Editorial

Acta Commercii and the IBC: The start of a fruitful relationship?

Geoff A. Goldman

Copyright: © 2025. The Author(s). Licensee: AOSIS.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

This collection draws together some of the best work forthcoming from the 17th International Business Conference (IBC) held at the Marriott Protea Hotel, Stellenbosch, from 22 to 25 September 2024.

As a premiere South African management conference, the IBC has three major objectives. Firstly, to provide an international platform for the presentation, discussion and debate of different academic and professional approaches and research on recent developments in an ever-turbulent business environment. Secondly, to provide academics, practitioners and post-graduate students with the opportunity to have their work validated and benchmarked within the benevolent academic and professional community. The final objective is to create a pleasant environment to serve the first two objectives, where delegates can also relax, get to know their fellow academics informally and build their networks.

Although the IBC also publishes its conference proceedings annually, which are recognised by the Department of Higher Education and Training, the IBC felt it necessary to explore other avenues of showcasing the fantastic work presented at the annual conference by the IBC family, hence this joint initiative with Acta Commercii. Both the IBC and Acta Commercii are committed to the pursuit of refreshingly different ideas within the field of management that showcase Africa’s potential and uniqueness, and both parties are confident that this will be the first of many such initiatives.

This special edition comprises five of the best articles as adjudicated by the Best Paper Committee of the 17th IBC. Of all the competitive articles submitted to the IBC, those 12 that scored the highest were handed over to the Best Paper Committee. This Committee also handed over the best 10 articles to Acta Commercii for inclusion in this special edition. Of these 10 articles, Acta Commercii selected five articles for inclusion in this special edition, based primarily on their fit with the scope of the Journal. I am pleased to say that two of the articles in this special issue were adjudicated as the best article and second runner-up at the 17th IBC Conference.

As both Acta Commercii and the IBC continue to establish themselves, the one as a journal of growing stature and the other as the largest management conference in South Africa, the future is set for many exciting initiatives and prospects.

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