M.A. (Information Science) / As organisations exist in the constantly overwhelming information age, more emphasis is put on information as resource and the economic value it has in the organisation. The South African life insurance industry is no different from other organisations and deals with a vast number ofinformation that flows through these organisations daily. In this study, the role of information, the management of information and the existence and implementation of an information policy are examined. The appointment of an information manager to manage information is also examined. The study was done to determine the level of importance and value of information in this type of industry and whether the South African insurance industry has identified information as a valuable resource in the organisation. Information as resource and the management thereof as competitive advantage is studied. The research methods applied were to carry out a literature study on information and its role as resource in an organisation, the roles and responsibilities of an information manager and the advantage and implementation of an information policy in the organisation. A questionnaire was compiled and sent to all the major South African life insurance companies to determine the above aspects and the current status in this industry.

M.Phil. (Information Management) / An efficient document management system is one that considers the user’s needs for information and the ability of the system to provide valuable information that matches certain characteristics. When users utilise a document management system (DMS) they require a system that they perceive will make their work easier. The efficient and effective use of a DMS depends on how receptive the users are to technology and their intention in using the system. The documents in the document management system are corporate knowledge and should therefore be stored in a central repository such as the DMS, where the company’s corporate memory cannot be lost. The DMS has all the capabilities to keep documents safe where the documents can be accessed again. To measure the technology acceptance of end users, research has identified the technology acceptance model (TAM) as the ideal method. TAM is tailored to elaborate on computer usage, perceived ease of use, attitudes toward using and usage behaviour. The research stream on technology acceptance and use has become one of the most prolific and is claimed to be the most mature research in the modern information system field. The problem identified was to analyse the user’s behavioural intent towards effectively utilising the Eskom in-house document management system. The purpose was to investigate the use of the document system that is currently in place at Eskom and determine user perspectives. Employees working in Eskom cannot afford to neglect using the document management system on a regular basis. Important documents relevant for everyday work are stored in the system, and all employees are granted access to these documents. Given these considerations, users’ perceptions of the in-house document system cannot be taken for granted, and these issues were researched. The findings from the TAM variables showed that perceptions of users towards the DMS were divided, while half of the users were satisfied with the information, system, usefulness and ease of using the system the other half was not satisfied. A division in opinion emerged whether the system should be replaced or rather improved. Benefits of both options were weighed and the study suggested that the system be replaced.

