Thesis (M.Com. (Development Theory and Policy))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Economic and Business Sciences, 2016. / Many ICT projects continue to fail despite the use of established projects methods and techniques as the proper communication systems required for successful project outcomes have been lacking. It is generally believed that the adoption and diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) makes a contribution to a nation‟s economic and sustainable development. The explosion of social media is changing the way we communicate and therefore the processes involving project management information systems. Research shows that as technology usage lags, so does per capita income, skills development and productivity. Despite much global literature that relates to the failure of ICT projects, what is absent from the literature is knowledge of the relative contribution of different factors to ICT project success in the South African context. This study sought to address this absence. From a review of the literature on social media tools and knowledge sharing and reuse, four propositions relating the use of social media and adoption of certain knowledge management practices to the success of ICT projects were generated about the likely impact of these variables on ICT project performance. The research study was conducted over twenty-month effort. Both qualitative and quantitative data were obtained. The qualitative study based on a grounded theory analysis of ICT professionals, derived propositions that were tested empirically. Bivariate correlation analysis, multiple linear regressions and multiple hierarchical regression analyses were applied. Results indicated that knowledge management adoption mediates the relationship between social media usage and ICT project cost performance. Additionally project type was found to play a moderating role in the relationship between knowledge management and project performance. Implications for practice and theory are discussed.

A new administrative scenario - the virtual office - emerged in organisations because of the influence of technological developments that drastically changed the traditional office scenario. The virtual office is a worksite that is situated outside of the traditional office, where people still do the work associated with a traditional office, whilst maintaining their status as full-time employees. Although telework has been practiced internationally for several decades, it is a new concept in South Africa with only a few large organisations embarking on telework. The purpose of this study was to determine the extent to which organisations in trade and industry are aware of and comply with the required policies, regulations and legislation in terms of ergonomics, technology and health in the e-environment. The preferred kind of telework and information and communication technologies for the South African context was determined. The study investigated the prevalence and extent of health and wellness aspects that teleworkers could be exposed to in the e-environment. The role that ergonomics could play in the prevention of work-related musculoskeletal disorders that could lead to compensation claims and other legal actions was investigated. The elements that could ensure the successful implementation of a telework programme were identified and were presented as a conceptual telework framework. Within the parameters of applied research, a descriptive quantitative research design has been followed. The mode of enquiry followed in this research was a quantitative, non-experimental, survey method. A baseline study has been conducted followed by an empirical study using two structured online questionnaires, one for managers of teleworkers and one for teleworking employees. The findings indicated that although the policies, regulations and legislation existed, organisations did not diligently comply with it. The lack of training for the managers and teleworkers on the applicable policies and legislation caused concern. The application of ergonomic specifications on the use of equipment, furniture and services at the preferred home office, is mainly done to avoid ergonomic risk factors that may lead to the development of work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Although teleworkers suffered from disorders, there was a lack of knowledge on ergonomic interventions and on the processes to claim compensation. The need for an instrument that will assist organisations to implement telework successfully has been identified. Therefore, a conceptual telework framework that provides a structure of the elements that need to be in place to implement a telework programme successfully has been proposed. / Business Management / D. Admin. (Business Management)

