On Tuesday evening, 8 November 2022, the annual EMS Faculty Awards function honoured and celebrated the 2021 achievements of the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences’ staff members. No less than five staff members of the Department of Marketing Management were nominated for the awards.

This year, the Faculty of EMS implemented a new award, namely the ‘Newsmaker of the Year Award’. This award seeks to recognise academics who have had the most media engagements and created research visibility in the media. These can either include opinion pieces, media commentary or broadcast interviews. Nominations were judged on the total reach of their media engagements, as well as the advertising value equivalency (AVE). For the best senior newsmaker of the year, two staff members from the Department were nominated, namely Prof Elizabeth du Preez and Prof Melanie Wiese. The senior newsmaker of the year (with the highest engagements and AVE) was awarded to Prof Wiese.

Prof Wiese was in the news due to her expert opinion on Black Friday, which she shared with Power FM and eNCA on 23 November 2021. This discussion took place a few days before Black Friday, which is often quoted as the biggest shopping day of the year – and that was no different in 2021 despite COVID-19. Various experts weighed in on the retail practice with many warning consumers against getting swept up in the money-saving madness. 

From left to right: Prof Elizabeth du Preez (nominee for the senior newsmaker of the year), Prof Tania Maree (nominee for senior researcher of management sciences), Prof Yolanda Jordaan (Head: Department of Marketing Management), Prof Melanie Wiese (winner of the senior newsmaker of the year award), and Dr Danita van Heerden (nominee for junior researcher in management sciences). Absent: Prof Pierre Mostert (nominee for senior researcher of management sciences)

Prof Du Preez was also in the running as the senior newsmaker. Her nomination resulted from her discussion with Romantha Botha of kykNET Verslag on 5 May 2021. This daily news programme analyses, discusses and explains current global and local matters. The topic under discussion for this episode was vaccination tourism and whether it could be considered as a new niche market for South Africa. She also wrote an opinion piece on this topic for News24 (10 June 2021). On 20 September she conducted a radio interview with Anita Visser during the Spektrum afternoon news programme on RSG. The topic of discussion was the decision by the UK to keep South Africa on its ‘red list’, which restricted travel to certain countries deemed as unsafe destinations amid the COVID-19 pandemic. She also contributed to an opinion piece for African Decisions in December. African Decisions is a comprehensive corporate and government publication designed to reflect the developing nature of Africa’s intercontinental and international trade environment. The article addressed the relevance and importance of vaccine certificates to rebuild trust in Africa as a safe tourist destination in order to reignite the industry post-COVID-19.

For the best Senior Researchers in Management Sciences Award, two staff members from the Department of Marketing Management were nominated: Prof Tania Maree and Prof Pierre Mostert.

Prof Maree published two journal articles in 2021 – both in B-rated journals. The first article was published with Prof Roux from TUT in the Journal of Promotion Management, and their article was titled ’Joy to the (shopper) world: An S-O-R view of digital place-based media in upmarket shopping malls’. The second article was published in the European Business Review with co-author Dr Gené van Heerden, titled ‘Beyond the 'like': Customer engagement of brand fans on Facebook’.

Prof Mostert published five articles in 2021 – one in a B-rated journal and three in C-rated journals. His B-rated article was co-authored by Dr Kotzé and was titled ‘Service-oriented high-performance work practices as predictors of retail employees' work engagement and service climate perceptions’. This article was published in the Services Marketing Quarterly. The second article was published with one of his master’s students, Ms Collins, and was titled ‘Loyalty and word-of-mouth as outcomes of South African Airbnb customers' relationship quality’. It was published in the C-rated Journal for Global Business Advancement. The third article was published with Prof Mostert’s PhD student, Dr Zietsman, and international authors Prof Høgevold and Prof Svensson. The article was published in the International Journal of Business Excellence and was titled ‘META-RELQUAL in business relationships: a sales perspective’. The next C-rated article was published with colleagues Prof Petzer, Ms Petrou and international colleague Prof Berndt. This article was titled ‘A quantitative exploration of service brand avoidance and its antecedents’ and published in the International Journal of Services and Operations Management. The fifth article by Prof Mostert was with two of his master’s students, Mr Theron and Mr Kruger, in the International Journal of Services, Economics and Management. This article was titled ‘A disaggregated approach to establishing the antecedents and outcome of relationship quality in the South African banking industry’.

For the best Junior Researchers in Management Sciences Award, Dr Danita van Heerden was nominated as one of the top three junior researchers in management sciences. During 2021, Dr Van Heerden published an article with her co-author Prof Wiese in the Journal of Consumer Marketing, which is an A-rated journal. The article culminated from Dr Van Heerden’s PhD on consumer engagement and the published article is titled ‘Why do consumers engage in online brand communities - and why should brands care?’.