The thesis “Acceptance and use of the Service Oriented Computing paradigm: the IT professionals’ perspective” focuses on the question: what are the critical factors that influence IT professionals’ intentions to accept and use the Service Oriented Computing (SOC) approach to systems development? This work considers IT professionals as the key stakeholders in the SOC acceptance and use process and argues that the acceptance and practical use of SOC depends – at an early acceptance stage – primarily on the individual-level acceptance decisions made by senior IT professionals working for an organisation. Consequently, SOC acceptance and use (in its early stage) is seen as a bottom-up process driven, and to a high degree controlled, by the “early adopters” (Rogers 1995) of this technological paradigm (i.e. involved senior IT professionals). Although SOC is considered the enabling technological approach in many different future areas (e.g. eBusiness, eGovernment, eScience etc.), very little research exists on the process of practical acceptance of this paradigm, in particular focusing on the perspective of the “early stage” key stakeholders of this acceptance process, namely the IT professionals. This thesis consists of four major parts. First, it reviews existing literature on technology acceptance and use and confirms the absence of an established theoretical framework in the domain of individual-level technology acceptance in the IT industry. Second, based on data collected in a series of exploratory interviews with senior IT practitioners, an initial model explaining the acceptance and use of SOC among IT professionals is being proposed. Third, the derived model is revised and reformulated using an eGovernment case study. And forth, based on the refined model, a survey instrument is developed, pilot-tested and administered to senior IT professionals currently using the SOC approach to systems development in their professional work. This thesis makes a contribution to IS research in several ways. While there exists extensive, well-grounded and well-accepted research in the domain of “IT end-user” individual-level technology acceptance, the research on technology acceptance in the IT industry (i.e. technology acceptance by the IT professionals) is very limited, and nearly all studies carried out in this IS research field are concerned with established approaches or technologies. The current study is among the few examining the perspective of “early adopters” or “innovators” (Rogers 1995) instead of investigating the acceptance process of “early majority” or even “late majority”. Moreover, to the author’s knowledge it is the first study examining the process of individual-level SOC acceptance with a particular focus on the perspective of the “early stage” key stakeholders of this acceptance process, namely the IT professionals. One of the additional strengths of the study is the usage of multiple research methodologies – exploratory open-ended interviews, qualitative case study and web-based survey. This research is expected to be very interesting to researchers focusing on technology acceptance in general and on technology acceptance in the IT industry in particular. This research might also be of interest to IT practitioners considering to accept and use the SOC approach in their future applications.

Magister Commercii - MCom / This study analyses the process that an IT refurbishing organisation used to socialise 15 IT graduates to the norms of the working world. In addition, 5 IT industry and 2 governmental agency interviews were used, and 60 online job advertisements were analysed to develop a system dynamic model. The main motivation for this study was to develop a system dynamics model of the graduate socialisation process, in an attempt to understand the cause and effect of practical exposure, to bridge the IT skill-expectations gap. The main source of data for the model was from a-priori coding and content analysis of job adverts, online blogs and reports created by the students, supported by a review of the existing literature

Indian IT companies have garnered a good market share in the global IT servicesmarket. Research has been emerging on the competitiveness of the Indian IT industryand the opportunities which led to the success of the Indian IT industry. However,considering the current challenges posed to the Indian IT industry, Indian IT companieshave to move up in the value chain and achieve technology led catch-up with theincumbents to maintain the market share in a highly competitive market. The first part of this study investigates the windows of opportunities created by technoeconomic paradigm shifts and discontinuities that will help the Indian IT companies tomove up in the value chain. To capitalize on the opportunities, Indian IT companieshave to improve their innovation efforts. In the second part of this study, certaindeterminants which improve the ideation capability of the organization are investigatedin the Indian IT companies and its effects are discussed. The report also discussesvarious strategies that can be employed by the Indian IT companies to capitalize on theopportunities and to achieve technology led catch-up.