The first of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals for 2015 is to “Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger”. Achieving this goal would be aided by having an effective and productive agricultural community. Agricultural organisations assist producers to be more effective in their operation through Commercial Extension Services (CES). Through CES, producers are advised and educated about new agricultural practices, techniques and products. A key component of CES is the provision of relevant information to producers. The problem this research addressed was that producers experience difficulty in accessing the information they require in a timeous, relevant and personalised manner. No suitable framework was found for agricultural organisations to use when designing and implementing an Information Services Platform. The main research objective was to develop and evaluate an Information Services Framework (ISF) for organisations offering information as a CES. The research methodology used to achieve this objective was Design Science Research (DSR). DSR is an iterative methodology with three cycles, namely the relevance, the design and the rigor cycles. The relevance cycle was used to acquire the information required to inform the design cycle. The information was collected by using literature research and empirical studies. The first study, the Producer Information Requirements Survey (PIRS) sought to determine the information requirements of grain producers and was conducted by interviewing grain producers in the Swartland region of South Africa. The second study, the Internet and Mobile Device Usage Survey (IMDUS) investigated the use of the Internet and mobile devices amongst South African producers by means of a national on-line survey. The quantitative and qualitative results of the analysis were used during the design phase to develop the ISF. The design phase of DSR process led to the creation of an ISF for providing Information as a Service (IaaS) in CES. The framework allows for information services to be provided in a manner and form customised to an individual producer’s preferences. The foundation of the framework is that information can be sourced from various sources, internal or external to the organisation and distributed to producers by using a unified platform. During the research, an agricultural organisation, BKB GrainCo used the proposed ISF to develop an Information Services Platform (ISP) to provide information to its producers. BKB GrainCo’s development process included two evaluations. The first evaluation, the Information Preferences Prototype Survey, was intended to test a key component of the framework, the nformation Preferences Profile. The Information Preferences Profile was conceptualized following the PIRS. In the PIRS it was determined that individual producers would prefer to specify what information they would receive, when they required it and have it delivered by using a medium of their choice. The second evaluation of the design phase was a Usability Study. The Usability Study was intended to test the functionality of the system across various technologies. The rigor cycle, following the implementation of BKB GrainCo’s ISP, contained the main evaluation, the Information Services Platform Evaluation. The evaluation was used to test the impact of BKB GrainCo’s ISP on perception of received service. The evaluation used a standardised version of the standardised SERVQUAL instrument specifically adapted in this research to measure the provision of IaaS. The results obtained during the evaluation indicated that the BKB GrainCo’s Information Services Platform was found to be valued by producers and improved the communication services of agricultural organisations. It was inferred from the successful implementation of BKB GrainCo’s ISP and the positive response from producers, after the evaluations, that the developed ISF was suitable for an agricultural organisation to provide CES. The theoretical contributions included underpinning the concept of CES in terms of stakeholder theory. Its underpinning provides justification for agricultural organisations to improve CES – including the provision of information. A second theoretical contribution was the extension of SERVQUAL as an IS theory by developing and validating a dimension designed to test the provision of IaaS. Providing producers with accurate and reliable personalised information has the capacity to improve producers’ ability to make informed decisions. Informed decision making will contribute to having an effective and productive agricultural community; resulting in improvement of agricultural output and contributing to food security and job creation. Improved agricultural output, better food security and job creation are aspects which will contribute toward the attainment of the first of eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals for 2015, which is to “Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger”.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Wits Business School, 2016. / This study contends that Information Systems and Technologies (ISTs) fail to adequately provide for effective delivery of Business Intelligence and Analytics (BIA), which limits the value that organisations can derive from their data assets. In spite of the influence that each has on the other and their widely acknowledged and undisputed relationship and interdependencies, design and development approaches still promote a silo approach to IST and BIA in theory and practice. The evolution of the role of data in the digital economy not only compels academics and practitioners to collaborate on how to enable creation of good quality data at source but intensifies the requirement for an integrated approach to IST and BIA design. The research problem that the study addresses is that design methods commonly employed in both Information Systems (IS) research studies and practice do not advocate for an integrated approach to design and development of IST and BIA. While IS research accounts for both IST and BIA, IST and BIA design and development studies are approached independently and/or in isolation, with limited integration. The effectiveness of Social informatics (SI) as an interdisciplinary study of design, uses and consequences of use, puts it above the rest of the commonly applied socio-technical design theories and approaches. SI’s strength is in studying designs, uses and consequences of IST use after implementation. However, the theory versus practice inconsistencies presented by the interpretivist paradigm, which is an underpinning philosophy for classical SI, limit its use as a design method. Critical Realism (CR) offers the research study a viable alternative and is crucial in addressing both contextual requirements, while embracing the positivist, deterministic aspects of the study. CR is a pluralist approach based on sound research method principles; hence the study adopted it as both the theoretical paradigm and research method. The research study objective is to reconceptualise the SI perspective as an integrative design method underpinned by CR. The study adopts CR as its research methodology. CR is a philosophy of science that allows for the pluralistic approach to operationalisation of the research strategy, a catalyst in addressing the paradigmatic challenges of the research study. The ability to address the qualitative realist requirements of the study while effectively dealing with the positivist characteristics of the research was crucial in ensuring comprehensive results. The insights which could only be effectively gained through a qualitative realist process of enquiry were invaluable in advancing the IST and BIA design knowledge and practice. CR’s strength in focusing the research practice on the complexities of the real world is a critical enabler for an open system discipline such as IS. It ensures that the research is placed within the realist context of time, space and culture. CR is effective in allowing the researcher to explain the mechanisms that influence the social actor action at different levels of social organisations. It allows for the identification of non-deterministic tendencies in a complex, multidisciplinary and open system such as IS. It not only accounts for the varying social actor requirements at empirical level but reveals possible underlying causes and relationships of the observable or non-observable events and/or activities at play. This approach to analysis of IST and BIA requirements offers a unique ability to frame problems in meaningful and social actor-centred ways, at all levels of social organisation, enabling design and development of IST that are BIA centric. The development of new knowledge advances the field of IS design, a crucial step towards offering practitioners with a practical, structured and integrative design method. The critical realist approach is the most appropriate theoretical paradigm to adopt to address the theory-practice inconsistency challenges at the heart of the IS field. Its strength as a research methodology offers the researcher a unique ability to interact with data at a level that other research methods do not: that is, to examine the impact of data at the three fundamental levels of research – empirical, actual and real – thereby enhancing the effectiveness of its application in practice. Therefore, reconceptualisation of the SI perspective theoretical paradigm from interpretivism to CR offers greater benefits not only to this research study but to the IS field. This is yet another development in the field which seeks to address the long-standing challenge of IS value contribution that is constantly diminished by ineffective design methods and poor integration of the IST and BIA disciplines, which by design should be leveraging on each other’s strengths in a quest to deliver superior results to businesses. Business requirements analysed as input into the design process using the integrative CR-based design method account for BIA requirements, thus enhancing value derived from both IST and BIA. / MT 2017

Abstract not available

Thesis (MTech. degree in Business Information Systems.)--Tshwane University of Technology, 2010. / The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between strategic information system planning (SISP) and environmental uncertainty in the South African small, micro and medium enterprises (SMME) sector. The independent variable was strategic information systems planning process (SISPP) with five phases, namely: strategic awareness, situation analysis, strategy conception, strategy formulation and strategy implementation. The results suggested that some SISPP phases are more effective in different environments, and these phases can lead to SISPS. For example, strategy implementation was fully supported in the context of this study, which means that more strategy implementation leads to SISPS in SMMEs. The South African SMME sector is not immune to the influence of environmental uncertainty.

