<strong>Background:</strong> Environmental problems present the most complex and important managerial challenges of the 21st century. Most businesses have responded to these environmental problems by adopting an environmental management system.<p><strong>Aim:</strong> This article investigates South African small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) owners’ intentions to implement an environmental management system based on the theory of planned behaviour.</p><p><strong>Setting:</strong> Although large businesses are clearly of interest with respect to their environmental management, especially given their prominence in many of the most environmentally impactful sectors, the relative neglect of the environmental management of SMEs is disconcerting, given their overall importance in most economies. In addition, very little research used the theory of planned behaviour to empirically test SME owners’ intentions, to implement an environmental management system.</p><p><strong>Method:</strong> A quantitative survey was used to collect primary data from 326 SME owners by a structured questionnaire.</p><p><strong>Results:</strong> Regression analysis results confirmed the influence of SME owners’ attitudes towards an environmental management system and pro-environmental norms on their intention to implement an environmental management system. Perceived behavioural control, however, did not significantly influence the SME owners’ intention to implement an environmental management system.</p><p><strong>Conclusion:</strong> These findings provide valuable insights into the implementation of environmental management systems among South African SMEs. The theory of planned behaviour also seems to be an appropriate means to investigate the intentions of SMEs to implement an environmental management system.</p>

Background: Informal businesses are important drivers of economic growth, especially in developing countries. These informal businesses often do not survive their first year of existence, with anecdotal evidence citing various challenges from the business environment.Aim: This study explored the influence of business environmental challenges on the growth of informal businesses in Uganda.Setting: There are various challenges from the internal and external environment that impede the growth and survival of informal businesses in Uganda. From the internal business perspective, informal businesses have poor business processes and do not have proper business strategies on which to focus their business growth strategies. From the external environment perspective, informal businesses do not understand their suppliers adequately. In addition, there is a lack of research on the relationships between internal and external business environments and the growth of informal businesses.Method: Primary data were collected from 383 informal businesses using a self-administered questionnaire. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics in SPSS 21.0 (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), while the relationship between the variables was determined using Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient and tested using regression analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA).Results: The results showed that there was a significant positive directional relationship between the internal environment and the growth of informal businesses. However, there was a negative significant directional relationship between the external environment and the growth of informal businesses.Conclusions: Informal businesses should pay more attention to the internal environment and appropriate strategies should be developed and implemented to ensure their growth.

Managing limited financial resources is an ongoing challenge for financial managers at South African universities, especially with the call to government for free education. This article explores a set of financial ratios as indicators for financial sustainability at South African universities. A comprehensive literature review was undertaken to develop a theoretical framework to evaluate financial sustainability at universities. The proposed theoretical framework included five groups of ratios, namely, financial performance, liquidity, asset management, debt management and reserves ratios. It further included four elements of financial sustainability, namely, strategy, operating sustainability, investment and risk management. The proposed theoretical framework was empirically-tested, and financial ratios were calculated for one university in South Africa for a period of eight years. The results showed that these ratios could be useful for examining financial sustainability at universities by means of the four identified elements. Financial performance ratios were included in three of the four elements of financial sustainability, namely, strategy, operating sustainability and investments. Reserve ratios, on the other hand, were included in two of the four elements of financial sustainability. Risk management included three groups of ratios, namely, asset management ratios, debt management ratios and liquidity ratios.

In this article the relationship between organisational culture and strategy formulation in South African firms is investigated. The intention is to analyse whether South African firms with specific organisational culture types formulate strategies in the same manner. Literature available on the individual concepts of organisational culture and strategy formulation is extensive, but the relationship between the two concepts is generally ignored. During the empirical survey a self-administered questionnaire was send to 3000 firms. The culture type exhibited by firms was compared to the manner in which these firms formulate strategies. The findings confirm statistical significant relationships between firms with different organisational culture types and how strategies are formulated. Firms should therefore increase their emphasis on aligning culture and strategy.

This article focuses on the development of a framework for investigating the personal financial management knowledge of individuals. Content analysis is used to derive the components included in the personal financial management requirements framework. The framework developed includes six components, namely basic concepts in personal finances, management of personal finances, risk management, future planning, investing in financial resources and miscellaneous factors. A qualitative validation process revealed that the framework indeed covers what the average South African citizen is required to know about personal financial planning. The real test of this framework will be to use it in developing an instrument to test individuals' knowledge of personal financial management. This process of empirically testing the framework, using such an instrument, warrants a separate article. JEL G29, M20