**Author details**

bypass US export quota restrictions resulted in Southeast Asian textile manufacturers establishing subsidiary operations in African countries in order to export from 'Africa' and not from their home markets ([42], p. 418). These collaborative efforts may well in the future build

The second trend is that market and asset-seeking initiatives were driven by the competitive advantage of FSAs, found in **proprietary knowledge and managerial capabilities.** The proprietary knowledge of the locally developed technologies, such as the world leading CTL and GTL technology developed by Sasol or the mining technology of the mining conglomerates AAC and Gold Fields or the mobile telephone technology MTN, is injected into the African and Middle East markets. The expansion of the health-care companies Netcare and Mediclinic is also representative of advanced health-care technology as a vehicle for internationalisation. These technologies provided a strategic tool to access new markets and simultaneously

Technological advantages were underpinned by **strategic managerial capabilities**. The managerial capabilities of South African corporations constitute a vital element of the successful globalisation of their operations. Strategic leadership and dynamic capabilities in change management placed them in an advantageous position with respect to expansion into global and neighbouring developing markets. The diversified conglomerates of pre-1990 South Africa were multidivisional firms, managed by professional managers and not only family members (as is still the case in most of the emerging African conglomerates in other African countries such as Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Kenya). These competitive advantages were enhanced through the international orientation of South African management. Local managers are well travelled, have extensive business network links outside the country, possess ability to manage operations under conditions of political instability and social turmoil—as persisted in South Africa during the 1980s and 1990s—and take and manage risk in such markets [42, 78]. The internationalisation of Sappi, the paper conglomerate, was both motivated by market-seeking considerations as well as the Asian Tigers type of learning and leveraging motives where Sappi acquired advanced fine paper production technology through the acquisition of the European and US paper corporations. The success of the sustained internationalisation operation was dependent on the management of the integration of the newly acquired technology into the existing knowledge base of the conglomerate. The opening up of markets

In this category of internationalisation, the fast-growing e-commerce and e-business markets are penetrated by innovation managerial activity [90]. The cases of the expansion of Naspers and MTN were engineered by strategic management vision. Innovative management proactively sought to leverage existing knowledge in the media and mobile telephone business to penetrate the e-commerce market. Naspers restructured the company and used organisational capabilities at firm level to refocus the media company to emerge as the largest emerging market conglomerate by 2013. Naspers' restructuring enabled the MTN expansion, and the electronic technology of the mobile company was leveraged by the retail company Shoprite, to offer electronic money transfer and payment services. Market-seeking strategies

local enterprise and result in extensive internationalisation.

62 Globalization

address the growing constraints in the domestic market.

offered strategic options conditioned by contextual constraints.

are strengthened by the international orientation of management.

Grietjie Verhoef

Address all correspondence to: gverhoef@uj.ac.za

University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa
