Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree Doctor of Technology: Quality, Durban University of Technology. 2014. / The South African automotive sector is often plagued with complex and competitive business challenges owing to globalisation, economic uncertainty and fluctuating market demands. These challenges prompt business leaders in South Africa to improve their operations and to enhance innovations in processes, products and services in a very reactive manner. Literature shows that one such initiative that can assist the automotive sector to compete with the rest of the world where productivity, quality and operational costs reduction are crucial for economic success is the adoption of the integrated Lean Six Sigma tool. The automotive sector, which purports to be at the forefront of best industry manufacturing practices in South Africa, is certainly lacking in this area. The purpose of this thesis was to assess Lean and Six Sigma techniques as standalone systems, the integration of Lean and Six Sigma as a unified approach to continuous improvement and to develop a proposed Lean Six Sigma framework for the automotive component manufacturing organisations in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa. Due to the nature and complexity of this project, it was decided to adopt the action-based research strategy and include both qualitative and quantitative techniques. Two hypotheses were formulated to guide the research. The study was confined to the greater Durban region in KZN, which formed the target population of forty two organisations within the Durban Automotive Cluster (DAC). A survey questionnaire was designed in measurable format to gather practical information from the sample organisations on the status of their existing business improvement programs and quality practices. This information was necessary to critique the sample organisations for Lean and Six Sigma requirements and compare it to the literature in terms of the KZN context. A pilot study was conducted with senior management at five automotive manufacturing organisations to determine if the participants encountered any problems in answering the questionnaire and if the methodology adopted would meet the objectives of this project. The results of the pilot study indicated high reliability scores which were sustainable for the main study. The survey questionnaire was reviewed by Lean and Six Sigma Experts, Academics and members of the DAC executive team to ensure the validity of the questionnaire to the KZN context. The logistics of the main study followed a similar format as the pilot study and the questionnaires were distributed within the DAC over a three month period. A census sample was used in the field study to collect primary data. A response rate of 75% was achieved. The results of the empirical findings revealed that the sample organisations had a very low success rate of Lean and Six Sigma adoption as standalone systems. The sample organisations only practiced certain Lean and Six Sigma tools and techniques as they found it difficult to maintain the complete transition from theory to practice. The synergies that emerged from the study of Lean and Six Sigma that affect manufacturing performance suggested that they complemented and supported each other by tailoring the deficiencies to the given environment. This information was translated into practical considerations for constructing the proposed Lean Six Sigma framework from a KZN perspective. The conclusion of the main study was that if an organisation wants improvement to happen on an ongoing basis, it needs to recognise that there are significant interactions between their management system and the improvement technique. When the organisations understand the characteristics of the environment in which they operate, they will be able to configure appropriate follow up processes to sustain their management systems. The study demonstrated that Lean Six Sigma integration repackages the stronger focus areas of Lean and Six Sigma to create its own unique approach on improving an organisation’s performance. It is anticipated that organisations which implement the proposed Lean Six Sigma framework could contribute significantly to the growth of the South African economy in terms of increased productivity, improved international competition and job creation. The value of this research is that the proposed Lean Six Sigma framework affords the KZN automotive sector a unique opportunity to create its own brand of quality that compliments its management style and industry demands. Future research should focus on testing the applicability of the proposed Lean Six Sigma framework in a real case scenario to ensure that the critical outcomes are adequately ingrained to achieve perceived organisational performance. Lastly, it is recommended that a list of performance evaluators is developed and follow up procedures to monitor the progress of the Lean Six Sigma technique is implemented.

