MBA Dissertation on Innovation Barriers in Black-Owned Landscape Architectural and Architectural Firms

I am pleased to share that I recently completed my MBA dissertation at the Graduate School of Business and Leadership at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, titled "Innovation Barriers Facing Small Black-Owned Architectural and Landscape Architectural Firms in South Africa."

As a practising landscape architect and principal of a micro firm in Johannesburg, this research grew directly out of lived professional experience. This dissertation gave me the tools to examine those frustrations rigorously and name them with evidence.

The study adopted a qualitative, phenomenological approach, drawing on in-depth interviews with purposively selected practitioners across private practice, the public sector, and non-profit organisations. Using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis framework, seven critical themes emerged: financial fragility, collaboration deficits, structural client bias, regulatory constraints, mentorship limitations, internal capacity gaps, and disparate levels of open-innovation awareness, which together form an interlocking "Vicious Cycle of Exclusion." Participants consistently demonstrated high ethical and technical readiness, knowledge of BIM, ecological design, and Open Innovation principles, yet lacked the structural conditions to act on it, as awareness exceeds capacity.

From this, I developed a Structural Open Innovation Model specific to the South African context. The model places Funding Access at its core, as the central mechanism that triggers a self-reinforcing cycle as financial scarcity forces firms into short-term survival mode, eroding the internal capacity needed to adopt BIM or invest in Research and Development. This capacity gap weakens firms' standing against Client Bias and rigid Procurement Rules, which prioritise administrative compliance and historical experience over technical agility, a credibility catch-22 that denies emerging firms the very projects needed to build a track record. With formal pathways closed, practitioners fall back on informal Compensatory Micro-Networks for mentorship and knowledge-sharing vital for survival but lacking the institutional weight to shift firms into mainstream client pipelines. The result is a feedback loop in which reduced capacity limits market access, lower revenue deepens funding scarcity, and Open Innovation remains aspirational rather than operational.

Because the model identifies funding access and procurement reform as the two primary intervention nodes capable of breaking this cycle, my recommendations cluster around three synchronised pillars of transformation: institutional de-friction, financial de-risking, and the formalisation of social capital. Concretely, these translate into: tiered, revenue-scaled professional fee structures from statutory bodies; mandatory sustainable design legislation to create market demand for ecological skills firms already possess; audited upfront payments for qualifying B-BBEE firms on public tenders to ease cash flow volatility; subsidised technology bundles to close the BIM adoption gap; and formalised, paid mentorship programmes alongside structured academic–industry partnerships to convert informal goodwill into a structural right.

For landscape architects across Africa navigating similar structural inequalities, I hope this research offers both a conceptual framework and an evidence-based advocacy tool that speaks directly to IFLA Africa's mandate of inclusive transformation and professional development.