A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Management (MMENVC) Johannesburg, February 2016 / This paper aims to look at the barriers of ICT adoption amongst Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in South Africa, specifically in the high growth-manufacturing sector. The population of the study is comprised of manufacturing SME owners and managers in Gauteng, South Africa. The objectives of this study are threefold. Firstly, it aims to establish which ICTs SMEs are currently making use of in South Africa. Secondly, it will analyse the perceived value added to SMEs through ICT adoption. And thirdly, the study endeavours to unearth the various barriers faced by SMEs when adopting ICTs. The research consists of data collection from 81 SMEs in the manufacturing sector in Gauteng, South Africa, by means of an online questionnaire. The data was analysed through a variety of statistical techniques covering both descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis. The following conclusions were reached:  Three barriers examined are significantly important to the adoption of ICTs, namely lack of existing hardware, immediate return on investment (ROI), and lack of infrastructure.  The perceived value of ICT has a positive, significant relationship to ICT adoption.  The majority of SMEs still predominantly make use of general ICTs, with more advanced ICT use lagging behind significantly. The majority of respondents have Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone services (69%), Internet access and e-mail (90%), as well as telephone (89%) and fax (82%) services as ICTs that have already been implemented.  The education level of the owner/manager has a significant, positive relationship with the level of ICT adoption, particularly amongst general-use ICT and production- integrating ICT. / MB2016

Orientadora: Bárbara Fadel / Banca: Marcia Cristina de Carvalho Pazin Vitoriano / Banca: Cássia Regina Bassan de Moraes / Banca: Guilherme Garcia Velasquez / Banca: Priscila Varges da Silva / Resumo: Os fluxos informacionais compõem o caminho em que uma multiplicidade de informações trafega em distintos setores e níveis organizacionais. Diante disso, para esta pesquisa, o problema que se destacou como ponto central se refere a como se configuram os fluxos de informação no setor turístico do município de Bonito-MS? Portanto, foi necessário responder problemáticas que circundam o problema de pesquisa, quais sejam: como são constituídos os fluxos de informação do setor turístico do município de Bonito, Mato Grosso do Sul? Qual a influência das TIC na dinâmica dos fluxos de informação deste ambiente? Quais as efetivas contribuições dos fluxos de informação para o turismo de Bonito? No intuito de buscar essas respostas, a pesquisa objetivou analisar e contribuir para a dinâmica dos fluxos de informação no setor turístico de Bonito-MS, identificando e caracterizando os ambientes de informação, verificando a influência das TIC nos fluxos de informação desse ambiente, mapeando tais fluxos, e apresentando contribuições para a dinâmica dos fluxos de informação no turismo do município. A pesquisa possui natureza qualitativa do tipo descritiva e documental. O método de pesquisa utilizado é o Método Sistêmico Soft. Para composição do referencial teórico foi realizada uma revisão de literatura. Os instrumentos de coleta de dados utilizados foram a entrevista, análise de documentos e a observação. Como resultados, houve a identificação e caracterização dos ambientes de informação e a co... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: Information flows make up the way in which a multiplicity of information travels in distinct sectors and organizational levels. In this way, for this research, the problem that stood out as the central point refers on how is organized the information flows in the tourism of the municipality of Bonito-MS? Therefore it was necessary to answer questions that surround the research problem, namely: how are the information flows of the tourism of Bonito, Mato Grosso do Sul? What is the influence of ICT on the dynamics of information flows in this environment? What are the actual contributions of information flows to the tourism of Bonito? In order to search for these answers, the research aimed to analyze and contribute to the dynamics of information flows in the Bonito-MS tourism sector, identifying and characterizing information environments, verifying the influence of ICT in the information flows of this environment, mapping these flows, and presenting contributions to the dynamics of information flows in the municipality's tourism. The research has a qualitative nature being both descriptive and documentary. The method of research used is the Systemic Method Soft. For the composition of the theoretical reference, a literature review was performed. The used instruments of data collection were interview, document analysis and observation. As results, there was the identification and characterization of information environments and the understanding of their difficulties, verifyin... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Resumen: Los flujos informacionales componen el camino en que una multiplicidad de informaciones transita en distintos sectores y niveles organizacionales. En este sentido, para este estudio el problema que se destacó como punto central de inquietud se refiere a cómo se configuran los flujos de información en el sector turístico del municipio de Bonito-MS? Por lo tanto, surgió la necesidad de responder problemáticas que circundan el problema de investigación, cuáles son: ¿Cómo se constituyen los flujos de información del sector turístico del municipio de Bonito, Mato Grosso do Sul? ¿Cuál es la influencia de las TIC en la dinámica de los flujos de información de este ambiente? ¿Cuáles son las efectivas contribuciones de los flujos de información para el desarrollo turístico de Bonito? Con el fin de buscar esas respuestas, la investigación objetivó analizar y contribuir a la dinámica de los flujos de información en el sector turístico de Bonito-MS, identificando y caracterizando los ambientes de información, verificando la influencia de las TIC en los flujos de información de ese ambiente, mapeando tales flujos, y presentando contribuciones a la dinámica de los flujos de información en el turismo del municipio. La investigación tiene naturaleza cualitativa del tipo descriptivo y documental. El método de investigación utilizado es el Método Sistémico Soft. Para la composición del referencial teórico se realizó una revisión de literatura. Los instrumentos de recolección de datos utilizado... (Resumen completo clicar acceso eletrônico abajo) / Doutor