The need to be economically successful is the key driver for companies to be innovative and implement new technologies with increasing efficiency and effectiveness. Uncertainty about whether to use new technologies and missing knowledge about their advantages lead to staggering and withholding from fast diffusion of innovations. Focusing on the industry of logistics and the technology Mixed Reality, this research project developed a methodical approach for evaluating the fitness of an innovative technology and a specific process of application. A mixed methods approach was derived, based on interviews and experiments. The main methodologies used, were semi-structured interviews with decision makers in logistics companies to elaborate triggering criteria in the investment process and laboratory experiments for the evaluation of competing technologies. These methods were framed by an initial field experiment and feedback interviews after the analysis for the validation of the approach. The research proved the competitively viable applicability of Mixed Reality and its specific strengths and weaknesses in manual order picking. This set the foundation for possible further development and implementation of the technology. The developed methodological approach proved to be a valid and reliable assessment of the intersection between a technology and specified process of application. This can greatly enhance the speed of implementing new innovations and gaining competitive advantages for companies.

The aim of this research is to examine the factors influencing the adoption and success of HRIS in Saudi Arabian public sector organisations.

NIR, network information retrieval, is the act of finding and retrieving information on interconnected computer networks. The research investigated the extent to which NIR awareness and use has diffused through a broad research population, and why and how academics become aware of and use NIR. Everett Rogers' diffusion of innovation theory was adapted to guide the investigation. A survey of 888 faculty members at the University of Arizona with Internet-accessible computer accounts resulted in a 32% return of surveys. Respondents from the various colleges at the university use between 20% and 39% of available NIR technologies, suggesting that NIR is in an early stage of diffusion in all colleges. Twenty-one one hour open-ended interviews were conducted with faculty from a variety of disciplines. Analysis of coded interview comments was used to test the usefulness of Rogers' theory in describing the diffusion of NIR. Predictions that mass media communication channels which go outside the local community will be more likely to result in awareness and use of NIR were not supported. Predictions that use of NIR would be associated with the perception that NIR (1) is compatible with needs and social norms, and (2) has relative advantage over previous practice, were supported. The predictions that use would be associated with perceptions of (1) compatibility with previous conditions, (2) low NIR complexity, and (3) trialability of NIR, were not supported. The explanatory power of the diffusion of innovation theory is improved for diffusion of NIR if NIR technologies are not studied in a vacuum. Rather, NIR technologies need to be studied in association with particular types of information resources (i.e. general interest and research-related resources) and particular types of communities (i.e. research communities). The study suggests that before NIR will diffuse in research communities, academics will need to agree that NIR dissemination of information will be rewarded in the promotion and tenure process. Such redefinition of social norms will help to create within research areas a critical mass of NIR users, and thus contribute to the diffusion of NIR.

In the literature on diffusion of innovations, it is widely known that the characteristics and socio-environmental settings of adopters do evolve in space and time. What about innovations themselves? During the diffusion process, don’t some innovations continuously alter in space and time? If so, how does the dynamic character of an innovation influence the diffusion process? In previous research, it has been often assumed that innovations do not continuously alter or get modified when diffusing from a source to potential adopters. This assumption may mean that the innovation is invariant as it diffuses in time and space—i.e., the innovation does not have a continuously dynamic character. Is it always the case in practice?    A single form of an innovation is not always necessarily compatible with the preferences, limitations, and residential settings of adopters. The innovation might appear in different forms when it diffuses in space and time, i.e., it is “dynamic”. This PhD thesis aims to explore how dynamic innovations diffuse in space and time—a relatively understudied topic in research. In doing so, it distinguishes between the diffusion of dynamic innovations and other kinds of innovations. Anchored on the case of diffusion of residential solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, this thesis is composed of a cover essay and six appended papers. The first two appended papers are systematic literature reviews, aiming at understanding the state of the art of the theoretical and contextual research domains. The third paper is based on a case study in southern Germany and explores the diffusion of a dynamic innovation at adopter level. The fourth paper is empirically focused on a local firm’s business model, which is assumed to be a key to understanding the mechanism behind the diffusion of dynamic innovations. The fifth paper is based on lead market hypothesis and tries to explore the diffusion of innovations at the regional level. The sixth paper studies a semi-hypothetical case and offers an innovative method to forecast the diffusion of innovations in general. The contribution of this PhD thesis lies in three research dimensions: context, method, and theory. Firstly, the thesis takes the existing theories (e.g., diffusion of innovations theory and lead market hypothesis) and methods (e.g., case study) and applies them in different contexts of the diffusion of residential solar PV systems: the individual, sub-national, and national level. Secondly, it proposes a new research method, namely the finite element method for forecasting the diffusion of innovations, based on an existing theory (e.g., wave-like diffusion of innovations in time and space) and context (e.g., solar PV systems). Last but not least, the cover essay of this thesis takes the findings of the appended papers and employs an extension of theory of diffusion of innovations. In doing so, it includes the role of the dynamic characteristic of innovations that do alter in time and space during the diffusion process. Overall, the findings of this thesis indicate that the diffusion of dynamic innovations is different in nature, and continuous efforts of change agents are critical for enhancing the diffusion of such innovations. Change agents are especially important to help potential adopters to find out and develop the form of innovation that best fits their needs, limits, and preferences, which are heterogeneous in space and time. / <p>QC 20151117</p> / European Doctorate in Industrial Management