Submitted by Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações (sdi@ucb.br) on 2018-11-08T19:17:12Z No. of bitstreams: 1 WashingtonFábiodeSouzaRibeiroDissertacao2018.pdf: 19934045 bytes, checksum: 1021542a94b950733ab9dfbbda43901b (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Sara Ribeiro (sara.ribeiro@ucb.br) on 2018-11-09T16:07:12Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 WashingtonFábiodeSouzaRibeiroDissertacao2018.pdf: 19934045 bytes, checksum: 1021542a94b950733ab9dfbbda43901b (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-11-09T16:07:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 WashingtonFábiodeSouzaRibeiroDissertacao2018.pdf: 19934045 bytes, checksum: 1021542a94b950733ab9dfbbda43901b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-07-26 / With the growing need for an adequate structure of information technology by organizations, regardless of their size, IT service management is increasingly important, and should be effective and, above all, efficient in pursuit of cost reduction combined with improvement the delivery of services. In this way, deploying models and frameworks of best IT management practices is, today, an essential activity of companies that seek excellence. Another equally important activity is assessing the maturity of IT management processes. The ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) library is designed for IT service managers to increase the effectiveness of their management as well as the assertiveness of their decisions, by better managing their environments. This research aims to contribute to the area of IT service management, generating inputs for IT managers' decision making in the development of a process-based organizational maturity model for ITIL v3. The proposed MA_ITIL model is composed of three layers based on the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method, in accordance with the international ISO / IEC 33004 process maturity standard of 2015, which replaced ISO / IEC 15504- 4 of 2003, thus addressing new definitions between organizational maturity of processes and capacity utilization. The research was developed in five stages, which were: to review the literature, to elaborate a maturity model, to elaborate a research survey based on the proposed model, to apply the questionnaire to ITIL v3 specialists and finally to describe the comments and conclusions about the study, so that IT service managers can have mechanisms for managing and measuring the degree of maturity of their ITIL v3 processes, which will assist in the management of technological services. / Com a crescente necessidade de estrutura adequada de tecnologia da informação por parte das organizações, independentemente do seu porte, o gerenciamento de serviços de TI é cada vez mais importante, devendo ser eficaz e, principalmente, eficiente na busca da redução de custos aliada à melhoria da entrega de serviços. Desta forma, implantar modelos e frameworks de melhores práticas de gestão de TI é, hoje, uma atividade essencial das organizações que buscam a excelência. Outra atividade igualmente importante é a avaliação da maturidade dos processos de gestão de TI. A biblioteca ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) foi desenvolvida para gestores de serviços de TI aumentarem a efetividade da sua gestão assim como a assertividade de suas decisões, gerenciando de forma mais adequada seus ambientes. Essa pesquisa tem a finalidade de contribuir para a área de gerenciamento de serviços de TI, gerando insumos para tomadas de decisões dos gestores de TI no desenvolvimento de um modelo de maturidade organizacional baseado em processos para a ITIL v3. O modelo MA_ITIL proposto é composto por três camadas tendo como base o método AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process), em conformidade com a norma internacional de maturidade organizacional de processos ISO/IEC 33004 de 2015, que veio a substituir a norma ISO/IEC 15504-4 de 2003, abordando então novas definições entre maturidade organizacional de processos e capacidade de utilização. A pesquisa foi desenvolvida em cinco etapas, que foram: revisar a literatura, elaborar um modelo de maturidade, elaborar uma pesquisa survey baseado no modelo proposto, aplicar o questionário para especialistas ITIL v3 e por fim foi descrito os comentários e conclusões sobre o estudo, de modo que gestores de serviços de TI possam ter mecanismos de administração e medição do grau de maturidade de seus processos ITIL v3, que auxiliarão na gestão de serviços tecnológicos.

A Governança da Tecnologia da Informação tem atraído interesse crescente nas organizações e no meio acadêmico, refletindo a importância e a evolução da Tecnologia da Informação na sociedade moderna. Inspirada na Governança Corporativa, a Governança da Tecnologia da Informação relaciona-se com a qualidade das decisões e ambiciona assegurar que as expectativas para a Tecnologia da Informação sejam realizadas, viabilizando a medição do desempenho, a gestão dos recursos e o controle dos riscos. Frequentemente (e não adequadamente), a Governança da Tecnologia da Informação é considerada como um tipo especial de gestão, e alguns dos modelos conhecidos como referência para a Governança da Tecnologia da Informação são dedicados a aspectos operacionais. A Governança da Tecnologia da Informação extrapola modelos de referência ou estilos de gerenciamento e está relacionada com os assuntos mais estratégicos. Motivado pelas lacunas na delimitação dos escopos e das fronteiras entre a Governança e a Gestão da Tecnologia da Informação, este trabalho investiga os elementos diferenciadores entre estes temas. São analisadas as definições, os escopos e os modelos teóricos da Governança da Tecnologia da Informação. Alicerçada na revisão da literatura, é feita uma pesquisa qualitativa baseada nos estudos de casos de quatro empresas brasileiras com programas de Governança de Tecnologia da Informação implantados. / Information Technology Governance has gathering increasing interest both in organizations agenda and in academic research, reflecting the importance and evolution of Information Technology in society. Inspired by Corporate Governance, Information Technology Governance is related to the quality of decisions and aims to assure that expectations to Information Technology are achieved by performance measurement, resource management and risk control. This work is motivated by gaps in delimitating the borders between Information Technology Management and Information Technology Governance. Information Technology Governance is frequently (and not adequately) considered as a special class of Information Technology Management, and some Information Technology Governance models are indeed dedicated to operational aspects of Information Technology. Information Technology Governance is in fact more than reference models or a management style, dealing with more strategic issues in IT agenda. This research project aims to investigate differences between Information Technology Governance and Information Technology Management, by means of analyzing the scope and the reference models of Information Technology Governance. Based on a literature review, a qualitative research using case study is conducted in the context of four Brazilian companies with implemented Information Technology Governance programs.