<p>Information is an important business asset in today’s enterprises. Hence enterprise information security is an important system quality that must be carefully managed. Although enterprise information security is acknowledged as one of the most central areas for enterprise IT management, the topic still lacks adequate support for decision making on top-management level.</p><p>This composite thesis consists of four articles which presents the Enterprise Information Security Assessment Method (EISAM), a comprehensive method for assessing the current state of the enterprise information security. The method is useful in helping guide top-management’s decision-making because of the following reasons: 1) it is easy to understand, 2) it is prescriptive, 3) it is credible, and 4) it is efficient.</p><p>The assessment result is easy to understand because it presents a quantitative estimate. The result can be presented as an aggregated single value, abstracting the details of the assessment. The result is easy to grasp and enables comparisons both within the organization and in terms of industry in general.</p><p>The method is prescriptive since it delivers concrete and traceable measurements. This helps guide top-level management in their decisions regarding enterprise-wide information security by highlighting the areas where improvements efforts are essential.</p><p>It is credible for two reasons. Firstly, the method presents an explicit and transparent definition of enterprise information security. Secondly, the method in itself includes an indication of assessment uncertainty, expressed in terms of confidence levels.</p><p>The method is efficient because it focuses on important enterprise information security aspects, and because it takes into account how difficult it is to find security related evidence. Being resource sparse it enables assessments to take place regularly, which gives valuable knowledge for long-term decision-making.</p><p>The usefulness of the presented method, along with its development, has been verified through empirical studies at a leading electric power company in Europe and through statistical surveys carried out among information security experts in Sweden.</p><p>The success from this research should encourage further researcher in using these analysis techniques to guide decisions on other enterprise architecture attributes.</p>

Executive Information Systems (EIS) are information systems designed for the direct use of the Executive to access business relevant information, including information about customers, competitors, key performance indicators, internal operations, stock prices and news. Classified as high-risk projects, just like any other IS projects, organizations have been cautious and critical in ensuring EIS successful implementation and continuous usage by their intended users, the Executives. Unilever South Africa is no exception, and would thus like to ensure a successful implementation and acceptance of its EIS. An EIS system that once implemented will be used, accepted and adopted by executives to drive the achievement of its strategic objectives. This research is intended to investigate and identify potential factors that are likely to affect user acceptance, usage and adoption of an EIS implemented by Unilever South Africa. The research investigation was based on a proposed model derived from Davis (1989) Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) that explores the phenomena of 'perceived usefulness' and 'perceived ease of use', as drivers of user acceptance and illustrates the dynamics of the factors that affect the users' acceptance of the system. The research data was obtained via questionnaires and semi-structured interviews of users from the Unilever EIS user group. The feedback obtained was then analysed and tested against three hypotheses. All three hypotheses were accepted leading to the conclusions that: (a) Users' attitudes towards usage of the Unilever EIS are positively influenced by both their 'perceived usefulness' and 'perceived ease of use' of the system. (b) The Unilever EIS users' 'perceived usefulness' of the system positively influences their 'perceived ease of use' of the system. (c) The Unilever EIS users' 'perceived ease of use' of the system has a greater influence on their attitude towards the system usage than their 'perceived usefulness' of the system. / Thesis (MBA)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