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The telecommunications industry generates vast amounts of data on a daily basis. The exponential growth in this industry has, therefore, increased the amounts of nodes that generates data on a near real-time basis, and the required processing power to process all this information has increased as well. Organisations in different industries have experienced the same growth in information processing, and, in recent years, professionals in the Information Systems (IS) industry have started referring to these challenges as the concept of Big Data (BD). This theoretical research investigated the definition of big data as defined by several leading players in the industry. The theoretical research further focussed on several key areas relating to the big data era: i) Common attributes of big data. ii) How do organisations respond to big data? iii) What are the opportunities that big data provide to organisations? A selecting of case studies are presented to determine what other players in the IS industry does to exploit big data opportunities. The study signified that the concept of big data has emerged due to IT infrastructure struggling to cope with the increased volumes, variety and velocity of data being generated and that organisations are finding it difficult to incorporate the results from new and advanced mining and analytical techniques into their operations in order to extract the maximum value from their data. The study further found that big data impacts each component of the modern day computer based information system and the exploration of several practical cases further highlighted how different organisations have addressed this big data phenomenon in their IS environment. Using all this information, the study investigated the 4C Group business model and identified some key opportunities for this IT vendor in the big data era. As the 4C Group has positioned themselves across the ICT value chain, big data presents several good opportunities to explore in all components of the IS. While training and consulting can establish the 4C Group as a big data knowledgeable vendor, some enhancements to their application software functionalities can provide additional big data opportunities. And as true big data value only originates from the utilization of the data in the daily decision making processes, by offering IaaS the 4C Group can enable their clients to achieve the illusive goal of becoming a data driven organisation.

Based on grounded theory and thematic analysis of 70 in-depth interviews conducted over 32 months (from November 2007 to June 2010) with domain scientists, computational technologists, supercomputer center administrators, program officers at the National Science Foundation, social scientists, policy analysts, and industry experts, this dissertation explores the rationalities behind initial adoption of cyberinfrastructure for e-science in the early 21st century U.S. This dissertation begins with Research Question 1 (i.e., how does cyberinfrastructure's nature influence its adoption process in early 21st century U.S.?) and identifying four areas of challenging conditions to reveal a lack of trialability/observability (due to the participatory/bespoke nature), a lack of simplicity (due to the meta/complex characteristic), a lack of perceived compatibility (due to the disruptive/revolutionary quality), and a lack of full control (due to the community/network property). Then analysis for Research Question 2 (i.e., what are the rationalities that drive cyberinfrastructure adoption in early 21st century U.S.?) suggests that there are three primary driving rationalities behind adoption. First, the adoption of cyberinfrastructure as a meta-platform of interrelated technologies is driven by the perceived need for computational power, massive storage, multi-scale integration, and distributed collaboration. Second, the adoption of cyberinfrastructure as an organizational/behavioral practice is driven by its relative advantages to produce quantitative and/or qualitative benefits that increase the possibility of major publications and scientific reputations. Third, the adoption of cyberinfrastructure as a new approach to science is driven and maintained by shared visions held by scientists, technologists, professional networks, and scientific communities. Findings suggests that initial adoption by pioneering users was driven by the logic of quantitative and qualitative benefits derived from optimizing cyberinfrastructure resources to enable breakthrough science and the vision of what is possible for the entire scientific community. The logic was sufficient to drive initial adoption despite the challenging conditions that reveal the socio-technical barriers and risky time-investment. Findings also suggest that rationalization is a structuration process, which is sustained by micro individual actions and governed by macro community norms simultaneously. Based on Browning’s (1992) framework of organizational communication, I argue that cyberinfrastructure adoption in the early 21st century lies at the intersection of technical rationalities (i.e., perceived needs, relative advantages, and shared visions) and narrative rationalities (i.e., trialability, observability/communicability, simplicity, perceived compatibility, and full control). / text

