Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences
Prof C Koornhof, Dean
Telephone number: 012 420 3330
Fax number: 012 362 5194
E-mail address: carolina.koornhof@up.ac.za
Preface by the Dean
The vision of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences is to be at the cutting edge of relevant and innovative economic, financial and management research. In pursuit of this vision, the staff and students of the Faculty once again excelled in their research in 2005. Maintaining the upward trajectory of the research output.
An increase in the number of new staff members who participated in research and research activities is particularly encouraging. This increase indicates that a research culture is becoming more entrenched in the Faculty and that our research capacity is expanding.
The members of the Research Committee, Research Ethics Committee and Postgraduate Committee had a busy year. They implemented and refined systems and procedures that are now operating effectively.
Each year the Faculty awards a Research Trophy to the department that had the highest number of accredited units in the preceding year. In 2005, the trophy was awarded to the School of Economic Sciences. Research awards were also made to the best individual researchers. Mr TG Kotzé and Prof AC Jordaan received the awards for the best junior researchers while Proffs PJ du Plessis and EJ North received the awards for senior researchers. Several researchers in the Faculty received national and international acknowledgement for the excellence of their research.
The Faculty is particularly proud of its Doctoral and Master’s degree students who graduated in 2005. In future, all Doctoral students will also be required to submit at least one article to a refereed academic journal before the degree is conferred. This should contribute further to the research output of the Faculty.
The Faculty’s course on Research Methodology, EBW 801, which is presented to Masters and Doctoral students, was well attended. Due to the increasing demand for this course, it will also be presented via the web from 2007.
The accredited journals of the Faculty, namely The South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences, Meditari Accountancy Journal and the Journal of Public Administration were inundated with articles submitted for publication, placing an enormous burden on the editors and members of the support staff.
Highlights of the year include the establishment of a Chair of Monetary Policy in the Department of Economics in co-operation with the SA Reserve Bank (SARB) as well as the collaboration project with the Department of Social Development to promote capacity and research in the field of Social Protection Economics.
The SARB partnership is aimed at developing and promoting research skills among post-graduate students in order to improve the SARB’s monetary economics and central banking research capacity. The partnership was launched in-conjunction with a pilot research project entitled: South Africa’s growth potential: prospects and challenges.
The Department of Social Development and the University have joined forces to find solutions to the social policy developmental challenges that face South Africa. This process will be facilitated through the Charlotte Manye Maxeke Collaboration in the Economics of Social Protection. The short-term aims are to generate research, provide training and develop expertise, and to stimulate critical debate in this field. The long-term aims are to build government capacity and to reduce dependence on social assistance.
Other highlights are a cross-cultural survey completed by Prof Leo Vermeulen, in the Department of Human Resources Management into gender-based issues in aviation and, specifically, attitudes towards female pilots and a study into the security of personal information in the technology age.
I would like to thank the members of the academic and administrative staff as well as to our students for their individual contributions to making 2005 a successful year for the Faculty, in respect of both academic and research activities. The challenge that we face is to continuously improve and raise our target for research output in 2006, in terms of both quality and quantity!
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