Understanding business acumen is crucial to the sustainability of retail organisations, as it relates to human capital and equity theory lenses. The impetus for undertaking this research is the paucity of similar studies in the retail sector in South Africa that used machine learning for assessments. The trend, in literature, shows that in the retail sector, the quantifiable business ability metrics are the return on equity (ROE), the return on assets (ROA), and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA). The research philosophy adopted was positivism, while the research design was longitudinal (2016 to 2024) and exploratory. Moreover, the key findings (fixed (r = 0.73) and variable pay (r = 0.83)) were positively correlated with total salary, while the regression results were not significant. Even though variable pay constituted a higher proportion of the chief executive officer’s (CEO's) salary, the pattern was inconsistent. Moreover, the sampled retail sector organisation demonstrated an exorbitant wage gap between the CEO and low-income earners. Even so, the Holt-Winters forecasted that the CEO’s salary would continue to increase from 2026 to 2028. Overall, the managerial impact is that wage differences generate reputational damage and force trade unions to negotiate higher wages. Yet, paying the CEO a competitive salary increases motivation, job satisfaction, and retention.
Maleka et al. (Tue,) studied this question.