Background: Changing market conditions and increasing competition drive companies to increase their collaboration along the supply chain. Technological innovations enable businesses to increase their integration tremendously. The fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) enables the integration of information technology with industrial technology. The adoption of Industry 4.0 includes many complex technologies that come with challenges for many organizations. Previous research suggests that conventional manufacturing might have to be adjusted to Industry 4.0. Purpose: This thesis identifies and analyzes potential challenges of Industry 4.0 adoption for electronics manufacturers and machine manufacturers and analyzes how processes in manufacturing need to be adjusted to successfully implement Industry 4.0. The purpose of this thesis is to contribute to successful Industry 4.0 adoption in the manufacturing process and therefore to contribute to technological advancement. Method: This thesis conducts a multiple case study and gathers qualitative data by conducting semi-structured interviews. Findings & conclusion: Challenges identified for most companies are standardization, management support, skills and costs. Most companies face data and compatibility challenges. Some companies face the challenge of complexity, information security, scalability and network externalities. Companies with higher levels of maturity are less likely to face environmental challenges.Lean Management was identified as a prerequisite for Industry 4.0 adoption. The adoption of Industry 4.0 is likely to lead to a paperless factory. Furthermore, changes concerning the infrastructure are a main finding. Moreover, it was found that Industry 4.0 does not require major changes from conventional manufacturing processes.

With   the technological advancements, organizations are adopting advanced   technologies to compete well in the global environment. For this, Business   Intelligence (BI) has changed the mindset of organizations to think about   technological adoption. But research shows that due to various reasons, BI   usage all around the world is not the same and there is not enough research   has been conducted in this area. Specifically, there is need to perform indepth   analysis of root causes of such difference of BI usage in developing   countries like Pakistan.      This   research investigates a case of BI adoption at a Pakistan based multinational   company in the prospect of BI adoption drivers, benefits, challenges and   current BI adoption scenario in Pakistan. Furthermore, different BI adoption   aspects have been highlighted by comparing collected results with BI adoption   maturity framework.   Research results shows that selected organization is in “Experienced” phase of BI adoption maturity and transiting towards transformed phase. Also, research highlights many important aspects in each BI adoption prospective and gives further pathway towards future research.

Background: Artificial intelligence has risen to prominence as a subject of study. The pace of artificial intelligence evolution in Bangladesh's IT industry is increasing by the day. In Bangladesh's IT Industry, artificial intelligence (AI) offers enormous potential. Despite the huge potential and advantages of AI implementation or adoption, Bangladesh's IT industry is still failing to move forward with its AI implementation. Objectives: The objective of this study is to identify the main factors that disturb the implementation of AI in the IT Company of Bangladesh. Novelty: In Bangladesh, most of the AI-related research conducted by focusing existing Scope of AI in the Bangladesh, as Bangladesh is in the initial phase of AI Adoption, this paper, therefore, sought to find out the factors that inhibit IT Industry to implement AI. Method: A quantitative method is used to find the results of the study. This paper reports on the results of an online survey questionnaire involving 51 IT professionals from a large IT company of Bangladesh about their perception regarding AI to find out the challenges. Results: Result indicates certain major challenges in AI implementation in Bangladesh’s IT Industry like Lack of AI skills and Incomplete knowledge or understanding regarding AI's capabilities and limitations, Internal culture Lack of Financial investment, , Data management, Lack of technological Infrastructure, Lack of top managerial support, Lack of legal and ethical framework, Non AI Approaches are sufficient by encapsulating them into three challenges context-organizational, environmental and technical barriers using IS theory TOE framework. Contributions: The study offers Insights to policymakers, executives and top-level managers to pay attention of adopting AI in IT Industry of Bangladesh by overcoming the challenges, besides further research can be conducted on how Bangladesh IT industry can overcome the AI implementation challenges. Conclusion: As Bangladesh is progressing with Technology, hence this is a high time to identify the major challenges that inhibit the AI Implantation in Bangladesh’s IT Industry. Policymakers, executives and top-level managers should find a proper solution policy to mitigate the challenges and adapt AI to boost up IT Industry of Bangladesh.

