Doctoral Degrees (History)

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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (History) by browse.metadata.advisor "Ehlers, Anton"

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    From life insurance to financial services : a historical analysis of Sanlam's client base, 1918-2004
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2013-12) Halleen, Simone; Verhoef, Grietjie; Ehlers, Anton; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Sanlam has long been stereotyped as an Afrikaans company. It has been positioned in Afrikaner nationalist historiography as one of a number of Afrikaner economic, cultural and political institutions that emerged alongside British ones in the early twentieth century as Afrikaners strove to assert their identity and independence. Much of the existing literature on the history of Sanlam has focused on the role that the company played in promoting this independence by mobilising savings for investment in Afrikaner businesses. This study challenges this conventional view of Sanlam. It argues that Sanlam was established as a South African company in a British industry of which the inclusion and empowerment of Afrikaners formed one aspect. It was a national institution that tried to represent South Africa at all levels. This study demonstrates Sanlam’s inclusiveness as a South African company by analysing its client profile from its establishment as a modest life insurance company in 1918 to its transformation into a diversified financial services group by 2004. It shows that Sanlam did not only target and attract Afrikaans-speaking clients, but included as wide a spectrum of clients as possible within the political and market constraints of the time. It did this by operating as a bilingual company, including working classes through industrial insurance and group schemes and by offering non-traditional life insurance products and ancillary financial services that met a range of needs. In this way Sanlam set itself apart from its competitors. Its clients included people from both sides of the demographic and social divide. Clients included English and Afrikaans-speakers, blacks and whites, young and old, male and female, and lower and upper class. Restrictions and exclusions were based on risk and not on race, sex or class. Sanlam broadened its prospects even further into the South African market during the second half of its history. This was in response to events such as the formation of the Republic in 1961, the growth of the South African economy, the deregulation of the financial sector in the 1980s and 1990s, and the collapse of Apartheid in the early 1990s. By 2004 Sanlam had completed its transformation into a diversified financial services group that provided a range of life insurance and financial services solutions for individuals, groups and businesses from various walks of life. The Group could now shift its focus not only onto further expansion into the South African and neighbouring African markets, but onto the rest of Africa and other emerging markets abroad.
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    A historical analysis of joint stock companies in the Cape Colony between 1892 and 1902
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-03) Maphosa, Lloyd Melusi; Fourie, Johan; Ehlers, Anton; Kerby, Edward; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The promulgation of laws sanctioning the use of limited liability joint stock companies during the nineteenth century has been linked to economic growth in Europe and North America. These legal changes minimised transaction costs in business practices, which in turn encouraged entrepreneurial innovation, and expanded the capital market. This is because as companies multiplied, income distribution improved, thereby increasing the amount of savings available for companies from which to pool capital. Despite similar legal changes in frontier markets such as South Africa, very few attempts have been made to analyse these outcomes. In South African history, although companies feature in broader economic history studies and micro-firm studies, attempts to analyse their long-term impact remain under explored. In the few studies that examine their growth, attention has either been on their distribution in the period prior to the legal changes, or generally on their legal framework. This study aims to add to this body of knowledge by analysing the impact of the Cape Joint Stock Company Act of 1892 on company growth and the private capital market. It is the first study to use company micro-data to assess the distribution of companies and investors in colonial South Africa. It examines the sectors in which these companies were engaged, their geographic location, size, average lifespan, and the individuals who financed them. The analysis shows that there was a substantial increase in the number of companies engaged in various sectors of the economy between 1892 and 1902. In this significant feat of colonial business, the middle-class constituted 31% of the capital market, and had the highest percentage of individuals registered as starting members of companies. This meant that they were not only the largest source of capital, but were at the helm of entrepreneurial innovation. Within this dynamic, women towards the end of the nineteenth century became regular participants in the private capital market, despite strong cultural institutions that prohibited them from many economic activities. Farmers, despite being the second largest group in the capital market, had the lowest capital value by contrast. Proposed explanations for this are that women used the securities market to exercise economic freedom, while farmers used it to salvage the agricultural sector that had been scourged by environmental disasters. This is because during this period there was a growing ideology that supported women’s independence. Also, farmers, unlike other investor groups that spread their investments, channelled most of their finances towards agricultural companies. Therefore, the nature of joint stock companies during this period and the diversity of the capital market show that the Company Act of 1892 had a profound economic impact on the Cape Colony.
