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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the promotional activities embraced by informal clothing manufacturing micro-enterprises (CMMEs) in the informal economy of an emerging market. Informal micro-enterprises are both income and job-generating alternatives for unemployed people in South Africa's townships. Recent research has highlighted the need to develop unique marketing strategies to address challenges in emerging markets and help CMMEs realize their true potential. A qualitative case study, which included personal interviews with 13 CMME owners and observations at a workshop with five participating CMMEs, was undertaken at a business incubation hub. The findings from this study suggested the prevalence of opportunistic self-started promotional activities and assisted promotional activities. CMMEs selectively embrace some of the methods and activities contained in the conventional, innovational and fashion entrepreneur promotional mix strategies. The opportunistic use of promotional methods resulted in the survivalist promotional mix particular to the informal CMME in an African context. This paper makes a theoretical contribution to the knowledge base of marketing literature within the informal economy context, and literature about informal clothing micro businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the crucial role that multinational enterprises (MNEs) can play in advancing sustainability, progress toward meeting the United Nations' Agenda for Sustainable Development by 2030 has been slow. MNEs are partly responsible, and even though they recognize that they are part of a larger social, economic and ecological ecosystem, and that sustainability can enhance their long-term growth and viability, they have been slow to embrace it. The sustainability and MNE literature initially focused on the sustainability priorities found in developed market multinational enterprises (or DMNEs). Increasingly, "home-grown" (or indigenous) multinationals from emerging market regions have garnered more attention but research on sustainability in the emerging market context is still lagging, despite the fact that emerging markets – and its businesses – have potentially much to gain from embracing sustainability. This paper examines the sustainability discourse in South Africa and identifies the sustainability priorities of its largest indigenous firms. The sustainability reports of South Africa's largest public firms in 2019 were analyzed using Centering Resonance Analysis (CRA). Results indicate that South African MNEs focus on business and societal aspects of sustainability, more so than on environmental protection initiatives. This finding likely reflects: 1) South Africa's context and its sustainability priorities, 2) a diverse sectoral sample, 3) geographic dispersion of South African MNE subsidiaries (presence in other emerging, developed or developing markets with different sustainability priorities by market profile), or 4) a combination of these factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the exchange rate pass-through to producer prices in South African industries from 1970 to 2016. Empirical results from panel contemporaneous techniques indicate that exchange rate pass-through to South African producer prices is contingent on the currency choice with substantial variations across industries. Particularly, Rand variations with the currency of Germany, Japan, and the US pose greater influence on the producer prices of South African industries whilst the Chinese and Indian currency variations have the least bearing. The mining and quarrying; the manufacturing and the construction industries are among the sectors that are most exposed to the exchange rate fluctuations. The less pass-through effect occurs in three sectors, namely trade, catering and accommodation services; electricity, gas and water; and transport, storage and communication. This possibly indicates their limited exposure to external shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces the possibility of asymmetry in the reaction of output growth to inflation shocks in South Africa by making use of the Markov-switching vector autoregressive model. Using quarterly data from 1969Q1 to 2013Q4, the empirical finding suggests that the reaction of output growth to inflation shocks is not only regime dependent but is also contingent on how the monetary authority reacts to such shocks. Two important regimes are identified; the high and low inflation volatility regimes. Consistent with the signal extraction theory, the output effect of inflation shocks is found to be significantly lower in the high inflation volatility regime compared to the low inflation regime. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the factors that influence capital structure decisions in South Africa from the perspective of the Chief Financial Officer (CFO). The results of a survey of 33 CFOs of JSE listed companies find that South African CFOs are equally likely to follow the Pecking Order and Static Trade-Off theories. However, small companies are more likely to follow the Pecking Order theory while large companies are more likely to follow the Static Trade-Off theory. In addition, the results show that South African companies are more likely to follow the Static Trade-Off theory than companies in other emerging countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]