Background: Artificial intelligence has risen to prominence as a subject of study. The pace of artificial intelligence evolution in Bangladesh's IT industry is increasing by the day. In Bangladesh's IT Industry, artificial intelligence (AI) offers enormous potential. Despite the huge potential and advantages of AI implementation or adoption, Bangladesh's IT industry is still failing to move forward with its AI implementation. Objectives: The objective of this study is to identify the main factors that disturb the implementation of AI in the IT Company of Bangladesh. Novelty: In Bangladesh, most of the AI-related research conducted by focusing existing Scope of AI in the Bangladesh, as Bangladesh is in the initial phase of AI Adoption, this paper, therefore, sought to find out the factors that inhibit IT Industry to implement AI. Method: A quantitative method is used to find the results of the study. This paper reports on the results of an online survey questionnaire involving 51 IT professionals from a large IT company of Bangladesh about their perception regarding AI to find out the challenges. Results: Result indicates certain major challenges in AI implementation in Bangladesh’s IT Industry like Lack of AI skills and Incomplete knowledge or understanding regarding AI's capabilities and limitations, Internal culture Lack of Financial investment, , Data management, Lack of technological Infrastructure, Lack of top managerial support, Lack of legal and ethical framework, Non AI Approaches are sufficient by encapsulating them into three challenges context-organizational, environmental and technical barriers using IS theory TOE framework. Contributions: The study offers Insights to policymakers, executives and top-level managers to pay attention of adopting AI in IT Industry of Bangladesh by overcoming the challenges, besides further research can be conducted on how Bangladesh IT industry can overcome the AI implementation challenges. Conclusion: As Bangladesh is progressing with Technology, hence this is a high time to identify the major challenges that inhibit the AI Implantation in Bangladesh’s IT Industry. Policymakers, executives and top-level managers should find a proper solution policy to mitigate the challenges and adapt AI to boost up IT Industry of Bangladesh.

Although there have been many previous studies done on the influence of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in organizations, there has been relatively less research on the impact of CSR on the organization’s employees. Studies conducted in this topic have looked at various industries such as banking, manufacturing and others but very minimal studies on the Information Technology(IT) industry Considering the research gaps, this thesis examines the employee’ perceptions and attitudes towards CSR and its impact on organizational commitment in the IT industry in the context of Sweden. In order to study this further, it was hypothesized that CSR has a positive impact on organizational commitment (OC) of employees in the IT companies of Sweden. In order to empirically test this, the questionnaire method was employed, and 164 completed surveys were conducted. The findings of this study support hypothesis that CSR has a positive correlation with employee commitment towards their companies. These conclusions indicate that IT firms require to strengthen and integrate CSR to attract and retain motivated, engaged labour force.

Det blir allt viktigare för organisationer att attrahera och behålla talanger, speciellt i konkurrenskraftiga branscher. En populär strategi för att attrahera och behålla medarbetare är arbetet med arbetsgivarvarumärket. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur anställda upplever företagets arbetsgivarvarumärke. Denna kvalitativa studie bygger på åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförda på ett IT-konsultföretag i mellansverige med ett ledande arbetsgivarvarumärke. Data analyserades genom en induktiv tematisk analys. Resultatet visade att det upplevdes vara en god balans mellan de krav som ställdes och de anställdas upplevda kontroll i arbetet. Genom att företaget levde upp till de förväntningar som de skapade upprätthölls det psykologiska kontraktet och medarbetarna blev goda ambassadörer för företaget. Respondenterna upplevde att företaget prioriterar de anställdas behov, även utanför arbetet. Företaget upplevs ha en stark kultur med familjär stämning där medarbetarna ses som något mer än bara anställda. Studien kan bidra med insikt i ett ledande arbetsgivarvarumärkesarbete och kan användas som en benchmarking-metod. / It is becoming increasingly important for organizations to attract and retain talents, especially in competitive industries. A popular strategy for attracting and retaining employees is employer branding. The purpose of this study was to investigate how employees perceive the company's employer brand. This qualitative study is based on eight semi-structured interviews conducted at an IT consulting company in central Sweden with a leading employer brand. Data was analyzed through an inductive thematic analysis. The results showed that there was a perceived good balance between the demands on employees and their perceived control. By living up to the expectations they created, the company upheld the psychological contract, and employees became strong ambassadors for the company. Respondents felt that the company prioritized employees' needs, even outside of work. The company was perceived to have a strong culture with a familial atmosphere where employees were seen as more than just employees. The study can contribute with insights into leading employer branding efforts and can be used as a benchmarking method.

