The acquisition of entrepreneurial skills is increasingly critical for higher education institutions, particularly in the Global South, given the persistent rise in unemployment rates. In South Africa, unemployment reached 31.9 % as of the last quarter of 2024, with notably higher rates among university graduates. Consequently, entrepreneurship education has become a priority in government policies. However, entrepreneurship education in South African universities tends to remain theoretical, despite dedicated entrepreneurship centres. This creates a disconnect between entrepreneurship centres, students, and lecturers, thereby limiting the development of sustainable businesses. This study aimed to investigate and enhance engineering students’ engagement in innovation and entrepreneurship by integrating undergraduate research with practical entrepreneurial activities. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the study combined quantitative data from questionnaire surveys and qualitative insights from workshops involving Civil Engineering Diploma students at the Durban University of Technology (DUT). The students participated in activities at Innobiz, the university's entrepreneurship centre. Additional data were gathered from secondary sources such as academic journals and institutional reports. The data were analysed via both quantitative and qualitative analysis methods to provide a comprehensive understanding of student engagement. The findings suggest that the integrating research and entrepreneurship can effectively increase students’ awareness of and involvement in entrepreneurial activities. These insights could inform future educational strategies and policies to cultivate practical entrepreneurial competencies among graduates.
This study examines how family-owned businesses pursue innovation ambidexterity while preserving the traditions, values, and socioemotional commitments that often define family enterprise identity. Drawing on a structured literature review of family business, organizational ambidexterity, innovation, governance, and succession literature, the paper uses thematic analysis to synthesize recurring challenges, enabling strategies, and organizational outcomes. The analysis identifies three interrelated theme clusters. First, family firms face innovation constraints associated with resistance to change, intergenerational tension, concentrated decision authority, communication complexity, limited external knowledge flows, and resource allocation concerns. Second, successful innovation ambidexterity is supported by strategic visionary leadership, adaptive governance, external partnerships, research and development investment, innovation-oriented succession planning, human capital development, and the effective use of social capital. Third, innovation contributes to competitiveness, resilience, cultural renewal, and long-term continuity when it is integrated with rather than detached from family identity. The study contributes a synthesized framework for understanding innovation ambidexterity in family-owned businesses and offers practical recommendations for aligning tradition with strategic renewal.
This study, motivated by evidential corporate governance (CGV) irregularities and bank-borrower frosty relationship, examines the linkage of corporate governance index (CGVI) and bank monitoring to borrower firms’ financial health (FFH) among listed non-financial firms in Nigeria. The study uses firm-level data hand-extracted from annual reports of 48 non-financial firms over the period 2012–2021. Data are analysed using appropriate static panel regression models based on three diagnostic tests of heteroscedasticity, first-order autocorrelation and cross-sectional dependence. The results showed that CGVI has a significantly positive impact on the FFH but is identifiable more with Z-score and returns on assets than returns on equity as measures of FFH. A similar scenario is also empirically observed for the bank monitoring-FFH relationship. However, further analysis could not reveal that bank monitoring is a corporate force in the CGVI-FFH nexus. These findings call for a look into the concurrent representation of borrower firms’ board members on the boards of creditor banks. The study’s findings are also a pointer to the need for increased enforcement of compliance with CGV codes/guidelines. This study appears foremost in the relevant literature to test the moderating influence of bank monitoring in the linkage of CGV quality to FFH. In the Nigerian context, the study stands out among related studies post-unification of CGV guidelines, as available literature still focuses on the link between individual CGV mechanisms and FFH.
