International Journal of Business Ecosystem & Strategy

Competitive intelligence strategies are employed by higher education institutions to assist with student recruitment. These competitive intelligence (CI) strategies help maintain or increase market share in education. Utilising competitive intelligence is crucial for firms in competitive markets, assisting in strategic planning and execution. Higher education organisations can benefit from CI to make informed decisions and develop strategic goals. The competition between selected public universities that reside in the same town has resulted in devising competitive strategies to attract grade 12 students with effective and innovative student recruitment strategies. The study sought to examine how competitive intelligence is used as a strategy to promote student recruitment at selected public universities. The study adopted a quantitative research approach where 234 first-time entering university students were used as key informants. To collect data, a questionnaire was used and is attached. It was discovered that both institutions utilised similar strategies to recruit students. Results reveal that the selected public universities employ traditional and technology-based strategies for student recruitment, relying on past success rather than a standardised approach based on competitive intelligence. Further research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of competitive intelligence strategies in student recruitment, aiming to promote diverse communication needs among current and potential students.

This paper addresses the critical issue of eroding service delivery by the South African public and local government. One of the primary arguments presented is that a significant contributory factor is the theory-practice gap endemic to public servants. Drawing on a vivid analogy used by the Indian Supreme Court's outrage at the appointment of judicial officers without on-the-job experience, this paper contends that theoretical proficiency alone is not adequate for complex, high-stakes professional work. Through a qualitative, descriptive, and analytical literature review, the study is grounded on conceptual analysis highlighting the inadequacies of academic training devoid of real-world practice. A theoretical framework is then developed by bringing together Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) and Competency-Based Education (CBE), demonstrating how these pedagogical frameworks can bridge the knowledge-practice divide. Contextual critique assesses the South African public sector setting based on secondary data sources including government reports, academic studies, and public policy briefs. Failures in governance, financial mismanagement, political meddling, and a systematic lack of practical competencies are revealed by the analysis to be underlying factors of the defects in service delivery in the country. The article proposes an integrated "Competency-Driven Public Service" model on such a basis that integrates experiential learning and skills development within public administration. This conceptualisation model aims to foster ethical leadership, induce a culture of continuous organisational learning, and enhance practical competency at all levels of public administration. The article concludes with practical suggestions made particularly for policymakers and leaders in public administration. These aim to reboot public service provision through education reform and organizational capacity building. Overall, the article contributes to the debate around public sector reform through the provision of theoretically informed, practically useful analysis of a significant issue of governance.

This study explores Artificial Intelligence’s potential in promoting social inclusion in South African tertiary institutions. Despite advancements in expanding access to higher education, historical disparities continue to exclude marginalised groups from accessing equal opportunities in education and human capital development. Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers a promising avenue to bridge this gap by enhancing accessibility, promoting personalised learning, and streamlining administrative processes. The study adopts a desktop literature review to explore how AI-powered tools can leverage intelligent assistive technologies, personalised learning experiences and automated administrative tasks that reduce bureaucratic barriers to enhance physically challenged students’ accessibility and address their diverse learning styles and needs. Despite the potential benefits of AI tools, challenges such as the digital divide, infrastructure constraints, AI bias, cultural sensitivity, and institutional capacity persist to hinder massive adoption. The study recommends infrastructure development, digital literacy programs, culturally sensitive AI design, and capacity-building initiatives for educators to fully harness AI's potential for social inclusion in higher education institutions. The study contributes new knowledge to the ongoing discourse on AI-driven social inclusion in higher education. It emphasises opportunities and challenges prevalent in South Africa. Hence, the study demonstrates how leveraging AI can foster a more inclusive and equitable learning environment