This Master thesis investigates how cultural processes exclude, or might include, women from the corporate culture as well as how the cultural processes could impact the women’s abilities to career advancement within an organization that operates in the financial and IT industries. Previous studies have provided knowledge about culture and gender relations within the financial (Rutherford, 2001; Renemark, 2007) and IT-sectors (Davies and Mathieu, 2005: 12-22) respectively, but there is a lack of studies of financial service organizations in Sweden that operates in both these industries. These industries are described in earlier studies as having an uneven female representation at managerial levels (Nordling and Samuelsson, 2014; Rutherford, 2001) and organizational cultures that marginalizes women (Renemark, 2007; Davies and Mathieu, 2005: 12-22; Rutherford, 2001). Thereof is the corporate culture’s effect on women and female managers in particular, important to understand in an organizational constellation that strives to increase the number of female managers such as the case company in this study. This study utilizes a theoretical framework defined by Rutherford (2001) comprising nine cultural constituents that are interpreted as including several cultural processes. These cultural constituents are organizational background, Physical artefacts, Management style, the Long hours culture, Work ideology, Informal ways of socializing, Language and communication, Sexuality, and Gender awareness. The nine cultural constituents and the respective processes could have excluding effects, or possible including effects, on female managers position in the corporate culture and impact their further career advancement. In this study is the framework used to investigate the situation for female managers as well as the situation for the female employees as perceived at the managerial level. A case study methodology is used and the including data collection methods are; semi-structured interviews, secondary data, and a field study. Nine semi-structured interviews with managers that directly report to the executive team members constitute the main data gathering method. The findings show the existence of cultural processes related to all nine constituents at the case organization and how these processes impact women. These cultural processes exclude or include women from the corporate culture and impact female career advancement negatively or positively. The identified excluding cultural processes could constitute managerial implications for gender equality work. In addition, the findings provide knowledge of how the generic framework defined by Rutherford (2001) could be applied in the present corporate environment of an actor that operates in the Swedish IT and financial industries. Further, two adjustments of the framework are proposed. The constant connectivity provided by today’s technology proposes a more interlinked relationship between the long hour culture and the work ideology than earlier defined. Further, an extension of the cultural constituent Informal ways of socializing is proposed to incorporate several hierarchical levels to be applicable for young and less hierarchical actors.

Present study deals with training and development strategies in IT service industry in Kolkata region. This study highlighted present trends and common practices in training and development activities in specific and in human resources management in general. InfoTech sector is a thrust area of economic development in developing economies, like in India. Government and private joint initiatives make this sector a sunshine industry sector. Potentials of human resources explore in the professionally managed IT service companies. The training and development activities strengthen capabilities of IT service companies and help them to achieve excellence. Present study evaluated the heart of this knowledge industry, which centered on knowledge workers. Present study briefly elaborated the training and development practices of two top-ranked companies in Kolkata and found some unique modes of delivery of training. This study also pointed out that companies placed in higher value-chain have long-term vision as compared to ones in lower in value-chain.

In the United States, there has been a shift towards a more competency-based recruitmentprocess, where soft skills such as attitude and personality are more important than highereducation. The increasing digitalization has resulted in a shortage of trained IT skills in thelabor market. This study therefore aims to investigate how Swedish recruiters view differentcriteria in the recruitment process of software developers with a particular focus on highereducation. This is a qualitative interdisciplinary study in business administration andinformatics. This study is based on 10 interviews with recruiters from various consulting firmsacross Sweden. A thematic analysis was conducted on the collected data. The results have beenanalyzed in accordance with human capital theory and signaling theory to shed light ondifferent perspectives on the function of higher education, and resource-based theory toexamine its relevance from a market perspective. The results show that education still plays acentral role in entering the labor market, especially among junior consultants, while it varies toa greater extent among seniors. University education is generally considered more valuablethan vocational training, as it signals a broader skill set in both hard and soft skills. Educationcan be seen as a prerequisite for advancing in the recruitment process and demonstrating theseskills and attributes. However, several recruiters claim that their requirements are a result ofcustomer expectations and the situation of the market. If this is the case, it means that theserequirements may be subject to change. / I USA har det skett en förändring mot en mer kompetensbaserad rekryteringsprocess, där mjukavärden som attityd och personlighet får större betydelse jämfört med högre utbildning. Denökande digitaliseringen har resulterat i en brist på utbildad IT-kompetens på arbetsmarknaden.Denna studie syftar därför till att undersöka hur svenska rekryterare ser på olika kriterier vidrekryteringen av mjukvaruutvecklare med särskilt fokus på högre utbildning. Detta är enkvalitativ tvärvetenskaplig studie inom företagsekonomi och informatik. Den baseras på 10intervjuer med rekryterare från olika konsultföretag runt om i Sverige, och utifrån insamladdata genomfördes en tematisk analys. Resultatet har analyserats i enlighet medhumankapitalteorin och signaleringsteorin för att belysa olika perspektiv på utbildningensfunktion, samt den resursbaserade teorin för att granska utbildningens relevans ur ettmarknadsperspektiv. Resultaten visar att utbildning fortfarande spelar en central roll för att tasig ut på arbetsmarknaden, särskilt bland juniora konsulter, medan det varierar i högre gradbland seniorer. Universitets- och högskoleutbildning anses generellt mer meriterande änyrkesutbildningar, då det signalerar en bredare kompetens och förvärvning av både hårda ochmjuka värden. Utbildning kan därmed ses som en förutsättning för att ta sig vidare irekryteringsprocessen för att därefter få visa på dessa förmågor och egenskaper. Flerarekryterare hävdar dock att deras krav är ett resultat av kundernas förväntningar ochmarknadens situation. Om så är fallet innebär det att dessa krav kan vara föremål förförändringar.

