The changing face and strategies of big business in South Africa: more than a decade of political democracy

Under the apartheid regime, South African business was marked by a high degree of concentration, both in terms of ownership and activities; indeed, it could be argued that this concentration was both created by and reinforced the exclusions linked to apartheid. In this paper, we identify the main ch...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Industrial and corporate change 2006-06, Vol.15 (3), p.549-577
Main Authors: Chabane, Neo, Roberts, Simon, Goldstein, Andrea
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Apartheid
Big business
Black business enterprises
Business
Business conditions
Business economics
Business studies
Changes
Competition
Competition policy
Concentration ratios
Conglomerates
Consumer goods
Corporate reorganization
Correlation analysis
Democracy
Diamonds
Economic change
Economic concentration
Economic conditions
Economic growth
Economic policy
Emerging markets
Empowerment
Globalization
Gold mines & mining
Liberalization
Measurement
Mining industry
OECD
Political economy
Politics
Post-apartheid society
Power
Privatization
Recent economic history
Regulatory reform
South Africa
Studies
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Summary:Under the apartheid regime, South African business was marked by a high degree of concentration, both in terms of ownership and activities; indeed, it could be argued that this concentration was both created by and reinforced the exclusions linked to apartheid. In this paper, we identify the main changes that have characterized South Africa’s big business since democracy in 1994—unbundling of traditional conglomerates, transfer of primary listing to overseas stock exchanges, and slow emergence of black-owned economic groups. These changes are related to key policy actions taken by government, including liberalization, black economic empowerment (BEE) policies, and competition policies. We demonstrate that South Africa still maintains its own distinctive features, including the very large, although reduced, weight of a few conglomerates, while evolving toward structures more similar to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) norms. Finally, we argue that the policy emphasis on ownership transfers, combined with limits in the enforcement of competition policies, has restricted the capacity to generate additional jobs and meet the ultimate objectives of BEE.
ISSN:0960-6491
1464-3650
DOI:10.1093/icc/dtl011