Managerial Cognition and Turnaround in Farm Businesses in South Africa

In a time where the global economic turbulent environment, financial market instability, food security, land appropriation and natural disasters influence the way we make decisions as managers in our respective businesses. These factors particulary apply to agriculture, where farmers face these challenges every day. These factors has to be taken into account with various decisions that farmers make on a daily basis and the impact it will have on their financial performance when such complex decisions are made. Due to the limited information available on how to effectively manage these risks and to make informative decisions while having no control over external factors such as climate change and political policies exposes farmers and their financial positions to deteriorate very quickly and inevitably face financial distress. There are very little literature referring to how managers can adjust their decision making in the agricultural context and digging even further into the South-African context. In order to understand this business phenomena we need to understand how South African farmers perceive these factors and how they respond in making these decisions.