Abstract Paper aims To provide guidance on formulating and clarifying research questions from abstract and broad ideas. Originality Reports of empirical research invariably offer limited insights on the opaque process of developing research questions, aims and objectives. Moreover, we are not aware of a similar discussion within this journal, as well as other management journals. Research method This is a theoretical paper. Main findings Among other factors, our discussion highlights the role of theory and self-reflection in the process of research topic refinement. We consider the nature and types of theoretical contribution a research project can make, highlighting some common reasons why journal submissions are often rejected due to failure to provide a theoretical contribution. Implications for theory and practice Greater reflexivity in this process should ultimately lead to clearer theoretical contributions and more manageable research topics, with greater practical and societal relevance.

Last year was the centenary of the ANC; next year will mark twenty years since it came into office as the majority party in the Government of National Unity. Today much criticism of the ANC in government explains its failures by referring to its retention of an identity as a "liberation movement" and its inability to shed its struggle mindset. This makes it all the more important to know what the ANC did in the struggle and how attitudes dating from that struggle may still be current, such as the belief in the rightness of the cause, which usually means condemning those who did not work with it in the struggle, and in the responsibility of the "movement" to continue to exercise power, in order to pursue the goals of the struggle. This article considers three important contributions to the history of the ANC that appeared in the centenary years and places them in the context of other recent writing on the ANC.

Verlede jaar was die eeufees-herdenking van die ANC en volgende jaar sal dit twintig jaar wees sedert die organisasie as die meerderheidsparty in die Regering van Nasionale Eenheid aan bewind gekom het. Huidiglik word baie kritiek op die ANC in regering gehoop deur na die mislukkings te verwys en die te koppel aan die behoud van 'n "bevrydingsbeweging" identiteit en die onvermoë om die struggle mind-set af te skud. Dit maak dit des te meer belangrik om te weet wat die ANC in die struggle gedoen het en hoe ingesteldhede wat uit die tyd dateer nog steeds water hou, soos die geloof in die regverdigheid van die saak, wat gewoonlik beteken dat die diegene wat nie deel van die struggle was nie veroordeel word en die voortgesette verantwoordelikheid van die ANC om mag uit te oefen in die nastrewe van die doelwitte van die struggle. Hierdie artikel oorweeg drie belangrike bydraes tot die geskiedenis van die ANC wat tydens die eeufeesjaar verskyn het en plaas dit in die konteks van ander onlangse werke oor die organisasie.