A governança da Tecnologia de Informações é um tema tradicional e importante para a pesquisa e a prática da administração de organizações. Modelos teóricos e metodologias padronizadas são largamente empregadas e com sucesso em organizações com estrutura tradicional hierárquica. Entretanto, a sua aplicação em estruturas de negócios mais descentralizadas e horizontais, encontra limites devido às suas características próprias de gestão, processos e relacionamento entre seus componentes e ecossistemas, as quais não são suficientemente contempladas nas metodologias mencionadas. Por meio da análise comparativa dos modelos teóricos disponíveis e de estudos de casos reais de ecossistemas de organizações em rede, plataformas, meta-organizações e arranjos mais informais, esta pesquisa procura identificar as novas dimensões requeridas para a governança efetiva da Tecnologia de Informação nestas classes de organizações e propor diretrizes para a complementação das metodologias. / The governance of Information Technology is a traditional and important subject in organizational administration research and practice. Theoretical models and standardized methodologies are widely and successfully used in organizations with traditional hierarchical structure. However, its applicability to more decentralized and horizontal business structures, is more limited due to their specific management characteristics, processes and relationship between their components and ecosystems, which are not sufficiently contemplated in the mentioned methodologies. Through the comparative analysis of available theoretical models and case studies of actual network ecosystems, platforms, meta-organizations and more informal arrangements, this research seeks to identify the new dimensions required for the effective governance of Information technology in these classes of organizations and to propose guidelines for the complementation of methodologies.

Esta é uma pesquisa sobre estratégias de implantação de sistemas de informação. O grande crescimento no uso das tecnologias de informação e das telecomunicações, principalmente, nos anos 90, impulsionou tanto a disponibilização quanto a utilização das informações, acarretando uma forte ‘dependência de informações’. As informações assumem papel vital e sua administração passa a ser fundamental para que a mesma assuma valor estratégico e propicie vantagens competitivas para as organizações. E uma das alternativas para preparar as empresas para essa nova realidade é a utilização de sistemas de informação na gestão de empresas. Os investimentos têm sido maciços mas amiúde os retornos não são alcançados. Desta forma, evidencia-se a necessidade e importância de um eficiente gerenciamento das tecnologias e investimentos para que, realmente, os resultados sejam significativos tendo em vista que tecnologia de informação é apenas um meio para que as organizações atinjam seus objetivos. Sendo assim, objetivou-se expor algumas das estratégias encontradas na literatura sobre o processo de investimentos em sistemas integrados de gestão empresarial ou enterprise resource planning. Além disso, apresentou-se, após estudo de casos, algumas das estratégias utilizadas pelos principais fornecedores desses sistemas para médias e grandes empresas no Brasil e as estratégias empregadas por um executivo de tecnologia de informação de uma grande corporação ao implantar um sistema de informação desenvolvido internamente. Após exposição de conceitos relevantes relacionados à pesquisa, como tecnologia de informação, estratégia de investimentos em tecnologias de informação, planejamento estratégico organizacional e de sistemas de informação, buscou-se relacionar, comparar e confrontar o levantamento bibliográfico com os resultados da investigação feita nas empresas estudadas. Ademais, foram comparadas as expectativas das organizações bem como dos mais relevantes fatores críticos de sucesso ao investirem em sistemas de informação e enterprise resource planning. Estas análises comparativas demonstraram as semelhanças e disfunções encontradas entre o referencial teórico e a prática de uma grande organização e a realidade de grandes fornecedores de sistemas integrados de gestão empresarial / This is a research on strategies of introduction to information systems. The use of information technologies and telecommunications has been on the increase, mainly in the 90’s and has greatly propelled the availability as well as the utilization of information conveying an increasing “reliance on information". Information plays a vital role and its application becomes fundamental so that it gains strategic value and provide competitive advantages for the organizations. The utilization of information technology by the enterprise management, has been on alternative to prepare them for this new reality. Heavy investments have led results not always satisfactorily achieved. Therefore, it is evident the necessity and importance of an efficient management of technologies and investments so that, in fact, results are significant, considering that information technology is only an effective means so that organizations reach their goals. Thus, some of the strategies found in the literature on the process of investments in enterprise resource planning have been exposed. Moreover, after reviewed cases, some of the strategies used by key suppliers of these systems to large and middle-sized companies in Brazil plus the strategies applied by an information technology executive of a great corporation after introducing an internally developed information system. After the introduction of relevant concepts connected to researches such as, information technology, investment strategy on information technology, organizational strategic planning and of information systems, a bibliographical survey has been compared and confronted with the result of the inquiry held in the companies surveyed. Furthermore, expectations of the organizations as well as those of the most important critical factors of success have been compared invest in information systems and enterprise resource planning. Such comparative analyses have shown the similarities and inactivities found between the theory and experience of a great organization and the reality of great suppliers of enterprise resource planning

