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27 August 2019 | Story Valentino Ndaba | Photo Pierce van Heerden
Prof Brownhilder Neneh
Prof Brownhilder Neneh’s research paper was selected as Highly Commended in the 25th annual Emerald Literati Awards for Excellence.
Customer orientation is a firm strategic capability that enables businesses to identify opportunities that can be exploited to improve their performance outcomes. However, the gap between this capability and actual firm performance is quite wide when it comes to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), possibly because of the limited resources to effectively utilise this capability. So what can be done to ensure that all businesses that have this capability benefit from it?

This is the question which a paper by Prof Brownhilder Neneh seeks to address. The article, titled Customer orientation and SME performance: the role of networking ties, was recently published in the African Journal of Economic and Management Studies. Both the theoretical weight and practical implications of the research led to the journal’s editorial team selecting the article as Highly Commended in the 2019 Emerald Literati Awards. 

Finding solutions to real-world problems 

Not only is Prof Neneh responsible for innovating the way she leads as the Head of the Business Management Department at the University of the Free State (UFS), but her goal is to also constantly impact the way problems are solved in the business world. “Growing up, I was always fascinated about entrepreneurial stories, how people start and grow their businesses. However, I later learned that businesses had a very high failure rate,” she says. 

“As such, given the significant role that entrepreneurship plays in economic growth and addressing socioeconomic issues in our societies, I became motivated to find evidence-based solutions that could be implemented by businesses to enhance their chances of success.”

Research goals

Prof Neneh says her outlook for the future is “to continue producing high-quality research that can make a meaningful impact in advancing both the theory and practice of entrepreneurship”.

Seeing that governments the world over are increasingly depending on entrepreneurship for economic growth and addressing most of the existing socioeconomic issues, evidence-based entrepreneurship is increasingly needed. For Prof Neneh, moving forward means continuing to channel focus in this area.

News Archive

Patricia de Lille: “Know the difference between right and wrong.”
2010-03-04

From the left are: Jeanie Britz, MBA student; Garth Botha, MBA student; Ms De Lille; Prof. Tienie Crous, Dean: Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences at the UFS; and Prof. Helena van Zyl, Director: School of Management at the UFS.
Photo: Stephen Collett


Ms Patricia de Lille, the Leader of the Independent Democrats, recently paid a visit to the School of Management at the University of the Free State (UFS). She spoke to students in the MBA programme about the leadership challenges South African business leaders are facing.

Ms De Lille voiced her opinion on many current issues, such as corruption. “Business is standing back with its arms folded and leaving everything to government. In fact, business is doing something very similar to what it was doing during apartheid,” she said.

She added that a business leader and his or her business could be found behind every corrupt transaction. “It is a relationship involving more than one party. If someone accepts a bribe, someone else is paying a bribe,” she said.

Ms De Lille lashed out at business leaders who received extravagant salaries and bonuses even after they had been asked to leave the company. “South Africa needs a new generation of business leaders that truly know the difference between right and wrong,” she pointed out. “And it’s wrong to demand the rest of your contract’s money and bonus after you have been fired because you obviously didn’t do your work.”

Ms De Lille also focused on the role that South African business played. Business should engage with the government to identify problems and find solutions to speed up transformation. “We need young entrepreneurs that are patriotic and think out of the box,” she said.

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