The adoption rate of health information technology (HIT) remains low in developing countries, where healthcare institutions experience high operating costs and loss of revenue, which are related to systems and processes inefficiency. The purpose of this case study was to explore strategies leaders in Zimbabwe used to implement HIT. The conceptual framework of the study was Davis's technology acceptance model (TAM). Data were gathered through observations, review of organizational documents (i.e., policies, procedures, and guidelines), and in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of 10 healthcare leaders and end-users from hospitals in Zimbabwe who had successfully implemented HIT. Transcribed interview data were coded and analyzed for emerging themes. Implementation strategies, overcoming barriers to adoption, and user acceptance emerged as the themes most healthcare leaders associated with successful HIT projects. Several subthemes also emerged, including: (a) the importance of stakeholder involvement, (b) the importance of management buy-in, and (c) the low level of IT literacy among healthcare workers. The strategies identified in this study may provide a foundation on which healthcare leaders in developing countries can successfully adopt and implement HIT. The recommendations from this study could lead to positive social change by providing leaders with knowledge and skills to use information technology strategies to deliver better healthcare at lower costs while creating employment for local communities.

Software engineering practices have experienced significant changes over the period of past two decades. Keeping in view the competitive market trends, now is the high time for many organizations to shift from traditional waterfall models to more agile technologies like Scrum [22][23]. A change of this magnitude is often not easy to undertake. The reason that both software engineering techniques are different in many respects, organizations require considerable amount of analysis of the whole transitioning process and possible scenarios that may occur along the way. Small and medium organizations are normally very skeptical to the change of this magnitude. The scale of change is not limited to only software processes, in fact, difficult part is to deal with old attitudes and thinking processes and mold them for the new agile based Scrum development. The process of change therefore need to be understood in the first place and then carefully forwarded to the implementation phase.

Text in English / Scrum is the most adopted and under-researched Agile methodology. The research conducted on Scrum adoption is mainly qualitative. Therefore, there was a need for a quantitative study to investigate Scrum adoption challenges. The general objective of this study was to investigate the factors that have a significant relationship with Scrum adoption as perceived by Scrum practitioners working within South African organisations. To achieve this objective a narrative review to synthesise the existing challenges was conducted, followed by the use of these challenges in the development of a conceptual framework. After that, a survey questionnaire was used to test and evaluate the developed framework. The research findings indicate that relative advantage, complexity, and sprint management are factors that have a significant linear relationship with Scrum adoption. The findings are generalisable to the population, and the author recommends that organisations review the findings during their adoption phase of Scrum. / Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) / University of South Africa (UNISA) / School of Computing / M.Sc. (Computing)

Title: Internet of things and cloud computing adoption within manufacturing among small to medium sized enterprises in Sweden. Authors: Tim Kari and Wesley Kleinreesink Background & Problem discussion: Industries in Europe are facing economic challenges related to global societal and technological developments. The adoption of industry 4.0 technologies such as IoT and cloud computing within manufacturing can be used as a solution to these challenges. SMEs form the backbone of the Swedish economy, making up a large amount of the employment and added value within the country, making them important in this context. Little is known about the maturity levels of IoT and cloud computing and the challenges encountered during adoption of of these technologies by Swedish SMEs. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to investigate maturity levels of IoT and cloud computing adoptions and the associated adoption challenges by looking at Swedish SMEs in the manufacturing industry that are adopting or are interested in adopting IoT and cloud computing technologies within their manufacturing. By addressing the maturity levels and adoption challenges found among the cases and providing more insight into the context in which these are occurring. These insights can then be used for the purposes of addressing maturity levels as practitioner and contributing to current literature regarding maturity levels and adoption challenges found. Method: Following an exploratory research strategy, qualitative data has been gathered both in the form of a literature review as well as a multiple case study through semi-structured interviews. The data has then been analyzed by conducting a conceptual analysis, a cross-case synthesis and pattern matching Findings & Conclusion: The findings indicate that the levels of maturity vary highly between categories and cases, with only a few examples of reaching higher (integrated) levels of maturity. Adoption challenges found were mainly centered around organizational and human challenges as opposed to technical ones, indicating that further focus needs to be put on organizational change management. Furthermore, an apparent lack of knowledge among the case companies may explain both the narrow and simple implementations of IoT and cloud computing as well as the lack of drivers for further adoption. The implications of this means that managers need a larger focus on change management and more comprehensive implementation plans. There is also the need to consider the need for digitalization and to do it in an efficient and useful manner. Further research is needed on these topics, with possible avenues being a focus on smaller companies, a study with a larger sample size or a focus on industries with a higher volume of production as the ones presented in this study were all relatively low-volume.

