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The purpose of this paper is to improve our understanding of how South African economic actors react to the gradual entry of non-South African BRICS firms in their established business areas. Throughout the twentieth century, South Africa’s trade and investment activities were conducted overwhelmingly with Western countries. However, the end of apartheid coincided with significant shifts as new players had a wider and growing presence. South Africa entering the BRICS alliance is symbolic of the change. Ease of entry into the South African economy has increased greatly. South African businesses in key subsectors in the mining and capital equipment industry have had to adapt to new players, and find space in new structures, value chains and initiatives. This paper presents the results of this research activity from the perspective of the South African political economy. Practice-oriented research investigated how six local companies forge new partnerships and how well South African firms adapt and cope with an altered and often unstable environment. It assumed that entrepreneurial activity is not autonomous but takes place within a larger organisational framework. Entrepreneurial activity facilitates the effective exploitation of particular niches and relationships with service providers.

© 2014 © 2014 The South African Institute of International Affairs. Framed by the 5th BRICS Summit in South Africa in March 2013 this analysis examines economic ‘South South’ linkages on a company level. A qualitative case study focuses on a small number of private corporations operating in the South African mining and minerals sector. It looks at their reactions to increasingly competitive markets in the regions of Southern and West Africa thus on their agency defined as the ability to act in complex uncertainty. Findings present how the South African cases' engagements with strategically selected partner companies from the other BRICS economies can succeed. This contribution attempts to examine entrepreneurial rationale that can be taken as anecdotal evidence of a new ‘economic diplomacy’ at corporate level. The examples illustrate how agency enables certain adaptations of strategies for creating competitive synergies from collaboration with new actors from the other BRICS economies in Africa.

The relationship of cooperation and competition between South African private businesses and Asian companies has become more complex in the last 20 years. With South Africa joining what became BRICS in early 2011 it now represents the African continent with its growing market potential. However South African medium and large size companies (SA MLCs) seem to perceive the positioning of BRIC businesses rather as a challenge than as a window of opportunity. This article identifies the need for a deeper understanding of the adaptive capacity and practices of South African private companies which play a significant role for job creation in South Africa. What we hereby present is in fact a first foray into companies’ pragmatic engagements for achieving relative stability in increasing competitive markets. This is consequent of empirical research in its initial stages. The theoretical framework applied picks up recent debates revolving around the ‘practice turn.’ First evidence from business corroborates an alternative field specific approach referring to Fligstein’s relational sociology of markets and Thévenot’s concept of pragmatic regimes of justification.

Every BRICS nation has grown a multitude of successful companies over the past two decades. At the fifth BRICS Summit in Durban in 2013, South Africa demonstrated an entrepreneurial enthusiasm for collaboration within the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). High priority was accorded to examining how to create intra-BRICS opportunities on the African continent to benefit all partners, including African businesses.