Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / Small, micro and medium-sized enterprises (SMMEs) are the breeding ground for entrepreneurs, the future of emerging economies and the driving force in the global economy. A successful SMME sector holds numerous benefits for an emerging economy such as South Africa. Due to the large growth in SMMEs globally, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) vendors are developing products to cater for the ERP SMME sector. ERP systems provide SMMEs with a strategic tool which potentially improves their business processes, increases competitiveness and provides them with the opportunity to compete globally and sell their products internationally. While ERP systems provide an organisation with various benefits, the successful implementation of ERP systems is a challenge.

Includes bibliographical references. / Internationalisation is the movement of people, their belief systems, culture, technologies, education, concerns and economy across geographical borders but where the national higher education system boundaries remain intact. Internationalisation is a growing area in world-wide higher education. To respond to the challenges of internationalisation, universities need to ensure that the service to international students is improved. In order for local and international students to develop into responsible global citizens, they need to understand diverse cultures and be able to relate appropriately to individuals from different backgrounds. Both local and international students, therefore, need to interact while they are on the university campus together. However, international students tend to interact only within their own cohorts, and local students do not see the value in building relationships with international students who may not remain in the country once they graduate. International students leave the university wishing that they had made more local friends and had learned more about the cultures of the country in which they had studied. To respond to the problem of getting local and international student to interact more, a virtual environment on the SNS Facebook was proposed as a safe space for the students, and other key stakeholders, to network. A Facebook Page called IAPO @ UCT was set up by the International Academic Programmes Office (IAPO) - an administrative department at the University of Cape Town (UCT) - in order to provide IAPO stakeholders with an online community in which to interact. The page was set up and monitored over a two and a half year period to see what types of interactions would occur. Actor Network Theory (ANT) was used as the main, high level lens for analysing the interactions on IAPO @ UCT. Certain concepts from the theories of Networking, Social Capital, Social Presence and Social Identity were further used to scrutinise and explain the actions of the Page Poster on IAPO @ UCT. IAPO @ UCT was able to facilitate internationalisation at UCT as there was evidence in the page posts that key stakeholders were interacting with each other online. Supernodes were identified who could increase the dissemination of information on the page, and the value of offline events was highlighted as a means for increasing student participation both off- and online. IAPO branding and inclusion of student assistance in events was suggested in order to increase a sense of belonging to IAPO @ UCT. In addition, the effect of deleting posts and hiding comments was discussed with regard to the building of trustworthiness within the online community.

Bring-your-own-device (BYOD) refers to the practice of allowing the employees of an organisation to use their own computers, smartphones, or other devices for work purposes. This has brought a tremendous change in today's working environment. Organisations are faced with many technology trends which have the potential to create a competitive advantage in terms of both performance and efficiency. This paper follows a qualitative approach in which 15 interviews were conducted and a survey covering of 87 respondents was distributed. The findings show that the financial sector interpret s BYOD as a strategy that can create a competitive advantage to provide benefits of increased productivity, flexibility in the workforce, more autonomy, and contribute to the cost - efficiency of the business. There was also a disregard of policy formulation for BYOD from management which created a problem as employees became despondent that their personal devices were n o t allowed to access the corporate network. In addition, the findings revealed that work practices have to be re - defined and policies have to be drawn up in order to protect the company's assets and to provide guidelines. To guide the research in this emerging area, a review of several established theories that have not yet been applied to BYOD were used to form part of the proposed framework, which aims to provide a mechanism in the workplace to evaluate the impact of BYOD. This paper used exploratory analysis where six major influences of work practices were identified: 1) Change in behaviour; 2) Impact on workload; 3) Changes in motivation of individuals; 4) Re-definition of work practices; 5) Impact on overall performance; and 6) Approach required for industry. It was possible to associate them to several related constructs in IS literature which exposed possibilities for future theory-building efforts. The main influences on work practices are discussed with respect to the proposed framework.

Near Field Communication (NFC) contactless payment systems are being touted as the future for retail payments and public transport fare-collection systems. Studies have shown that such initiatives require many organisations from different industries to work together for the goal to be realised. The effort and collaboration required to achieve this goal cannot be underestimated. The aim of this research is to explore the failure of NFC contactless payment system implementations. The Actor Network Theory (ANT) has been shown as appropriate for investigating IT implementation failures, and so serves as a study lens for this investigation. A case study research strategy was used in the research to gain an understanding of the as-lived experiences of the actors involved in an NFC payment system implementation. The data was collected using different methods such as interviews and review of project documents. Thematic analysis techniques were used to trace and unpack the interactions occurring around implementation of these NFC payment systems and the challenges encountered. The key factors identified as leading to the NFC payment system implementation failure are external dependencies, lack of required financial investments, interoperability issues due to new and legacy systems, and lack of clear governance structures and bodies. The results of the study suggest that, when there is external dependence, but the tasks, resources required, actors' capabilities, workloads and the duration for completing these tasks are not known, then there will be frequent conflicts, leading to NFC payment system implementation failure. Regulatory bodies and clear leadership structures in collaborative NFC payment system implementation were found to be crucial. The results of the study also propose that when new and legacy systems from multiple actors are to be integrated to develop an NFC payment platform, there is likely going to be system interoperability issues due to the numerous vendors involved, which lead to failure. In addition, unwillingness to commit to the required capital investments by stakeholders was identified as leading to the failure of the NFC payment system implementation. A prescriptive framework is developed based on these lessons that could aid in ensuring better outcomes in future NFC payment systems implementations.

