Browsing by Author "Nyamunda, John."

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Coaching as an empowerment tool for financial advisors to transform the South African life assurance industry.
(2014) Nyamunda, John.; Tschudin, Alain Jean-Paul Charles.
Life assurance remains one of the most recognised effective mitigating tool to reduce risks faced in people’s daily lives (Naidoo, 2010). This is effectively done through a financial planning process conducted by financial advisors. In South Africa, 60% of financial advisors at present are white males 50 years and older, while only 10% of financial advisors are mostly black advisors under 30 years of age (The Institute of Practice Management, 2010). This is despite the fact that in the general population white people form only 8.9% of South African population (Department of Labour, 2013). Employment transformation in general remains slow and as of 2012, 72.6% of top managerial positions were occupied by white people (Department of Labour, 2013). This is despite the efforts being made by financial services companies through the Financial Services Charter, where they are paying 1.5% of payroll (in addition to the skills development levy) for training. Training provided by life assurance companies to Financial Advisors is mostly classroom style which focuses on the sales cycle, the law and product information. It does not take into account differences in financial advisor backgrounds. Using the current training methods being employed, more financial advisors from ‘suburb’ schools (mostly white) will have better outcomes compared to financial advisors from ‘township’ schools (mostly black) (Equal Education, 2011). This means transformation, as desired by life houses remains unachieved. Inequality that can be aligned with cultural, race, religious identity or ethnicity (horizontal inequality) is more likely to lead to conflict (Kanbur, 2007 & Steward, 2005). The majority of sales people reach their full potential through effective training and sales coaching (Rich, 1998, p. 52). Sales coaching of financial advisors is done haphazardly by life assurance companies as great emphasis is put on classroom based training. This thesis argues that life assurance companies should include coaching as a fundamental part of their training programme, if they want to achieve transformation. I suggest using a Gestalt approach to coaching of financial advisors. In this thesis, the conflict race theory (CRT) is used to have an in-depth understanding of conflict transformation in the South African life assurance sector.
Developing entrepreneurial self-efficacy : a transformative learning theory approach.
(2018) Nyamunda, John.; Van der Westhuizen, Thea.
The key challenges facing South Africa are unemployment and the high level of crime, especially violent crime. With an expanded unemployment rate of 36.8% and an even higher youth unemployment rate of 52.2%, it is no wonder that the level of crime is high. There is a direct link between a culture of lawlessness, unemployment and education derailment fuelling the poverty trap in SA. Successful entrepreneurship on the other hand affords an opportunity to end generational poverty. This study proposed using a transformative learning theory approach to entrepreneurship education. Specifically, it aimed to investigate the use of Transformative Learning to develop Entrepreneurial Self Efficacy (ESE) in the youth. This was achieved by conducting a longitudinal study of the Shifting Hope, Activating Potential Entrepreneurship (SHAPE) training programme. From an analysis of the data, the study found the following: 1. ESE for participants in the SHAPE programme increased. At the end of the SHAPE programme participants tended to respond more positively to various aspects of ESE; 2. The differences in ESE between males and females were eliminated by the SHAPE programme. By session 7 there was no statistically significant difference between the ESE for males and females and 3. The SHAPE programme led to an increase in ESE in the context of Disorienting Dilemma, Critical Reflection, Reflective Discourse and Action. From the longitudinal study of the SHAPE programme and a review of entrepreneurship education literature, the study argues that it is difficult to determine student transformation in the sense of changing underlying beliefs about, and approach to, entrepreneurship. To achieve and evaluate real transformation, this research proposed the Transformative Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (TESE) model. Based on the findings above, the study made the following key recommendations. 1. If transformation in education is required, there is a need to increase experiential learning in entrepreneurship education. 2. Learning institutions that run entrepreneurship courses should establish relationships with successful entrepreneurs in their environment. They could then leverage that relationship by inviting those entrepreneurs to share their experiences. Learning institution should select entrepreneurs with demographics that are similar to the students. 3. Entrepreneurship programmes should be evaluated on their ability to bring about measurable changes in students.