Many innovative and successful companies exist in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector in South Africa. It is not clear why or how they exist. The research used a qualitative approach to determine characteristics of these companies. Senior managers, mostly owners or CEOs, of twenty companies were interviewed. Methods that originate from the grounded theory building technique were used to build a theoretical model of the National Innovation System in the South African ICT sector. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted