International Winelands Conference

A practice orientation to leadership in public organizations, (for elected and appointed officials), disrupts the servant leadership orientation. This paper explores what happens when scholars and practitioners shift the focus from individual leaders to exploring the role practice and process has in enabling conditions more aligned with advancing institutional trust and good governance. A focus on centering the “leader” in a public space is problematic for trust building and maintenance of public spaces. The Leadership-As-Practice (L-A-P) model centers the process and practice of shared accountability and collective engagement (Carroll, Levy, & Richmond, 2008). Nurturing accountability and maintaining a trusting relationship among the public and the leader in formal positions is predicated on “leaders” being knowledgeable and ‘correct’ for public work. Public officials are expected to create a container in which they can be held, and they can also hold others accountable - a premise of their service. Yet this is not a global reality nor is it fully realized in many democracies, today. When public servants are anointed the leaders, accountability becomes not merely a space clearing gesture by the one in authority, but the system itself, constituted in the gesture, and the very mechanism of clearing the space. L-A-P is the leadership paradigm to disrupt. This paper proposes that the field of leadership studies needs to shift understandings of public service leadership away from the “individual” - in terms of role and with title and authority - to exploring processes and practices that support good governance and advance institutional trust building. The “practice turn” refocuses attention on the processes and practices that support and enable conditions that build trust and good governance. A collective practice model of leadership that centers process and practice, in place of a servant leadership model that centers individual people in formal roles, is more closely aligned with what is required to advance trust and good governance in Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). Practice-based approaches to leadership focus on the process and practice conditions that advance change (Kliewer, 2019). The practice-based approach to leadership redirects how the field should consider the role and the mechanism available to people to enable leadership in the advancement of trust and good governance. This requires collective reorientation of the relationship we have and aspire to have among the public and the officials who are elected and appointed to govern/serve. In Sub-Saharan Africa, practice-based approaches to leadership learning and leadership application are taking place in meaningful ways. This article highlights cases from Kenya, Somalia, and Namibia where process and practice approaches to leadership are enabling participatory work more closely aligned with advancing trust and good governance. The work highlights a collective practice approach in public spaces. While less predictable, these collective and practice-based models have advanced progress on complex national issues, starting with local, community-engaged initiatives. The examples we will highlight from the region are of approaches from throughout Sub-Saharan Africa that refine public leadership through a collective and practice lens.

The post-state capture and post-pandemic era have proven that South Africans are resilient people, have the ability to fight against corruption and overcome the effects of a deadly disease like the Covid-19 corona virus on their individual and communal lives. President Ramaphosa stated in his recent addresses that the resilience embedded in our South African nation is what we are known for. Looking through the lens of multi-systemic resilience by Michael Ungar (2021a) and the African concept of Ubuntu, the study aims to affirm the agency and resiliency embedded in the citizens of local communities; the importance of strengthening resilient followership and active citizenry for constructive solutions to service delivery challenges; to connect the philosophy of Ubuntu and the public service values of Batho Pele with public servant leadership; and investigate how resilient followership and active citizenry can contribute to end the dehumanising scourge of gender-based violence in the West Coast District Municipality. The study is conducted in the form of a comparative literature analysis and follows an interdisciplinary, intersectional and decolonial approach.

Governance and ethics within corporate and public sector institutions in South Africa is receiving increased attention and has become contemporary within the realm of academic discourse and research due to the prevailing unethical behaviour and non-compliance with governance principles within these institutions. Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are not excluded from this phenomenon and serve as the locus for this paper. The existence of a perceived gap between the principles contained in the governance of ethics, in terms of the regulatory frameworks and their practical interpretation and application thereof, will be explored. The approach adopted is to identify the reasons for this dilemma which will be undertaken through the examination of the variability of the participants’ actions, who are socially similar, and the differences in the processes of reflexitivity as propagated in the writings by the social realist, Archer (1995:1996). The formulated research study question is: How did the participants act when confronted with this dilemma? The focus will be on the relationship between the cultural properties which make up the social domain which will either constrain or enable the participants to act. An academic faculty has been selected which will serve as the unit of analysis and serve as a single case study. A preliminary overview and progress of the project will be presented.

Purpose: This study analyses how weather shocks influence agricultural entrepreneurs’ risk perception and how they manage these risks. It explores what risks agricultural entrepreneurs perceive as important, and how they face climate change and related weather shock risks compared to the multiple risks of the enterprise. Design/methodology: This paper uses qualitative data from several sources: eight semi-structured interviews with experts in agriculture, three focus groups with experts and entrepreneurs, and 32 semi-structured interviews with agricultural entrepreneurs. Findings: Most agricultural entrepreneurs have hardly any long-term risk management strategy to mitigate the effects of climate change. Agricultural entrepreneurs manage incidents and do not prepare for risks associated with climate change. Originality and value: This study contributes to the literature about risk management by small- and medium-sized agricultural enterprises: it studies factors that shape perceptions about weather shocks and about climate change and how these perceptions affect actions to manage related risks, and it identifies factors that motivate agricultural entrepreneurs to adapt to climate change and changing weather shock risks. Practical implications can lay the foundation for concrete actions and policies to improve the resilience and sustainability of the sector, by adjusting risk management strategies, collaboration, knowledge sharing, and climate adaptation policy support.