Despite its emergence more than a decade ago, information architecture remains a problematic concept. A study of relevant literature suggests significant advocacy with inadequate supporting evidence on its existence, application or value. The available limited research evidence generally presents unsatisfactory information architecture experience. Notwithstanding the unresolved issues and reported unsatisfactory experience, information architecture continues to be referenced as an important information management issue. Hence this doctoral study sought to investigate it. In the first stage, the study set out to clarify the position of information architecture via a large scale postal survey of 294 organisations. The survey found that information architecture is being used in association with IS planning, particularly in organisations which position IT as a strategic resource, but perceptions on its two conventional key components vary. While application architecture is viewed as being useful for IS planning, corporate data model is seen as being more relevant to data management and project implementation. Both models are regarded as tools facilitating integrated information systems development. In the second stage of research, case studies on 6 large organisations were conducted to gain an in-depth understanding of successful information architecture practice. The investigation reaffirmed application architecture's position as an IS planning tool and cast further doubt on corporate data model's role not only in IS planning but also in IS practice as a whole. Business area/project data model was identified as the pragmatic high-level data model for both application/database development and data management. A major finding of the case studies was on business system architecture, a pictorial model depicting IT in its business setting. It is seen as being of value for integrating IS planning with strategy development and business planning - a tool for fusing IT with the business. The case studies concluded that the value and effectiveness of information architecture is dependent on the targeting of its components - business system architecture, application architecture and business area/project data model - in terms of tasks and recipients. The case for a holistic approach to business/IS planning and implementation is currently being argued by a number of leading management and IS scholars. This thesis embraces the holistic approach and positions the (redefined) information architecture as a valuable tool in its implementation.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Management, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008. / Committee Chair: Narasimhan, Sridhar; Committee Member: Li, Haizheng; Committee Member: Slaughter, Sandra; Committee Member: Thursby, Marie; Committee Member: Zhang, Han.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, August, 2008. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-123). Also available in electronic version.

M.A. (Business Information Technology) / Knowledge management has developed greatly over the last few decades, particularly in striving for economic and commercial effectiveness. With the growth of technology-based knowledge management systems and an increase in the number of organisations implementing them, there is concern as to how these systems are being accepted by knowledge workers. The systems are currently a pertinent issue on business agendas, and organisations across all sectors are recognising the critical role that effective ~ ones will play in their future success (Malhotra, 2000:56). This creates a concern where these systems are expected to bring success in organisations or to improve return on investments without a deeper understanding of their utilisation by knowledge workers. The goal of this dissertation is to understand the way in which technology-based knowledge management systems are being utilised and accepted by knowledge workers, and furthermore to establish if knowledge workers have full understanding of the systems they use. The focus of this research is therefore on the human dimensions in relation to the systems, and on how they support organisational intellectual capital. The history of interactive computlnq shows repeatedly that it is the human issues which make or break new methods and tools at work. What are technology-based knowledge' management systems? How are they managed? Moreover, how can managers harness the potential of the knowledge workers to expand the knowledge base of the organisation? In order to answer these questions, this research determines how knowledge workers utilise the systems and their level of acceptance of this technology. It considers the importance of organisations that want their employees to use the systems effectively by contributing ideas and knowledge out of their own goodwill. Employees will do so if the concept of trust (of any technology system) has been imparted to them fully.

M.A. (Information Technology) / The Internet contains large amounts of information that researchers can use, however, finding the required relevant information can be a lengthy exercise. Internet search engines, such as Google, allow users to search the Internet but these search engines only supply lists of information that "could" be relevant thereby forcing us, the users, to manually examine the list to select the relevant information that we require. Instead of requiring users to use Internet search engines to find lists of possibly useful information, it would be advantageous to have a system that would give an academic user a research summary report for the specified research query. This research summary report can be formatted in such a manner that would allow the user to have a list of links to the relevant information obtained, which could be used as an aid in the researcher's research projects. The design of the Mobile Agent Information Processing (MAIP) model and prototype relied heavily on mobile software agents (MSA). These MSAs will move from the creator system (the user's computer) to other known peer computer systems participating in the MAIP system. Whilst the MSAs are on the remote computer systems, relevant information is extracted from any of the text documents that are acknowledged as available by the remote host system. The extracted information will be returned to the creator system by each MSA where it will be processed and used to create the research summary report. The MAIP model is designed to locate, retrieve, and summarise information that is relevant to a researcher's research query, it can, therefore, be said that the MAIP model meets all the stated research objectives. The new and innovative model is deemed to offer an effective and feasible technology solution to the problem of information overload that exists within the electronic environment.