Our recent articles
What South Africa’s immigration debate is revealing
When the government can no longer credibly promise expanding opportunities, politics begins to change. Public debate shifts from how opportunities should be created to who should have access to those that remain. Arguments about growth and redistribution do not...
NWU Business School Postdoctoral Fellow Reaches 1,000 Citation Milestone
Dr Banji Rildwan Olaleye, Postdoctoral Fellow at the NWU Business School, has reached a remarkable academic milestone, surpassing 1,000 citations on Google Scholar. In academia, citations serve as an important indicator of research influence. They reflect the extent...
The Wisdom of Hindsight
Wisdom is not simply the accumulation of knowledge but the gradual recognition that certainty is often an illusion. Mature judgment does not arrive when we finally discover the right answers, but when we learn to live with ambiguity, contradiction, and incomplete...
NWU Business School celebrates MBA and PhD graduates at elegant Black and White Soirée
The NWU Business School’s MBA & PhD Graduation Celebration 2026 took place on Monday, 1 June 2026, at the prestigious The Feather Hill venue, just outside Potchefstroom. Hosted under the theme Black and White Soirée, the event brought together more than 200 guests...
The Reserve Bank and interest rates – where to now?
What will the South African Reserve Bank’s monetary policy committee (MPC) decide about interest rates on May 28? When economies are hit by a large supply shock, such as the current global energy crisis, central banks face the dilemma of either temporarily overlooking...
South Africa’s Government Is Drowning in Its Own Complexity
In many South African municipalities, officials now spend more time reporting on collapse than preventing it. Water systems fail while compliance reports multiply. Infrastructure projects stall inside approval chains designed to improve accountability, but which...
Labour market withdrawal is on the rise
South Africa’s labour market is not only producing unemployment. It is increasingly producing withdrawal. The latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey (QLFS) shows that employment declined by 345 000 in the first quarter of 2026, while labour force participation fell...
The Rise of Mass Anxiety in South Africa
What is beginning to take shape in South Africa is not a single crisis that can be isolated, measured, and resolved, but a convergence of pressures aligned across economic life, political authority, and everyday experience. In recent weeks, this convergence has become...
South Africa and the Fading Shared Future
South Africa no longer moves as a single society through time. It exists instead as a set of parallel temporal realities, where some citizens inhabit a future that can be planned for, invested in and secured, while others remain confined to a present that must be...
On Outgrowing Your Own Teachings
There are moments in leadership where the loudest tension is not between us and others, but between us and the words we once spoke with certainty. We remember the convictions we taught, the lessons we repeated, the principles we once offered to those who trusted our...
When Compassion Becomes a Liability
Compassion often sits at the moral centre of leadership. Many begin their leadership journey not because they seek authority, but because they care deeply about people and about the conditions that shape their lives. They listen when others are not heard and respond...
The DA and the Limits of Organisational Coherence
The Democratic Alliance presents a persistent puzzle in South African politics. It is widely regarded as administratively competent and organisationally disciplined, but its expansion into a broad national coalition remains uneven and bounded. Episodes of internal...
Why South Africa Needs Fewer, Stronger Municipalities
Prof. Joseph Sekhampu is the Chief Director of the NWU Business School. The South African municipal landscape is not collapsing in a single moment of crisis. It is eroding in slow motion. Hundreds of local councils operate as if the Constitution demanded their...
THE MIDDLE EAST CRISIS, GLOBAL OIL PRICES, AND SOUTH AFRICA – ECONOMIC PREPAREDNESS AND CLEAR COMMUNICATION NEEDED
NOTE OF COMMENT - BY NWU BUSINESS SCHOOL ECONOMIST PROF RAYMOND PARSONS ‘The recent escalation in the US/Israeli war with Iran has now injected new urgency into assessing the economic and business implications for countries like South Africa. With the Brent crude oil...
Prof Parsons comments on the potential economic and business implications of the US- Israeli attack on Iran
Commenting on the potential economic and business implications of the US- Israeli attack on Iran NWU Business School economist Prof Raymond Parsons says: ‘South Africa must not underestimate the potential negative economic and business implications that could yet...
Budget 2026: Stabilisation in a Slow-Growth Economy
Prof Joseph Sekhampu is the Chief Director of the North-West University Business School. The 2026 Budget positions itself as a moment of stabilisation after a decade of fiscal strain. The consolidated budget deficit narrows to 4.5% of GDP in 2025/26, declines to 4% in...
Prof Parsons comments on the decision on Friday by the US Supreme Court to declare President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs illegal
Commenting on the decision on Friday by the US Supreme Court to declare President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs illegal NWU Business School economist Prof Raymond Parsons says: ‘The decision by the US Supreme Court that President’s Trump’s reciprocal tariffs are illegal...
The labour market as a lagging indicator of political settlement
By Prof Joseph Sekhampu, chief director of the NWU Business School. Every society organises its economy around a set of implicit bargains about power, access, and reward. Those bargains determine who enters markets easily, who must navigate layers of permission, who...
The budget and boosting business’s ‘animal spirits’ by Prof Raymond Parsons
The highly anticipated 2026 budget on February 25 also coincides with the 90th anniversary of the publication of a path-breaking book that decisively influenced fiscal policy for nearly a century. It was called The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money and...
Beyond the MBA: Alumni Reflections on Growth, Alignment and Impact
Last night, we had the privilege of hosting an inspiring alumni fireside chat that reminded us why community remains central to leadership formation. Facilitated by Dewald Olivier the Chairperson of our Alumni Chapter, the conversation moved beyond job...