The paper provides an overview of urbanization patterns and trends in the current era in South Africa, focusing in particular on the key dynamics and driving forces underlying migration and urbanization. It considers overall demographic trends with regard to migration and urbanization, and points to some of the difficulties with data, and with the analysis of trends and patterns. The paper explores the changing rural context and dynamics, and some of the significant processes in this context: large-scale displacement of black people off farms, the impact of land reform, and conditions in the former homeland areas. Circular migration continues to be an important way in which households in rural areas survive, but some are unable to move, and are falling out of these networks. International migration-the consequence of both conditions in the home country and the draw of the South African economyis another significant process fuelling mainly urban growth. The paper demonstrates the importance of cities in terms of economic growth and employment, and thus their attractiveness to migrants. Continuing migration to cities is of course a challenge for Urban Forum (2010)
Indices of total factor productivity (TFP) measure aggregate output per unit of aggregate input, providing a guide to the efficiency of agricultural production. This article outlines the relationship between production functions and TFP indices. Then, an index is constructed for South African agriculture for the period 1947-91. The index shows that TFP grew at an average rate of 1,3 per cent per annum. However, TFP growth has increased since the reforms of the early 1980s. Since capital has been more realistically priced relative to labour, greater productivity growth has gone together with increasing employment, which must have improved social welfare.
Entrepreneurial orientation (EO) has been widely touted as a fundamental ingredient for enhancing firm growth. Consequently, this aimed at examining the impact of EO and its dimensional variables (innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness) on SME growth (employment, sales, and asset growth). Using information from 285 SMEs, the results obtained indicated that while EO had a significant positive association with SME growth (employment and sales growth), most SMEs show a moderate level of EO. Also, following the EO dimensions, the findings established the emergence of proactive innovation (a combination of proactiveness and innovativeness) which showed a significant positive association on sales growth. Risk-taking was the only factor that showed a significant influence on employment and asset growth. This study also showed that controlling for the effect of firm age on growth significantly reduced the error of predicting sales growth by 2.3%. This study culminates with recommendations on enhancing EO amongst SMEs in South Africa.
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