Theses (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2000. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The business of telecommunication companies is growing rapidly worldwide. The number of customers and services offered to them are increasing accordingly. One of the challenges of this fast growing field is to provide world-class technical support for the internal information systems used by customer facing staff. Business requirements for these business critical information systems are strict and encompass data integrity, availability, performance and security. Revenue from support systems is difficult to measure and hence the financial focus on cost savings, productivity and efficiency. The current information system, used by Telkom S.A. for service activation and assurance of al non-voice services, was analysed and proposals made for all identified problem areas. Although the solutions are specific to this particular system, the concepts remain the same for any large-scale distributed information system. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die besigheid van kommunikasie maatskappye groei wêreldwyd baie vinnig. Die aantal kliënte en dienste wat aan hulle gebied word groei ooreenkomstig. Een van die uitdagings van hierdie vinnig groeiende veld is die voorsiening van wêreldklas tegniese bystand vir die interne informasie stelsels wat gebruik word deur werkers wat direk met kliënte skakel. Besigheidsvereistes vir hierdie besigheids kritiese informasie stelsels is streng en strek oor 'n wye veld; data integriteit, stelsel beskikbaarheid, reaksietyd en sekuriteit. Omdat die inkomste wat besigheids ondersteunings stelsels genereer, moeilik bepaalbaar is, word daar vanuit 'n finansiële oogpunt gefokus op koste besparings, produktiwiteit en doeltreffendheid. 'n Analise is gedoen van die informasie stelsel, wat tans deur Telkom S.A. gebruik word vir diens aktivering en diens versekering, vir alle nie-spraak dienste wat aangebied word. Voorstelle is gemaak vir die probleem-areas wat geïdentifiseer is. Alhoewel die oplossings wat aangebied word spesifiek vir hierdie stelsel is, bly die konsepte dieselfde vir enige groot geografies verspreide inligting stelsel.

M. Tech. Business Information Systems / Technology has become essential to the running of many enterprises in the modern world as it can enable businesses and help them operate more efficiently and effectively. Information Systems are developed to help in the daily running of business operations. Information systems projects are undertaken to manage the delivery of these Information Systems and enable the business through technology solutions. However, not all projects succeed in delivering their required solution and benefits. This dissertation is about understanding how Information Systems projects are managed and how that could be improved. The study, underpinned by the Work System Theory, explored Information Systems project management; it reveals how Information Systems projects are managed and the factors influencing project failure or success. This goal of this research was to conceptualise a framework for improving the management of Information Systems projects.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2000. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Please see fulltext for abstract / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Sien asb volteks vir opsomming

Thesis (MEng)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis focuses on information systems for project management in the South African Government with special attention to the Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure Programme. Project data exchange standards and the suitability of these standards for project information management in the South African Government is reviewed. Information system technologies applicable to project management, with reference to computer programming languages, markup languages, communication technologies, Internet technologies, database technologies and document manipulation tools are discussed. Project information management forms are then discussed, followed by an overview of the flow of project information during the lifecycle of a project. The standards development organisation, ActionIt, and the project information management models developed by it are highlighted. A description of applications and a system that was implemented to illustrate the work covered in this thesis is provided with examples of the applications and the system. Hierna tesis fokus op inligting sisteme vir projekbestuur in die Suid Afrikaanse Regering met spesifieke verwysing na die Gekonsolideerde Munisipale Infrastruktuur Program. Standaarde vir die uitruil van projek inligting sowel as die toepaslikheid van hierdie standaarde vir die bestuur van projek inligting in die Suid Afrikaanse Regering word bespreek. Informasie sisteem tegnologiee wat van toepassing is op die bestuur van projek inligting word behandel en sluit in: rekenaar programerings tale, 'markup' tale, kommunikasie tegnologiee, Internet tegnologiee, databasis tegnologiee en gereedskap om dokumente te manipuleer. Verskillende projek vorms word behandel gevolg deur 'n beskrywing van die vloei van data gedurende 'n projek se leeftyd. "n Beskrywing van ActionIT, 'n organisasie vir die neerle van standaarde vir gebruik in die Suid Afrikaanse regering, sowel as die modelle wat deur ActionIT ontwikkel is vir die bestuur van projek inligting word gegee. Die toepassings en sisteem wat geimplimenteer is om die werk wat in hierdie tesis behandel is te demonstreer word gegee met voorbeelde van die toepassings en sisteem. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: geen opsomming