Nelson Mandela University Business Management Professors Receive Top Honours
Mandela University’s Professors Elmarie Venter and Shelley Farrington from the Department of Business Management were recently honoured with awards at the recent Southern African Institute of Management Scientists (SAIMS) conference in Stellenbosch.
Prof Venter was awarded the SAIMS Lifetime Achievement Award, acknowledging her longstanding dedication to SAIMS and her substantial contributions to Management Sciences in South Africa.
This marks only the second time SAIMS has bestowed its prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award.
Prof Venter has been a member of SAIMS since 1998 and Chairperson of the SAIMS Board of directors from 2010 to 2015.
She was also the organiser and conference chair of the SAIMS Annual Conference in 2009 and 2019.
Her impact extends beyond academia, having consulted to and supported hundreds of family businesses across South Africa.
Professor Farrington, along with co-authors Riyaad Ismail and Atlehang Nkotha, received the Best Paper Award for their work titled “Conceptualising a university-based student entrepreneurial ecosystem framework (U-B(S)EE)”.
Their framework promises significant practical implications for university stakeholders by enhancing the understanding of system elements and their interactions, and by providing a foundation for evaluating existing U-B(S)EEs.
Professors Venter and Farrington are also founding members of the Mandela University Family Business Unit and have between the two of them, won more than eight SAIMS Best Paper Awards.