To deal with the financial dysfunction of municipalities – and indeed the outright fraud and corruption, responses from national government regulators over the last two decades have included increasing the intensity and scope of audits (e.g. in high risk areas such as supply chain management), proliferation of oversight structures (such as audit committees and Municipal Accounts Committees) with independent specialists represented on them, and promotion of Generally recognised Accounting Practice (GRAP) standards. Serially non-compliant municipalities which simply disregard the regulations with virtual impunity do not bear much of this administrative burden. But for the few municipalities aspiring to achieve or retain a financial unqualified or clean audit, these regulatory costs of compliance (both financial and non-pecuniary) can be substantial. There has however to date been little systematic research into this area in the South African context. This exploratory case study of five South African municipalities combines an analysis of the relevant legislative and regulatory frameworks and secondary financial information sources such as audit reports, with the analysis of qualitative data from interviews conducted with senior officials in the sampled municipalities. It focuses on the identifying the main financial governance costs drivers in municipalities, as well as the non-pecuniary opportunity costs of compliance (such as delayed service delivery or higher prices paid for items), and focusses two main compliance areas: the GRAP and MSCOA reforms. The choice of a municipal focus is appropriate given that national government’s views are well document in the regulations and supporting documents themselves, and generally in the public domain. Moreover, they are occupying a dominant vantage point vis-a-vis the local government sphere in terms of intergovernmental power dynamics. However, national government regulators like the National Treasury and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs typically publish aggregated, high-level reports where the voices of individual municipalities are seldom featured. Given the unique dimensions of regulatory dimension in each municipality, and the immense variation in operational and financial contexts across the local government sphere, these voices have been under-researched.

The enactment of the new Constitution of Zimbabwe in 2013 opened avenues for local government accountability. However, a decade has passed since the enactment of the Constitution of Zimbabwe but little headway toward achieving accountability at the local government level has been achieved. The main objective of the study is to identify gaps in vertical, horizontal, and downward accountability in local government in Zimbabwe. The study applied the Public Choice theory and the Principal-Agency theory to better understand the state of accountability at the local government level in Zimbabwe. The study made use of extant secondary qualitative literature research methods to gather information. Research findings indicate that vertical accountability is mostly affected by a lack of compliance by local governments to follow legislative provisions that compel them to account to the parent Ministry, bureaucratic pathologies, and a lack of financial resources by the parent Ministry to effectively monitor local governments. Horizontal accountability is mostly affected by councils’ staff failing to report to councilors and councilors failing to comprehend technical policy and budget issues due to limited academic capabilities. Downward accountability is mostly affected by legislative gaps that fail to promote grassroots participation, political polarisation, and exclusion of residents in decision-making by local authorities.

Continuous development is essential for school leaders to consistently generate a positive impact within school. Furthermore, employee engagement, in the educational sector, improves student results. Despite these recognized factors for improvement, limited empirical evidence exists regarding the interplay of these three variables. Therefore, this research paper examines how school leaders can distinguish themselves in their roles and identify the essential competencies required to become extraordinary leaders. Additionally, this study investigates the correlation between leadership effectiveness and employee engagement, focusing on its mediating role in impacting student results. The study draws on extensive research conducted by Zenger and Folkman (2009, 2018) and builds upon the data studies performed by Academica University of Applied Sciences on the State of the Dutch school leader (2014, 2015, 2019), utilizing the latest and more comprehensive data from 2022. To assess the interaction effect of the variables over time, empirical data has been collected through a 360-degree feedback assessment from a sample of 2060 Dutch school leaders, with almost 40.000 respondents. This study assesses the profile of Dutch school leaders through comparative analyses, highlighting functional differences and the performance of male and female leaders. It also investigates generational variations in feedback scores on competencies among Dutch school leaders. Additionally, a case study involving 120 primary education school leaders, with 2639 respondents, has been done to conduct a more extensive examination, to study the mediation effect of employee engagement, incorporating student results. The study provides evidence supporting that effective leaders positively influence employee engagement, and schools led by more effective leaders exhibit significantly improved final student results. Recommendations for further research include exploring the indirect effect of leadership effectiveness through employee engagement, utilizing larger sample sizes, and exploring alternative cultures to examine the relationships among the core variables within diverse contexts.

Challenges with the successful implementation of policies, strategies and plans have been identified as reasons for South Africa not reducing unemployment, poverty and inequality. The aim of this paper is to identify the obstacles that prevent successful policy implementation in South Africa. This research firstly proposes a model to determine the barriers for policy implementation within the policy process. The model for determining implementation barriers is then applied to the first two 5-year implementation plans of the National Development Plan (NDP), vision 2030. The application of the model to the first 5-year implementation plan, the 2014-2019 Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF), identified slow progress, and challenges with the design and mechanism for implementation as blockages for the implementation of the NDP. The focus of the current 2019-2024 MTSF has changed to facilitate greater institutionalisation accountability and reporting. The application of the model to the 2019-2024 MTSF confirmed improved institutionalisation/incorporation but does not build on the previous cycle. Monitoring of the progress made with the implementation of the 2019-2024 MTSF is almost impossible. This phenomenon could be ascribed to the non-availability of reports, specifically on the 2019-2024 MTSF and the quality of reporting on Annual Performance Plans.