Includes bibliographical references. / The purpose of this study was to understand how user participation in Information Security Risk Management (ISRM) practices contributes to the efficient management of information security. The study also aimed at understanding how different cultures influence user participation in ISRM. To achieve these objectives, the study employed a mixed methods research approach to comparatively collect, analyse, and interpret data from South Africa and Malawi.

The underlying philosophy of the agile manifesto is embodied in principle one which promotes the continuous delivery of software that is deemed valuable by the customer, while principle twelve encourages continual improvement of the delivery process. This constant improvement, or maturity, is not a concept unique to agile methods and is commonly referred to as a maturity model. The most common of maturity model is the Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI). However, research consensus indicates CMMI is incompatible with agile implementation, specifically at higher levels of maturity without sacrificing agility. Agile maturity models, which are aligned to agile principles encourage continuous improvement while maintaining agility. Given the underlying philosophy of the agile manifesto, this research hypothesises that an increase in agile maturity is associated with improved perceived project success, by using a conceptual model based on an existing agile maturity model and how each of the maturity levels are related to the perceived project success. The research also brings to light the concept of perceived project success, showing success in an agile environment is a subjective concept. Conducted quantitatively, the findings of this research show which specific focus areas within each of the maturity levels is most strongly correlated with perceived project success and concludes an increasing correlation between the maturity levels and perceived project success.

Bibliography: leaves 69-79. / Little research has been done into the relationship between IT investment and business value in South Africa, particularly regarding the effects of IT infrastructure investment. Therefore this thesis, in a replication of a recent US study, poses the research question: Do South African stock market investors perceive significant value in IT infrastructure investments? The event study methodology was identified as an innovative method to answer this question. Application of the event study methodology, for the time period of January 1998 to December 2002.

Modern-day mobile communications technology has advanced in rapid phases, triggered by the presence of mobile technology applications. This advancement has accelerated the notion of enriched data, information and services that individuals have access to. The value presented to users of mobile technology in terms of limitless access to a wealth of enriched data is beneficial to society. However, this benefit window also exposed the users into a virtual sphere that is riddled with a wide variety of subtle and overt risks; mobile service providers have lawful responsibilities and concrete moral obligations to protect their customers. It is for this purpose that the researcher focused on examining the extent to which mobile service providers are assisting society to combat the new phenomenon of mobile bullying. A deductive research approach was followed in this study, and a conceptual model was developed to examine the extent of the involvement of the mobile service providers in reducing mobile bullying. The sampling method used in this study is a purposive or judgemental sampling method to obtain data from four (4) major mobile service providers. In the empirical evidence, it has been found that service providers have sufficient knowledge of the law that governs them in distributing mobile content in order to protect minors from the harmful content. Furthermore, another key finding indicates that the service providers' input is inadequate by way of providing education programs to assist mobile users and society in an effort to combat the new phenomenon of mobile and cyber-bullying. This study can act as a base for future research into examining the extent of the role of mobile service providers in reducing mobile bullying, educating society about mobile bullying as well as informing mobile service providers about the importance of their role in combating mobile bullying.

The study determined the influence of social patterns on the adoption of mobile phones in agricultural society. It targeted small farmers in the African society, and its population was drawn from Tanzania. The study was conducted with the knowledge that small (peasant) farmers make up a large component of the African population. Enhancing the economic performance of farmers would improve the general economy of the addressed society, and eventually be translated to the Gross Domestic Product. On this basis, the adoption of ICTs (mobile phones in particular) would enhance the farmers' ability to access the right information for their day-to- day activities. Therefore, this was the reason why this study decided to find out whether social factors contribute to the adoption of mobile phones in the farming society. There are numerous models regarding the adoption of a new innovation by users. Nevertheless, models discussed in this study had social factors as a common aspect. Conceptually the study considered farmers' spending ability, the influence of the success of others, and the adoption on demand, as the factors within social variables. Other variables included the perceived economic benefits, the perceived intention to use, and the rate of use (use behaviour). Moreover, it is necessary to acknowledge that the study was conducted objectively, and embraced hypothesis testing as the basis for decision making. Data were obtained through a survey questionnaire. Generally, the findings of the study suggested the followings: Farmers' spending ability relates to their willingness to learn new mobile tools, peer influence relates to the intention to learn, adoption on demand influences the perceived usefulness of mobile tools, and the perceived usefulness relates with the rate of mobile use. The general view of this study is that social factors influence the adoption of mobile phones in the farming community, either directly or indirectly. Therefore, these factors may be applied to enhance the adoption of mobile phones in the farming community for improved production.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / Telework has been a subject of interest for many years to re- searchers and policy makers as it has the potential to benefit individuals, organisations and society. Enabled by information and communication technologies, telework has been in existence for over 35 years and even with significant technological improvements, telework has not achieved wide spread adoption. Of the many aspects of telework investigated, few studies have examined the effect of organisational features, which affect telework success. This research study examines the role of the organisation in telework adoption and explores the organisational factors that may positively or negatively influence telework diffusion.