Entrepreneurship is often examined from psychological, social, and economic perspectives. However, this fragmented approach limits our understanding of how these dimensions interact, especially in a world shaped by rapid technological changes and evolving market dynamics. To address this, the Yolk Entrepreneurship Framework was introduced as an integrative model that unifies diverse perspectives. This study employed a conceptual research design and systematically reviewed two decades of literature from leading journals. Through thematic analysis, it explores six key variables: entrepreneurial mindset, sociocultural influences, economic factors, intrapreneurship, sustainable entrepreneurship, and technological advancements. The findings reveal that entrepreneurship is shaped by the dynamic interplay between individual traits and broader contextual factors. Notably, social capital enhances innovation driven by a mindset, highlighting the synergy between internal attributes and external networks. The Yolk Framework visualises these interconnections and promotes a comprehensive view of entrepreneurship. This underscores the need to integrate psychological, sociological, and economic insights to fully grasp the entrepreneurial process. This framework offers a comprehensive lens for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers to understand entrepreneurship as a dynamic, interconnected phenomenon that supports informed research, inclusive policy design, and context-sensitive practice.

Monolingual ideologies remain alive in mainstream education, though the amount of evidence pointing to the benefits of multilingualism is increasing. Against this background, this paper aims to explore the importance of multilingual practices in multilingual classrooms, teacher input in enhancing multilingual practices in classrooms and assessment in multilingual classrooms. A systematic review of the literature was done to gather data. The findings revealed that the use of dominant national languages and/or colonial languages does not sufficiently account for the multilingual nature of the learners in the classrooms and their respective communities. Teachers need to allow any references to languages by their learners of which they have only basic knowledge or no knowledge at all. One way is to leave the role of expert to learners with home languages while taking on the role of learners of new languages. Also, in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms, unintended bias in any assessment aspect can negatively affect learners whose home language is not the language of assessment. The study recommends that policymakers should establish official guidelines on interpreting competence aims for multilingual education, ensuring clarity and consistency across schools. Teachers should adopt collaborative teaching strategies that encourage learners to use their home languages in classroom activities. Partnerships between researchers and educators are essential for evaluating the effectiveness of multilingual pedagogies and refining teaching approaches. Assessment practices should be adapted to reflect learners’ diverse linguistic backgrounds, ensuring fair and valid evaluations of their competencies. Teacher training programmes should include modules on multilingual education, equipping educators with the necessary tools to manage linguistically diverse classrooms.

Digital transformation tools are increasingly promoted as strategic resources for improving mathematics learning, yet their contribution to conceptual understanding remains uneven across school systems. This systematic literature review examines how dynamic mathematics software, virtual manipulatives, adaptive learning systems, educational games and collaborative digital environments enhance conceptual understanding in secondary school mathematics. Guided by constructivist learning theory, cognitive load theory, socio-cultural theory and technological pedagogical content knowledge, the review synthesises peer-reviewed literature published between 2015 and 2025, supported by PRISMA-informed searching, screening and thematic analysis. The final synthesis shows that digital tools support conceptual understanding when they enable multiple representations, dynamic visualisation, feedback-rich exploration, personalised pathways and mathematical discourse. However, these benefits are conditional rather than automatic. Teacher digital-pedagogical competence, assessment alignment, cognitive design quality, learner language, infrastructure and equitable access mediate whether digital transformation becomes meaningful learning or merely tool substitution. The review contributes to business and social science scholarship by positioning the digital transformation of mathematics as an educational, social equity, and human capital development issue. It argues that secondary mathematics systems require coherent investment in teacher capability, curriculum redesign, responsible data use and inclusive infrastructure. The paper concludes that digital transformation should be governed as a pedagogical and systemic reform process, not as a technological intervention alone.

Infrastructure development remains a core mandate of local government in South Africa; however, many municipalities continue to experience persistent infrastructure backlogs due to financial constraints, limited technical capacity, and governance challenges. In response to these challenges, public–private partnerships (PPPs) have increasingly been adopted as an alternative approach to infrastructure development, enabling collaboration between the public and private sectors through the sharing of resources, expertise, and risk. Despite their growing application, the effectiveness of PPPs at the local government level remains inconsistent, particularly within smaller and resource-constrained municipalities.