While agile methods are old news amongst teams and within the field of software development, the interest of entire organisations to become agile is growing. In the process of adopting agile methods, there are several commonly known success factors and challenges for organisations to take into consideration which would ease the transformation.   Previous studies on success factors and challenges during the agile transformation have been focused on the experience of the organisation or the human resource aspect of agile. The majority of existing theory on the topic has outlined the agile transformation based on single organisational case studies, or in quantifying manors. It is however known that agile coaches carry some significance for successful transformations but the research area is lagging in the understanding of their particular role for organisational agile.  This study focuses on the experience of the agile coach of success factors and challenges and their role in assisting the organisations during the agile transformation. Through a qualitative interpretivist approach, this thesis sat out to understand the agile coaches perception of success factors and challenges and consequently their role in agile transformations. By semi-structured interviews, data was collected and later analysed thematically to find meanings and patterns among the agile coaches of their perception and contribution to successful transformations.   By studying the agile transformation from the perspective of agile coaches, this thesis (1) contributes to broadening the research area with more knowledge about the agile coach as a profession, (2) nuancing the picture of success factors and challenges linked to agile transformations through the new perspective of agile coaches, and to (3) provide new insight to this yet, underexplored area of agile coaches within the research field of organisational agile.

The focus of this master’s thesis is on family-run small and medium enterprises and their adoption to information systems. The motivation for this research is to understand the family businesses’ challenges related to technology adoption, so that the level of hesitancy many family SMEs are having with the process can be understood and minimised. In addition, by understanding family businesses’ challenges related to information systems adoption, we can understand if they are different entities from non-family SMEs, and whether or not they require specialised guidance and support. To achieve the objectives of the master’s thesis, a qualitative multiple case study approach was undertaken involving three family SMEs who were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide which was inspired by the four key contexts of the Decision-Maker-Technology-Organisation-Environment model. Upon the completion of a thematic analysis of the data, a total of seven themes emerged which can be used to help describe and answer how family SMEs perceive information systems adoption and the challenges. From the findings it was discovered that family SMEs usually hire relatives when they have a vacancy instead of hiring an individual who is more qualified and experienced in the job role, as it is easier and convenient to make use of the trusting relations between family members. In the majority of cases, this means that the family SMEs usually have a limited level of skills including IT knowledge and to overcome this issue they seek help from sources outside of their organisation. The results of this master’s thesis research show that Family SMEs usually have a positive outlook when it comes to carrying out the information systems adoption process,but despite this, hesitancy to initiate the information systems adoption process arose from the lack of awareness of the technology and its possibilities as well as the high cost of funding and setting up the information system.

Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements For the degree of Master of Management Science: Tourism and Hospitality Management, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2016. / The advent of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) coupled with sophisticated network channels and applications have unveiled new avenues for small organizations and those in the hospitality industry must be included. However, there is limited industry specific research activity on the impact of adoption and utilisation of ICTs on business specifically with regard to the hospitality industry in developing countries. This report records the findings of an analysis into ICT and e-commerce adoption and use in small remote hospitality establishments in the Natal Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The research used a mixed methods approach involving questionnaires, observations and interviews. The participants were drawn from three case areas namely Curry’s Post, Nottingham Road and Lions River. From each case area, two restaurants, two wedding venues, two lodges and two curio shops participated. The findings indicate that most establishment acknowledged the need to adopt and utilise ICT and e-commerce. The links between ICT adoption and level of business success were marked. The challenges to adoption and utilisation of ICT were found to centre on cost, owners’ lack of familiarity with ICTs, and a corresponding lack of ICT skills amongst staff. The inability of imported software packages to suit local needs also emerged as a significant issue. Recommendations involve targeted sponsorships of ICT courses, language accessibility initiatives, and adaptation of software packages to local needs, along with advantages in starting small and adopting more sophisticated ICT as the business grows. / M