Investigating distress cognition for farm businesses as a precursor to turnaround in the South-African context

• Main Author: Human, Jan-Hendrik
• Other Authors: Fairhurst, Keith
• Language: en
• Published: University of Pretoria 2018
• Subjects: UCTD
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2263/64855; Human, J 2017, Investigating distress cognition for farm businesses as a precursor to turnaround in the South-African context, MBA Mini Dissertation, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd <http://hdl.handle.net/2263/64855>

The global economic turbulent environment, financial market instability, food security, land appropriation and natural disasters has significantly transformed the agricultural landscape over the past few decades. These negative environmental forces has changed the way in which farmers had to adapt to their approach to managing their farm businesses and change their actions taken in response to these complex challenges posed. Managerial cognition is understood to be an important lever that farmers have that can influence the growth or decline of their operations and should there be a decline in the farm business how they go about turning the decline around. Organizational turnaround is often referred to as n process dedicated to corporate renewal by saving organizations from bankruptcy and turning them into agile and sustainable businesses. Due to the limited information available on how to effectively manage these risks and to take informative actions while having no control over the external context, farmerÕs internal management perceptions and awareness are of great importance and can ultimately be the difference between financial success and failure. Although literature confirms that these factors have significant rippling effect on both farm businesses and agribusinesses, there are very little literature referring to how farmers can transform their actions taken in the agricultural context and drilling even further down to the unique South African context. In order to understand this business phenomena we need to understand how South African farmers perceive these complex contexts and how they respond to them from a managerial cognition perspective and the way this influences turnaround should they become financially distressed. The study was conducted through an exploratory qualitative approach. Insights into the factors that influence distress cognition were investigated and how this effects organizational decline and turnaround in farm businesses in South Africa. A total of 12 semi-structured interviews were conducted with agricultural experts, financial marketers and farmers who are considered successful in their farming operations. Thematic content analyses was used to analyze the data obtained throughout the interview process. === Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2017. === za2018 === Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) === MBA === Unrestricted