John M. Luiz

Bio: John M. Luiz is an academic researcher from University of Cape Town. The author has contributed to research in topics: Emerging markets & Multinational corporation. The author has an hindex of 25, co-authored 109 publications receiving 2232 citations. Previous affiliations of John M. Luiz include Vista University & University of Sussex.

Changes in the provision of health care in South Africa

Abstract: Health care in South Africa is undergoing substantial changes with rising pressure on both the public and private sectors. Medical inflation has been soaring rendering healthcare increasingly unaffordable and medical schemes have had to adapt their traditional business models. This paper looks at the current structure of the healthcare market; it examines the new legislation introduced by government, and assesses future directions of healthcare in South Africa.

The experience of private investment in the South African water sector: The Mbombela Concession

Abstract: South Africa is a water-stressed country that over a protracted period has suffered from poor water service delivery. The major problems are inefficient operations, lack of capacity in spending allocated budgets, unclear management structures, and a long-term decline in capital expenditure. Economists have long argued that private investment will bring good fiscal control and efficient structures and will improve service delivery. However, there may be trade-offs between this improved economic efficiency and the necessity to pursue more egalitarian social outcomes. The purpose of this research is to explore the experience of private-sector investment on operational efficiencies and social objectives in the South African water sector in the Mbombela Concession. The study concludes that, in this case, private investment has enhanced service delivery by improving efficiency, technical skills and the capacity to spend allocated budgets without any significant negative impacts on equitable water distribution.

Negotiating new institutional logics: market access amongst smallholder farmers in Zambia and Malawi

Abstract: Purpose – This paper aims to analyse how processes of institutional change in environments of institutional ’voids’ affect smallholder farmer market access in Zambia and Malawi, and explores the role of different dis/enabling institutional agents and logics. The authors examine this in the context of two divergent routes of institutional change – one externally imposed and the second driven from within the ecosystem itself. The authors consider how these different institutional processes impact upon smallholder farmers and how they are able to adapt to these changes. Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative research approach is used which lends itself to an analysis of multiple institutional logics that is based upon the multiple positions of market actors. It uses a comparative case study design methodology focused on two broad cases of smallholder farmers in Zambia and Malawi. Findings – The research demonstrates the tension that multiple institutional logics can create especially amongst those most vulnerable particularly where these are not embedded in local realities and mindful of social settings. Originality/value – It contributes to the understanding of poverty alleviation in rural developing regions, on overcoming institutional voids, market inclusivity and the role of social entrepreneurs and intermediaries, and builds on the perspective of markets as social spaces for economic exchange.

Home country (in)stability and the locational portfolio construction of emerging market multinational enterprises

Abstract: • South African EMNEs manage institutional instability (characteristic of emerging markets) by constructing locational portfolios. • They opt for ‘safe’, stable host locations when the home country is unstable, and for riskier, less stable host locations when the home country is stable. • The implication is that how EMNEs view locations evolves. • EMNEs need to hedge risk as a key component of managing performance. • It suggests that managing institutional instability is a feature of EMNEs that deserves more theoretical attention. Emerging markets often experience instability due to rapid changes to the institutional environment, social changes like rapid urbanization, or even unrest. We argue that emerging market multinationals (EMNEs) manage such instability by constructing and changing locational portfolios, and qualitatively analyze six cases in South Africa over a period that included the entrenchment of Apartheid, increasing resistance to it, the immediate post-Apartheid era, and finally the period of state capture. The four periods of (in)stability – initial tenuous stability, extreme instability, comprehensive stability, and finally growing instability – differently affected EMNEs’ location choices. EMNEs went to proximate developing countries when the home country was relatively stable, but left for host countries in the developed world once the home country became unstable. Few EMNEs capitalized on their experience there once home-country stability returned, instead returning to emerging markets. These patterns are best explained by a portfolio logic that takes into account home-country environmental dynamism.

