change in a multicultural context (Please revisit this page for more detail on these case studies. If you register, you will receive information on updates)

Cultural Complexity

From an initial study of South African management and organizations conducted within the multicultural and predominantly black Joint Management Development Programme, Jackson (1999: 306-7) wrote ‘Western and non-western cultures have for many years existed side by side (perhaps not too happily) in South Africa, although the enforced policy of separate ethnic development has warped the relationship. With the ending of apartheid, the situation has been left, perhaps as it always was, with a multicultural, polyglot society (with eleven official languages) of overwhelming complexity, deep historical antagonisms, profound differences between rich and poor, but now with unlimited potential to achieve centre stage in the global community’. This complexity is perhaps both a challenge and an opportunity. Almost without exception, sub-Saharan African countries are multicultural, have deep post-colonial legacies and similar acute problems of poverty, under-education and under-skilling, as well as under-investment in the fabric of organizational and community life.

Under-skilling

Sub-Saharan African countries and South Africa’s original economic development were based on extraction and agriculture aimed at an export rather than a domestic market and the contemporary export ratios reflect this. According to the African Development Report (2000: 136) Africa’s share in global exports fell from 4.5 per cent in 1977 to 2 per cent in 1997 (in US dollar terms 2000) This focus on export-led production had the effects of negating the need to develop a consumer-based economy, leading to the underdevelopment of processing and service industries, and skills associated with the secondary and tertiary sectors.

The inequalities of the past has ensured the under-education and under-skilling of many people who are ill equipped for jobs in a highly competitive global marketplace. South Africa’s 1999 gross national product per capita (GNP) of US$3,170 places it in the upper-middle income group of semi-industrialized economies and one of the most prosperous countries in Southern Africa, yet it performs more in line with the typical lower-middle income countries considering its social indicators (African Development Indicators, 2001:5).

The population exceeded 40,58 million at the 1996 census (76,7% black, 10,9% white, 8,9% coloured, and 2,6% Indian/Asian), while the expanded unemployment rate was 37,6 per cent  (South Africa Yearbook, 2000/2001; Statistics South Africa, 2000:8). An estimated 15 per cent of population 15 years and older are illiterate (African Development Indicators, 2001:320). Demographic constraints include not only a growing population but contained within this a high dependency ratio, a youthful age structure and a continuing high rate of urbanization (Luiz, 1996). There is a view that the factor of employment equity may be initially contribute to an under-skilling of the workforce (e.g. Bowmaker-Falconer, Horwitz, Jain and Taggar, 1998). The Employment Equity and Skills Development Acts, 1998 are aimed at redressing racial and gender based employment inequalities.

The Global Marketplace

Like many sub-Saharan African countries, South Africa has been launch into a competitive global marketplace when the overriding trend for organizations in industrial countries is to downsize and delayer to make the organization more competitive (Cameron, 1994; Freeman, 1994). South Africa may be becoming increasingly results-focused, and along with that have shareholder value as their main strategic driver.

The Challenge

A big challenge in South Africa as in other African countries, is how to reconcile the need to grow people within the wider society, thereby contributing to employment equity and providing development opportunities within the organization; and, on the other hand the need to be globally competitive, to be ‘mean and lean’ and to develop a profit focus. There is a need for organizations to be a means to developing people for the future (Jackson, 1999). Although management styles may have to change further before this is possible.

Management Styles and Participation

In a previous study of 199 South African organisations Viljoen (1987) found the following dominant management styles:  46 per cent autocratic; 33 per cent collaborative; and 12 per cent participative. In another study Hofmeyr (1998) found that South African organizations were generally over-managed and under-led: management styles were often seen as rigid, bureaucratic, directive and task-oriented, and sometimes decision making was over-centralized; and, leadership aspects such as direction, vision and effectiveness were often seen as lacking.

With the influence of democratic processes, western approaches to management, and perhaps even African approaches, organizations may well be looking towards more involvement of its people in decision process. Hence Jackson (1999) found elements of consultative management, but not participative management. He found that organizations were seen as hierarchical, centralized, fairly rule-bound yet having an element of consultative management.

Only lip-service may be being paid to participative management in South African organizations. Often downsizing and delayering leads to ‘empowerment’ of managers and staff at lower levels of the organization than was previously required (Cameron, 1994; Freeman, 1994). This may well lead to the impression of participative management. Yet participative management may only arise through the active empowerment of the diverse interest groups in South Africa. With more than 79 per cent of the management population white, and over 78 per cent of all managers being male (Breakwater Monitor, 2000) full participation in decision-making of all members of the stakeholder populations of organizations may be some way off.

Employment Equity

Recent figures from the Breakwater Monitor (2000) which monitors employment equity in South Africa through some 200 voluntarily participating organization, indicates that in 2000 African managers comprised 9.52 per cent, 5.53 per cent were Indian, 5.31 per cent were coloured and 79.64 per cent were white. Of the total 78.66 per cent were male and 21.34 per cent were female. There still appears to be considerable room for further redressing the power balances in corporations among the racial groupings.

Multicultural Working

Boysen’s (2001) research in South Africa concludes that: black managers are more collectivist than white managers who are more individualistic; white managers show a higher intolerance for uncertainty than black managers; white and black managers show no significant differences in power distance; black managers measure higher than white managers on humane orientation (that is the degree to which a society encourages and rewards fairness, altruism, generosity and kindness as opposed to aggressiveness and hostile actions); white managers measure higher than black managers on assertiveness and gender egalitarianism (masculinity as opposed to femininity); white managers score higher on performance orientation than black managers (the extent to which society encourages and rewards achievement and excellence). McFarlin, Coster & Mogale-Pretorius (1999) generally supports this type of model, and concludes that one of the main purposes of management development in South Africa should be to enable management to be more sensitive to an African and Africanized workforce, and to move towards Afrocentric approaches to training and development, that is, moving organizations towards a more African-based value system. Only recently has there been an articulation of the relation of African culture to management through the work of Mbigi (1997; Mbigi and Maree, 1995) in South Africa (see African renaissance management systems).

The Management Survey

The management survey in South Africa is looking at cultural differences and similarities and the ways in which these impact on management. Provisional descriptive statistics for the management survey are as follows.

The Organization Surveys

We currently are working with a number of organizations in different sectors, and are in the process of writing up results. This page will soon be linked to case studies from South Africa. Please revisit this page, or contact tjackson@africamanagement.org, for further information. If you have not done so already please register.

AfricaManagement.org © Terence Jackson 2002