RESEARCH

This research node capitalises upon the UCT GSB's location and expertise within the emerging market of South Africa. Emerging markets have several characteristics in common, including high levels of uncertainty, complexity and inequality associated with middle-income traps and political and economic liberalisation. This has major consequences for the business and economic environment. Companies are challenged to change standard practices and protocol in recognition of fluid 'rules of the game' and higher country risk profiles. In this research node we seek to comprehensively unpack the political, institutional, economic, financial and social forces at work in these emerging economies with a view to better inform organisations and investors as to how to adapt their strategies and portfolios to take advantage of the opportunities presented. This includes work on the impact of institutions on economic development in emerging markets; companies' strategic responses to institutional voids; democratisation, local governance and service delivery; and emerging financial markets, implications for corporate finance, and new developments in sustainable and responsible investment.

In this research node we are concerned with the nature of intentional, collaborative work that creatively transforms social-ecological systems across multiple scales. We focus on the development of products, processes, initiatives, or organisations that:

• create social value through both means and ends; and
• reconfigure institutionalised rules, values, beliefs, or relational patterns.

We see emerging economies as especially fertile places to explore these themes. Because of their complexity, uncertainty, and inequality, emerging economies are often at the forefront of incubating practices that challenge current social paradigms. We are particularly interested in the organisational and network dynamics of social innovation and in the role that inter-organisational, cross-sector, and cross-scale relationships may play in developing and embedding solutions to wicked problems. UCT GSB researchers currently explore these questions via a variety of topics and contexts, including health care, education, food security, climate change, impact investing, the sociology of finance, social entrepreneurship, supply chain innovation, and inclusive innovation.

Much of the research in this area is supported by the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship. 

There is growing concern about unethical behaviour among managers. An array of scandals is eroding public confidence in corporations as agents of development and positive social change. Such scandals exacerbate worries about companies acting as vehicles for self-enrichment at the expense of society and the environment. Yet despite a plethora of analyses, debates and laws, it seems that nothing much has changed. Why is change so difficult and what is our role in such change? What are the assumptions supporting our current business management model, and what are their implications? What if a broader array of values included as motives for managers, and what if we take seriously the complex interactions between values, actions, and outcomes? These are among the key questions addressed in various ways in this UCT GSB research cluster.

Research on this theme is supported in particular by the Allan Gray Chair in Values-Based Leadership.