Designing Supply Chains into Africa: A South African Retailer’s Experience

Abstract: The key to understanding how to promote growth in Africa is being able to comprehend supply chain management. South Africa has been a leader in terms of expanding its retail businesses throughout the rest of Africa. One of the most successful firms that has managed to do this has been Game stores (owned by Massmart Holdings—now part of Walmart). The supply chain issues which face firms wanting to spread out across this continent are illustrated by describing the experience of this firm’s expansion into Africa. This paper uses an exploratory approach. Based on an in-depth case study of Game stores, insights are gained into how firms, particularly in the retail sector, can expand their supply chains throughout Africa. The case study sheds light on the challenges that the external environment creates for such firms. Much supply chain theory is focussed on firm level factors and this study highlights the need for new supply chain theories to take account of the external environment in order to be practically relevant to emerging markets in Africa.

Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Abstract: NUDGE: IMPROVING DECISIONS ABOUT HEALTH, WEALTH, AND HAPPINESS by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Penguin Books, 2009, 312 pp, ISBN 978-0-14-311526-7This book is best described formally as a general explanation of and advocacy for libertarian paternalism, a term coined by the authors in earlier publications. Informally, it is about how leaders, systems, organizations, and governments can nudge people to do the things the nudgers want and need done for the betterment of the nudgees, or of society. It is paternalism in the sense that "it is legitimate for choice architects to try to influence people's behavior in order to make their lives longer, healthier, and better", (p. 5) It is libertarian in that "people should be free to do what they like - and to opt out of undesirable arrangements if they want to do so", (p. 5) The built-in possibility of opting out or making a different choice preserves freedom of choice even though people's behavior has been influenced by the nature of the presentation of the information or by the structure of the decisionmaking system. I had never heard of libertarian paternalism before reading this book, and I now find it fascinating.Written for a general audience, this book contains mostly social and behavioral science theory and models, but there is considerable discussion of structure and process that has roots in mathematical and quantitative modeling. One of the main applications of this social system is economic choice in investing, selecting and purchasing products and services, systems of taxes, banking (mortgages, borrowing, savings), and retirement systems. Other quantitative social choice systems discussed include environmental effects, health care plans, gambling, and organ donations. Softer issues that are also subject to a nudge-based approach are marriage, education, eating, drinking, smoking, influence, spread of information, and politics. There is something in this book for everyone.The basis for this libertarian paternalism concept is in the social theory called "science of choice", the study of the design and implementation of influence systems on various kinds of people. The terms Econs and Humans, are used to refer to people with either considerable or little rational decision-making talent, respectively. The various libertarian paternalism concepts and systems presented are tested and compared in light of these two types of people. Two foundational issues that this book has in common with another book, Network of Echoes: Imitation, Innovation and Invisible Leaders, that was also reviewed for this issue of the Journal are that 1 ) there are two modes of thinking (or components of the brain) - an automatic (intuitive) process and a reflective (rational) process and 2) the need for conformity and the desire for imitation are powerful forces in human behavior. …

An Analysis of Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks

Abstract: Frantz Fanon’s explosive Black Skin, White Masks is a merciless expose of the psychological damage done by colonial rule across the world. Using Fanon’s incisive analytical abilities to expose the consequences of colonialism on the psyches of colonized peoples, it is both a crucial text in post-colonial theory, and a lesson in the power of analytical skills to reveal the realities that hide beneath the surface of things. Fanon was himself part of a colonized nation – Martinique – and grew up with the values and beliefs of French culture imposed upon him, while remaining relegated to an inferior status in society. Qualifying as a psychiatrist in France before working in Algeria (a French colony subject to brutal repression), his own experiences granted him a sharp insight into the psychological problems associated with colonial rule. Like any good analytical thinker, Fanon’s particular skill was in breaking things down and joining dots. His analysis of colonial rule exposed its implicit assumptions – and how they were replicated in colonised populations – allowing Fanon to unpick the hidden reasons behind his own conflicted psychological make up, and those of his patients. Unflinchingly clear-sighted in doing so, Black Skin White Masks remains a shocking read today.