AI-enabled assessment technologies are increasingly used by higher education institutions to protect academic integrity, scale online assessment and respond strategically to generative artificial intelligence. This paper examines how online proctoring, automated scoring, AI writing detection, and learning analytics risk flagging reshape institutional governance, stakeholder trust, and assessment strategy in higher education business ecosystems. Using a systematic-narrative review approach informed by PRISMA 2020 reporting principles, the study synthesises peer-reviewed literature and authoritative policy guidance published between 2015 and 2025. The analysis is organised around an integrated theoretical framework that combines assessment validity, academic integrity values, algorithmic accountability, and ecosystem strategy. The findings show that AI-enabled assessment can support identity verification, monitoring capacity, workflow triage and timely feedback when deployed as human-governed decision support rather than automated adjudication. However, over-reliance on surveillance and detection creates strategic risks: false positives, bias against linguistically diverse students, privacy intrusion, opaque decision-making, weakened due process and construct distortion when assessments measure surveillance compliance instead of intended learning outcomes. The review further shows that institutional legitimacy depends less on the technical promise of tools and more on governance capability, including proportionality, transparency, contestability, equity auditing, privacy protection and authentic assessment redesign. The paper contributes to business ecosystem and strategy scholarship by positioning academic integrity technology as a strategic governance issue within higher education service ecosystems. It recommends integrity-by-design, cross-functional AI governance, vendor accountability and assessment strategies that preserve fairness, validity and stakeholder trust.

This systematic review examines artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital transformation in mathematics education as a strategic business ecosystem issue rather than only a classroom technology concern. The objective is to synthesise how AI-supported pedagogies create educational value, what ecosystem risks accompany adoption, and which organisational capabilities and governance conditions enable responsible implementation. Guided by PRISMA 2020 principles, peer-reviewed empirical and conceptual studies published between 2018 and 2025 were identified from Scopus, Web of Science, ERIC, Education Source and Google Scholar. A total of 3,241 records were initially retrieved; after duplicate removal, screening and full-text eligibility assessment, 203 studies were included for structured extraction, quality appraisal and thematic synthesis. The evidence was analysed through a business ecosystem lens focusing on value co-creation, stakeholder interdependence, digital governance, teacher capability, infrastructure readiness and equity. The findings show that AI tools can strengthen adaptive practice, formative feedback, diagnostic analytics, multimodal representation and teacher decision-making when they are embedded in coherent institutional strategies. However, strategic value is weakened by digital inequality, data privacy risks, algorithmic opacity, cognitive offloading, platform dependence, weak curriculum alignment and insufficient teacher capability. The study contributes an ecosystem strategy framework that positions AI as a pedagogical and organisational mediator within a network of learners, teachers, institutions, technology providers, policy bodies, infrastructure actors and communities. It concludes that AI adoption in mathematics education should be strategy-led, ethically governed and capability-driven. Sustainable value creation requires inclusive infrastructure, teacher professional development, data governance, assessment redesign, transparent procurement and partnerships that protect educational equity while enabling innovation in resource-constrained and digitally uneven contexts.

Increasing linguistic diversity in higher education institutions across Southern Africa has highlighted translanguaging practices in academic discussions. In Zimbabwean universities, English serves as the official language of teaching and learning and international students frequently navigate complex multilingual settings that challenge conventional monolingual teaching methods. This study examines the challenges and opportunities associated with translanguaging practices among international students at a public university in Zimbabwe. The study aims to explore how international students use translanguaging in both academic and social settings, recognise the difficulties they face in largely English-medium environments and assess the potential advantages of translanguaging for achieving academic success and fostering inclusion. The research is grounded in translanguaging theory. A qualitative research approach was utilised and three focus group discussions were used as data collection methods. The groups comprised 17 international students studying at the chosen state university, enrolled in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses, from different nationalities and backgrounds. Participants were selected using purposive sampling. The data were analysed thematically to uncover recurring themes and insights. The study's findings indicated that translanguaging acts as an essential tool for constructing meaning, collaborating with peers and negotiating identity among international students. Nonetheless, institutional barriers, such as strict language policies and educators’ lack of understanding of translanguaging teaching methods, hinder its effective application. Students additionally expressed feelings of linguistic isolation and decreased involvement when confined to English-only practices. The research suggests that universities implement more adaptable language policies, offer training for instructors in multilingual teaching methods and establish supportive environments that acknowledge and utilise students' full linguistic skills. These measures may promote fairer and more efficient learning experiences for international students in Zimbabwean universities.