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    A socio-economic history of coffee production in Mbinga District, Tanzania, c. 1920 - 2015
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-03) Komba, Yustina Samwel; Ehlers, Anton; Kangalawe, Hezron; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The research focused on the foundation, development, fortunes, and socio-economic impact of the coffee industry on smallholder coffee producers in the Mbinga District for the period from 1920 to 2015. Drawing on archival and oral sources, it analysed the historical interactions between the coffee actors in the coffee industry, namely the state, the co-operatives, private coffee enterprises, and smallholder coffee producers. In the process, Gavin Fridell’s “coffee statecraft” and James Scott’s “weapon of theweak” approaches are utilised as theoretical points of departure. While the colonial state laid the foundation for state control of the coffee industry through the co-operative marketing system, the postcolonial state’s interventions shaped the trajectory of the coffee industry between the 1960s and 1990 under the Ujamaa policy. TheEuropean Economic Community grant for the coffee-improvement programmes between 1977 and the late 1980s influenced the expansion of the coffee industry in the Mbinga District.From the late 1980s, the Tanzanian government implemented economic liberalisation which marked the end of Ujamaa principles and the transition from state monopoly to the free-market system. The research demonstrates how the transition from the state monopoly of coffee production under co-operative societies to co-existence with the private enterprises has resulted in entrenched hegemonic and exploitative practices at the expense of smallholder coffee producers between the 1990s and 2015. There is also a focus on the role of women in coffee production and marketing in the Mbinga District over time. While coffee has been regarded as “man’s crop”, the complexity of women’s participation in coffee production and marketing is revealed in the findings. This thesis argues that the history of the coffee industry in the Mbinga District evolvedthrough the interaction between the state, the coffee producers, co-operativesand later private coffee enterprises, all of which have impacted on the socio-economic livelihood and fortunes of the smallholder coffee producers in a variety of ways.
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    Van Afrikanerkultuur tot korporatief : die geskiedenis van Sanlam se hoofkantoor-personeelkorps 1918 – 2008
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12) Beukes, Wynand; Verhoef, G.; Ehlers, Anton; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The South African company Sanlam was founded in 1918 as a direct result of the growth of Afrikaner nationalism. An objective with the establishment of Sanlam as a life insurance company was the settlement of Afrikaners in the South African economy and thereby their economic upliftment. From the beginning, the company was known principally as an Afrikaans institution focussing on Afrikaner interests. The company was aiming at the settling of itself as a South African establishment rendering a service to the entire South African community. The building-blocks of Afrikaner nationalism – the Afrikaans language, the uplifting of Afrikaners, the accentuation of their history and Christian Protestantism – were openly allowed to flourish in the company. Black people were staff members from the start, but were directly affected later by legislation and views of segregation and apartheid, a system dividing South Africans on a racial basis especially after the National Party (NP) rose to office in 1948. Separate accommodation, recreational and dining facilities were established in the company. The white staff members’ organisational culture was intensely affected by elements of industrial paternalism, under which housing and organised culture and sport, among other things, were provided by the company. This form of paternalism created an ideal environment for the development of loyalty to the company, conveyed by the expression “Sanlam spirit”. This company alliance was not sufficient enough to detach staff members from non-ideological exogenous events. They witnessed technological development from the typewriter to the most modern computer applications and experienced the preferences and disapprovals for clothing and the smoking habit, for instance. The position of women in the company was also directly influenced by external factors. In tandem with the rest of the world, they were marginalised too. In the seventies, the tables started turning for them. In the same decade, political developments began to influence staff members intensively. They became part of the militarisation of the South African white community against the increasing rise of militant black nationalism. Political reforms led to the crumbling of the building-blocks of Afrikaner nationalism. The transition in South Africa from a white minority government to a black majority government under the African National Congress (ANC) in 1994 affected the staff profoundly. The company had to transform to meet the political demands of the new government. It was compelled to appoint more black staff members. Simultaneously, the company was forced to reconstruct to keep up with economic changes. Sanlam changed from a mutual life office to a corporative financial services institution. In 2008, nine decades after its establishment, it was transformed into a true new South African company when black staff members emerged as the majority for the first time. The continuous changes during 90 years were a reflection of exogenous events in the Afrikaner community in particular and in South Africa and the rest of the world in general. This all influenced the establishment and settlement of and the changes to the company’s organisational culture.