Mobile information and communication technologies (ICT) promise to significantly transform enterprises, their business processes and services, improve employee productivity, effectiveness, and efficiency, and create new competitive advantages and business agility. Despite the plethora of potential benefits, however, widespread enterprise adoption of mobile ICT has not been as extensive as initially anticipated. Drawing on the extant information systems, technology management, and organizational innovation literature, this dissertation investigates the salient drivers and inhibitors of emerging ICT adoption, in general, and mobile ICT in particular, and develops an integrative ICT adoption decision framework. From this synthesis we identify four broad elements that influence an enterprise s decision to adopt mobile ICT: (1) business value, (2) costs and economics, (3) strategic alignment, and (4) enterprise readiness. The latter decision element has received only little theoretical and practical attention. In order to fill this gap, this dissertation explored the concept of enterprise readiness in further detail and identified eight key dimensions and their associated assessment indicators. Using a two-stage expert study and experimental design approach, we empirically validated these dimensions and determined their relative importance. Results indicated that leadership readiness followed by technology, data and information, and resource readiness, contributed the most to enterprise readiness for mobile ICT. The results are implemented into a web-based readiness diagnostic tool (RDT) that enables decision makers to assess an enterprise s readiness for mobile ICT. The benefits of the RDT are multifold: first, it navigates the decision maker through the complex readiness assessment space; second, it identifies potential organizational deficiencies and provides a means to assess potential sources of risks associated with the adoption and implementation of mobile ICT; and third, it enables decision makers to benchmark their level of readiness against other organizations. The dissertation concludes by highlighting both theoretical and practical implications for emerging and mobile ICT adoption management and suggesting directions for future research.

This study compares engineering expert problem-solving on a highly constrained routine problem and an ill-defined complex problem. The participants (n=7) were recruited from two large public Research I institutions. Using a think aloud methodology, the experts solved both routine and non-routine problems. The protocols were transcribed and coded in Atlas ti. The first round of coding followed a grounded theory methodology, yielding interesting findings. Unprompted, the experts revealed a strong belief that the ill-defined problems are developmentally appropriate for PhD students while routine problems are more appropriate for undergraduate students. Additional rounds of coding were informed by previous problem solving studies in math and engineering. In general, this study confirmed the 5 Step Problem Solving Method used in previous challenged based instruction studies. There were observed differences based on problem type and background knowledge. The routine problem was more automatic and took significantly less time. The experts with higher amounts of background knowledge and experience were more likely to categorize the problems. The level of background knowledge was most apparent in the steps between conducting an overall energy balance and writing more problem specific relationships between the variables. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for improving undergraduate engineering education. / text

The European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will soon come into force, it is a regulation which spells out increased compliance demands for data protection by design. Failure to comply can lead to huge financial penalties, something IT companies controlling and processing personal data should not ignore. As the one-year countdown begins, studies have revealed under-preparedness of organizations affected by the GDPR. None of the studies so far has offered an integrated overview of the barriers faced by IT companies to embrace data protection by design. This study aims to help fill this gap and to investigate. A study based on expert’s knowledge has been carried out, using an integrated approach. Five experts from advocacy, legal and IT industry were interviewed, aiming to answer the following research question: “What are the barriers for IT companies to embrace data protection by design and how should these barriers be overcome?” An integrated overview of the barriers will then be presented, which includes the managerial, engineering and legal obstacles. The study goes on to present pathways to embrace data protection by design. A key contribution to this study is that managerial, legal and engineering barriers have shown to be directly interconnected and influence on each other. As such a much broader view must be undertaken to fully understand the different barriers that face IT companies in embracing data protection by design.