How can we understand places and their development processes from a social perspective? The aim of this case study is to understand the emergence of an IT-industry in Karlskrona between 1989-2002 from a social capital perspective. Historically, the production and the form of life of the population in Karlskrona, has been characterized by the fact that Karlskrona is a naval city, which for several centuries has had a naval base and a naval ship yard. Karlskrona is also an interesting case to study because of the stagnation in the economy and the insignificant prospects for industrial renewal in the late 1980s. Despite these conditions, something happens that for a short period of time changes the local structure both in terms of production and population. How can we understand the social dimension of such a change? In a narrated form this case study highlights how the transformation of Karlskrona contain both bridging and bonding forms of social relations. The main purpose of this dissertation is accordingly to understand which networks of relations the key participants of the study are a part of and get resources from. The study also aim to highlight structures for action around the development of the IT-industry in relation to the ties that bind in the already established industrial specialization in Karlskrona, in other words the lasting relationships tied to the naval base, the navy and the naval yard. From this viewpoint questions are asked regarding what kind of social relations appear, both in the new and the old Karlskrona, and what it is in particular that characterizes the new social capital that makes up the key participants room to manoeuvre in the process of transformation for Karlskrona.   The phenomenon where the place Karlskrona appears as socially divided between exchanges within the context of the new and the already established industry, is illustrated as two pillars of social capital. The pillars are assumed to be separated at the beginning of the transformation, and then they change as people live their lives and are included in new types of exchanges with each other. From the case specific study of the transformation of Karlskrona between 1989-2002, other, more general analytical connections are made in the discussion about how the dynamics of the transformation could be made possible, and why it stopped. From the theoretical viewpoint of social capital the dissertation follows a discussion about the lessons which can be learnt regarding the question how we can view places and their transformation processes. The conclusions particularly emphasize the importance of how newcomers can contribute as well as the crucial role held by border crossers when it comes to create linking social capital of the place. / Hur kan vi betrakta platser och deras utvecklingsprocesser från ett socialt perspektiv? I denna avhandling studeras framväxten av en IT-industri i Karlskrona mellan åren 1989-2002 utifrån ett perspektiv om socialt kapital. Produktionen i Karlskrona och populationens livsform har ur ett historiskt perspektiv varit präglad av det faktum att Karlskrona är en örlogsstad som under flera hundra år inrymt ett örlogsvarv samt omfattande enheter av den kungliga flottan, och dess utbildningar. Karlskronas transformation är ett intressant fall att studera eftersom ekonomin i slutet av 1980-talet var stagnerad och utsikterna för industriell förnyelse mycket små. Ändå händer något som för en kort tid kom att skapa förändringar i den lokala sammansättningen av såväl produktion som population. Hur kan vi förstå den sociala dimensionen av en sådan förändring? Teorin om socialt kapital hjälper oss i denna studie att se hur relationer innehåller utbyten mellan aktörer som är kopplade till platsen och dess dominerande livsform. Denna studie ser hur platsens utveckling rymmer sociala relationer som verkar både bindande likt ett klister och möjliggörande likt ett smörjmedel. Det övergripande syftet med denna avhandling är att förstå vilka nätverk av relationer som studiens nyckelaktörer ingår i och hämtar resurser ur. Studien syftar även till att belysa utbyten runt IT-industrins framväxt i relation till de samordningar som sedan länge varit etablerade runt den dominerande industriella specialiseringen i Karlskrona, det vill säga varaktiga gemenskaper med koppling till örlogshamnen, flottan och varvet. Utifrån en sådan ansats ställs frågor om vilka slags sociala relationer det är som framträder i både det nya och det gamla Karlskrona och vad det är som särskilt karaktäriserar det nya sociala kapital som bildar nyckelaktörers manöverutrymme i berättelsen av Karlskronas transformationsprocess. Fenomenet där platsen Karlskrona framstår som socialt tudelad mellan utbyten inom den nya och den redan etablerade industrins sammanhang illustreras som två pelare av socialt kapital. Pelarna antas vara åtskilda vid transformationens början för att sedan förändras i takt med att människor på platsen lever sina liv och ingår i nya slags utbyten med varandra. Utifrån den fallspecifika studien av Karlskronas transformation 1989-2002 dras även mer generella analytiska kopplingar i diskussionen om hur utvecklingens dynamik kunde bli möjlig, samt varför den upphörde? Utifrån avhandlingens teoretiska ansats och berättelser diskuteras slutligen de lärdomar som kan dras från studien med återkoppling till frågan om hur vi kan betrakta platser och dess utveckling från ett socialt perspektiv. De slutsatser som dras betonar framför allt vikten av att inflyttade kan göra något avsevärt nytt liksom vilken avgörande roll gränsgångare har i skapandet av platsens överbryggande sociala kapital.