Advances in computer and video technology, coupled with their decreasing cost, have placed considerable impetus for implementation of new technology in the educational environment. While many institutions of higher education are considering implementing systems of new educational technology, the actual process of implementing change is not well understood. The purpose of this study was to attempt to gain greater insight into the implementation process. The research questions guiding this study were: (1) What are the factors associated with the implementation of new educational technology at community colleges? (2) Who are the change agents associated with the implementaon of new educational technology at community colleges? The case study methodology was selected as the most appropriate technique for this study because: (1) research involving the implementation stage of the change process has been limited; (2) the change process does not have a single theoretical basis for conducting empirical testing; and (3) the complexity of the subject being investigated. Three community colleges in the southwestern United States, which have recently completed the implementation of an innovation, were selected for the case study research. The innovation under investigation at Vernon Regional Junior College was the implementation of a microcomputer system. The subject of investigation at Dona Ana Branch Community College was the implementation of equipment to support a word processing program. The implementation of an instructional television program was studied at New Mexico Junior College. Seven factors emerged as common to all three institutions as they implemented innovation. The seven common factors were: (1) the availability of funds outside the normal operating budget to finance implementation of innovation; (2) elimination of boundary contraction; (3) individuals affected by the innovation had input into the implementation process; (4) clear channels of communication existed among those involved in the implementation process; (5) the hierarchy involved in the approval process was limited; (6) the administration supported plans to implement the innovation; and (7) measures were taken to reduce resistance to the innovation. Change agents were found to be a necessary catalyst for change and can emerge from any level of governance.

This study employs duality theory to model the dairy industry. Supply and demands for milk, cull cows, feed, labor and veterinary services were simultaneously estimated using Weighted Least Squares. Elasticities and partial adjustments were obtained for the Nation and the following regions, Appalachia, Cornbelt, Northeast, Pacific, Southern Plains and Upper-Midwest. Predictions for the change in quantity of goods demanded and supplied were made assuming a parallel shift in the supply of milk and demand for feed. In conclusion, predictions on the impact of bovine Somatotropin are made assuming all results are correct.

With the unprecedented growth of the communication industry that the world is experiencing, the demand from rural inhabitants for high quality communications at an economically affordable cost is growing. However, rural areas are rather restricted from deploying communication services due to the rough natural environment, and the shortage of rudimentary communication facilities and technical personnel. Appropriate models for building rural wireless networks and a concomitant simulation environment are, therefore, expected to enable the construction of technologically-optimal and economically-efficient networks in specified rural areas.<br /> <br /> The research has set up two independent models, one for the economic need and the other for the technical need of building networks in rural areas. One model was the Impact of Telecommunications Model, which disclosed the importance of building a wireless network in specified rural areas by choosing an economic parameter to forecast the profitability of the network. The other was the Service Model, which collected primitive data from given rural areas and abstracted these data by flowing them through four technical layers to form the predicted technical wireless network. Both of the models had been applied to real-world cases to demonstrate how to use them.<br /> <br /> A simulation environment was finally designed and implemented to realize the above two models for the sake of instantiation. This environment could simulate the specified rural network by constructing a wireless network on the invented areas and evaluating its quality and economic efficiency. It was written in Scilab simulation language, which was an open source.