School of Business Sciences (SBS)

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Research

Research in the School of Business Sciences advances knowledge in business sciences and informs the development of South Africa and the continent. It shapes what we teach, keeping students connected to current thinking in their fields.

Our researchers work across four divisions - Marketing, Information Systems, Human Resources Management and Management, and Insurance and Risk Management - studying African business success and sustainability, from small enterprises to large ones.

Much of our work focuses on green business practices and sustainable consumption, aiming to improve outcomes for consumers, the environment and society.

We collaborate with researchers worldwide and publish in leading global and African journals. Our postgraduate students work directly with experienced researchers across these divisions.

SBS Centre of Research Excellence

School research centre

An Africa-focused research centre working on business innovation, development and sustainability. The Centre's work is organised around four focus areas: wellbeing and sustainability, enterprise and human capital development, technology and innovation, and risk.

The Centre includes three research groups:

Sustainability and Wellbeing Group (SaWG)

Research into unsustainable consumption and its effects, from plastic waste to environmental harm, drawing on consumer research, behavioural science and public health. Works with industry partners in food and retail, government environmental bodies, and international organisations including Greenpeace, WWF and the UN Environment Programme.

Technology Innovation and Insurance and Risk Group (TIIRU)

Uses technology, including crowdsourced research methods, to forecast natural disasters, weather variability and health pandemics. Assesses how prepared insurers are for these risks and researches how businesses and communities can build resilience to them.

Entrepreneurship and Business Ideas Development Unit (EBIDU)

Works with the Wits Entrepreneurship Clinic to research why entrepreneurs and small businesses succeed or fail across Africa, with a focus on digital and sustainable entrepreneurship. Also supports international businesses seeking research-backed insight into African markets before entering them.

 

Chair in Insurance Education

Research Chair

A partnership between Wits and the Insurance Sector Education and Training Authority (INSETA). The Chair has produced two open-access textbooks, authored by Professor Robert Vivian and Dr Albert Mushai:

  • General Principles of Insurance, Volume 1 — the legal system, legal principles and insurance products
  • General Principles of Insurance, Volume 2 — state insurance funds and specialised insurance markets

Both are freely available under a Creative Commons licence, for use by university staff and students. Queries: robert.vivian@wits.ac.za

 
 
 

The Darkroom Project

Future of Learning
The Future of Learning Stream
Operating within the broader Wits-merSETA Darkroom Project, the Future of Learning Stream explores the future of work, skills development, and education across the Manufacturing, Engineering, and Related Services (MER) sector. Taking inspiration from the photographic darkroom, the initiative treats this space as a protected environment where raw ideas, experimental pedagogies, and technological innovations can be cultivated away from premature exposure, digital noise, and external pressures until they are sufficiently developed for implementation.  At the heart of the stream lies an interconnected ecosystem of four flagship projects designed to bridge the persistent gap between academic preparation and evolving labour market demands.

The Internship Project
Investigating internships as vehicles for innovation and intrapreneurship, this project examines how organisations can design, implement, and manage internship programmes more effectively. As internships remain a critical bridge between higher education and the workplace, the project seeks to develop evidence-based frameworks that improve outcomes for employers and interns, increase organisational capacity, and expand opportunities for young talent. Operating within an AI-first environment, interns actively contribute to meaningful projects while developing practical experience and future-ready capabilities.
Importantly, the internship programme serves as the innovation engine of the entire Future of Learning ecosystem. Interns contribute directly to the design, development, testing, validation, documentation, and continuous improvement of the FutureSkills Map, merSIA, and related learning resources, creating a mutually reinforcing relationship between workforce development and innovation.

FutureSkills Map
The FutureSkills Map is an AI-driven skills anticipation and forecasting platform that seeks to transform workforce planning across the MER sector. By integrating real-time labour market signals, job advertisements, policy frameworks, sector intelligence, and academic research into a dynamic ecosystem map, the platform identifies emerging occupations, evolving skills requirements, and future workforce trends. Combining advanced natural language processing, machine learning, and human-in-the-loop validation, the system provides policymakers, educators, employers, and training providers with actionable foresight to support curriculum design, workforce planning, and strategic decision-making.

merSIA (merSETA Sector Intelligence Assistant)
merSIA is an AI-powered conversational research assistant designed to provide reliable and explainable insights into the Manufacturing, Engineering, and Related Services sector. Built around a closed corpus of verified sector reports, policy documents, and research outputs, the platform grounds every response in real, citable evidence rather than unverifiable AI-generated claims. Through advanced reasoning capabilities, transparent citation linking, and explainable outputs, merSIA supports policymakers, researchers, educators, and industry stakeholders in accessing trusted sector intelligence.


5IR Skills Exploration
As the internship programme operates within an AI-first environment, the Future of Learning Stream also investigates the competencies required for success in the Fifth Industrial Revolution (5IR). This project explores how recent graduates interact with artificial intelligence in authentic work settings and examines which human, technical, and professional skills are becoming increasingly important. Through participant reflection, observational research, skills mapping, and workplace experimentation, the project seeks to identify the capabilities required for effective human-AI collaboration. These insights contribute to the development of future-oriented educational models that better prepare graduates for an increasingly AI-enabled economy.


Research Approach and Knowledge Translation
The entire stream is guided by a Design-Based Research (DBR) methodology, allowing interventions, technologies, and educational practices to be iteratively designed, tested, refined, and evaluated in real-world contexts. Insights generated across the four projects are translated into practical outputs, including microlearning modules, facilitator guides, toolkits, policy briefs, knowledge repositories, multimedia resources, and peer-reviewed publications. This ensures that research findings are transformed into accessible and scalable resources that support ongoing capacity building across the sector. 

Conclusion
The stream positions internships, artificial intelligence, skills intelligence, and design-based research as mutually reinforcing mechanisms for shaping the future workforce. In doing so, it seeks not only to anticipate the future of work, but to actively design, test, and scale new models of learning, workforce development, and sector innovation that enable South Africa's MER sector to thrive in an increasingly complex and AI-enabled economy.

For more information, contact Janus van As.
 

Behavioural Laboratory

Tracking how consumers engage with marketing communication

The SBS Behavioural Lab provides a dedicated research environment for examining how consumers attend to, process, and respond to marketing stimuli.

Using eye-tracking technology, researchers can measure visual attention and viewing patterns to understand how consumers engage with advertisements, packaging, websites, social media content, retail environments, and other forms of marketing communication.

The planned addition of galvanic skin response (GSR) technology will further strengthen the Lab’s capabilities by enabling researchers to capture physiological arousal in response to different stimuli. Together, these technologies allow researchers to move beyond self-reported attitudes and perceptions by incorporating behavioural and physiological measures of consumer response.

The Lab can support research across areas such as advertising effectiveness, branding, digital and social media marketing, retail and shopper behaviour, product and packaging design, sustainability communication, and consumer decision-making, while also creating opportunities for interdisciplinary research, industry collaboration, and experiential learning for SBS students.

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