A governança da Tecnologia de Informações é um tema tradicional e importante para a pesquisa e a prática da administração de organizações. Modelos teóricos e metodologias padronizadas são largamente empregadas e com sucesso em organizações com estrutura tradicional hierárquica. Entretanto, a sua aplicação em estruturas de negócios mais descentralizadas e horizontais, encontra limites devido às suas características próprias de gestão, processos e relacionamento entre seus componentes e ecossistemas, as quais não são suficientemente contempladas nas metodologias mencionadas. Por meio da análise comparativa dos modelos teóricos disponíveis e de estudos de casos reais de ecossistemas de organizações em rede, plataformas, meta-organizações e arranjos mais informais, esta pesquisa procura identificar as novas dimensões requeridas para a governança efetiva da Tecnologia de Informação nestas classes de organizações e propor diretrizes para a complementação das metodologias. / The governance of Information Technology is a traditional and important subject in organizational administration research and practice. Theoretical models and standardized methodologies are widely and successfully used in organizations with traditional hierarchical structure. However, its applicability to more decentralized and horizontal business structures, is more limited due to their specific management characteristics, processes and relationship between their components and ecosystems, which are not sufficiently contemplated in the mentioned methodologies. Through the comparative analysis of available theoretical models and case studies of actual network ecosystems, platforms, meta-organizations and more informal arrangements, this research seeks to identify the new dimensions required for the effective governance of Information technology in these classes of organizations and to propose guidelines for the complementation of methodologies.

Online applications that are open to participation lack reliable methods to establish the integrity of user-generated information. Users may unknowingly own compromised devices, or intentionally publish forged information. In these scenarios, applications need some way to determine the "correctness" of autonomously generated information. Towards that end, this thesis presents a "trust-but-verify" approach that enables open online applications to independently verify the information generated by each participant. In addition to enabling independent verification, our framework allows an application to verify less information from more trustworthy users and verify more information from less trustworthy ones. Thus, an application can trade-off performance for more integrity, or vice versa. We apply the trust-but-verify approach to three different classes of online applications and show how it can enable 1) high-integrity, privacy-preserving, crowd-sourced sensing 2) non-intrusive cheat detection in online games, and 3) effective spam prevention in online messaging applications.

<p>The Chief information officer (CIO) position has been seen as very important to every organization; this includes organizations that have either outsourced   or Insourced their IT function. Various studies have shown that this role emerged as a critical executive position in most organization which helps to shape organizations strategy. CIO has a major responsibility of aligning IT with business strategy that leads to an organization achieving a higher competitive advantage. This  work describeD the various roles of the CIO in organizations with a special focus on IT-business strategy alignment.</p><p>Based on our investigations from previous research, case studies and current interviews with CIOs, we were able to see that the CIO roles are shifting from operational to more strategic one. The CIO is seen to be the bridge between IT strategy and business strategy. As a result of this, they have close collaboration with the CEOs in order to be successful in aligning IT strategy to the business objectives. In view of this, the CIO plays the role of both the chief architect who designs future possibilities for business and the technology provocateur (Intelligent officer) that aligns IT with business.</p>

The Chief information officer (CIO) position has been seen as very important to every organization; this includes organizations that have either outsourced   or Insourced their IT function. Various studies have shown that this role emerged as a critical executive position in most organization which helps to shape organizations strategy. CIO has a major responsibility of aligning IT with business strategy that leads to an organization achieving a higher competitive advantage. This  work describeD the various roles of the CIO in organizations with a special focus on IT-business strategy alignment. Based on our investigations from previous research, case studies and current interviews with CIOs, we were able to see that the CIO roles are shifting from operational to more strategic one. The CIO is seen to be the bridge between IT strategy and business strategy. As a result of this, they have close collaboration with the CEOs in order to be successful in aligning IT strategy to the business objectives. In view of this, the CIO plays the role of both the chief architect who designs future possibilities for business and the technology provocateur (Intelligent officer) that aligns IT with business.