Women entrepreneurs are increasingly recognised as pivotal contributors to economic growth, poverty alleviation, and employment generation, particularly in developing economies like South Africa. This study explores the contributing and constraining factors that shape the future of women’s entrepreneurship in South Africa through the lens of Institutional Theory. Using a qualitative methodology, in-depth interviews were conducted with nine (9) women entrepreneurs affiliated with a Centre for Entrepreneurship Development. The findings highlight key enabling factors, such as mentorship, education, supportive policies, collaboration, and government intervention programmes, which equip women entrepreneurs with the skills, networks, and resources needed to thrive. However, significant barriers persist, including financial exclusion, societal norms, ineffective policies, and psychological constraints such as low entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The study concludes that aligning institutional support across the regulatory, normative, and cultural-cognitive dimensions is essential for fostering an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem. Recommendations include simplifying access to funding, expanding mentorship opportunities, and addressing systemic cultural and policy barriers to create a more equitable and supportive environment for women entrepreneurs.

Orientation: New insights into how managers can develop strategies to enhance job satisfaction, how researchers can use a different approach when collecting data by conducting a survey at a mall instead of an organisation, and an understanding of the relationship between performance management, vigour, and training and development of low-income workers form part of the orientation of this article.Research purpose: The authors endeavoured to determine whether performance management, vigour, and training and development positively predicted the job satisfaction of low-income workers in the South African context.Motivation for the study: Little, if any, research exists about the relationships between performance management, vigour, and training and development as well as the job satisfaction of low-income workers in the South African context.Research approach/design and method: The research approach was quantitative, descriptive and causal in nature. This study mostly comprised the units of analysis, namely low-income workers who were under-researched in the South African context. Hence, 877 respondents were purposefully selected for this study.Main findings: The results showed that performance management was the highest predictor of job satisfaction. The second highest predictor of job satisfaction was vigour, and the third highest predictor of job satisfaction was training and development.Practical/managerial implications: This research will empower managers to develop strategies to enhance employees’ job satisfaction by paying attention to performance management, vigour, and training and development.Contribution/value-add: This study was conducted on an under-researched sample, at a mall and suggested vigour as an intrinsic variable to be included in the Herzberg job satisfaction model.

Orientation: Talent management should be used as a strategy to improve organisational commitment and reduce employee turnover intention.Research purpose: The purpose of this research was to develop a talent management, organisational commitment and employee turnover intention framework for a government department in South Africa by determining the relationship between these three variables.Motivation of the study: Most studies focus on talent management and organisational commitment in the private sector, with limited studies conducted on the development of a talent management, organisational commitment and employee turnover intention framework for a government department in South Africa.Research approach/design method: A survey was conducted by using a non-probability sample of 372. A quantitative research approach was used. Data were collected manually by using a questionnaire. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data.Main findings: The results of the study showed that talent management acted as a mediator between organisational commitment and employee turnover intention. There was a significant relationship between talent management, organisational commitment and employee turnover intention.Practical/managerial implications: Talent management should form part of a strategic approach to attract and retain talent in the department. Talent management as the mediator explains the causal links between organisational commitment and employee turnover intention.Contribution and value addition: The new knowledge was produced by the development of a framework for talent management, organisational commitment and employee turnover intention at a government department in South Africa.

An employee engagement framework for technical vocational education and training colleges in South Africa

Orientation: Scholars long debated the importance of transformational leadership, talent acquisition and talent retention.Research purpose: The purpose of this study was to analyse transformational leadership, talent acquisition and talent retention of engineers at Eskom by investigating the demographic differences, relationships and transformational leadership as the mediating variable.Motivation for the study: Eskom has improved the remuneration of engineers over the years but continued encountering challenges to attract and retain them. The researcher investigated whether the perceived lack of transformational leadership caused the challenges experienced by the organisation.Research approach/design and method: This was quantitative study, which used convenience-sampling method to obtain 585 completed questionnaires from the engineers.Main findings: The researcher performed a one-way Anova test to establish if engineers from a gender and educational qualification perspectives were different from each other on the eight sub-factors identified through exploratory factor analysis. The p-values were greater than 0.05, meant that there was no statistical difference between genders and between engineers with different educational qualifications. The researcher conducted a post-hoc pairwise test (p-values 0.05) on different age groups and results revealed that older respondents (31 – 40 years of age) had greater positive attitude on the perception of before-selection, during-selection and development than the younger group (18 – 30 years of age). In addition, the study revealed that transformational leadership mediated the relationship between talent acquisition and retention of engineers.Practical/managerial implications: The study emphasises that not only salaries are important to attract and retain engineers, but also effective leadership is essential, especially the transformational leadership philosophy.Contribution/value-add: South Africa has a dearth of engineers. The study results illustrates the importance of transformational leadership philosophy in addressing the challenge the organisation faces. Therefore, the organisation must consider designing programmes to help leaders embrace the transformational leadership philosophy.

Orientation: Findings on the relationship between organisational commitment, job satisfaction, and employee retention have been inconsistent. Research purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between organisational commitment, job satisfaction, and employee retention among detectives in the South African Police Service (SAPS). Motivation for the study: There has been little, if any, research on the relationship between organisational commitment, job satisfaction, and employee retention among SAPS’s detectives and on job satisfaction as a mediating variable in this context. Research approach/design and method: A survey research design, as well as a cross-sectional research design within Positivism, was used in this study. The study followed a quantitative research method. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to analyse the data. Main findings: There was no significant evidence for job satisfaction as a mediator between organisational commitment and employee retention. The results indicated some positive relationships between job satisfaction and organisational commitment as well as between job satisfaction and employee retention. There was no positive relationship between organisational commitment and employee retention. Practical/managerial implications: Should the SAPS management not take note of the relationship that organisational commitment has with job satisfaction, it could harm the way detectives perceive their payment, supervision, co-workers, workload, and communication. Contribution/value-add: New nuances of the relationship between organisational commitment, job satisfaction, and employee retention were discovered.