The year 2000 (Y2K) problem presented a fortuitous opportunity to explore the relationship between estimated costs of software projects and five cost influence dimensions described by the Year 2000 Enterprise Cost Model (Kappelman, et al., 1998) -- organization, problem, solution, resources, and stage of completion. This research was a field study survey of (Y2K) project managers in industry, government, and education and part of a joint project that began in 1996 between the University of North Texas and the Y2K Working Group of the Society for Information Management (SIM). Evidence was found to support relationships between estimated costs and organization, problem, resources, and project stage but not for the solution dimension. Project stage appears to moderate the relationships for organization, particularly IS practices, and resources. A history of superior IS practices appears to mean lower estimated costs, especially for projects in larger IS organizations. Acquiring resources, especially external skills, appears to increase costs. Moreover, projects apparently have many individual differences, many related to size and to project stage, and their influences on costs appear to be at the sub-dimension or even the individual variable level. A Revised Year 2000 Enterprise Model is presented incorporating this granularity. Two primary conclusions can be drawn from this research: (1) large software projects are very complex and thus cost estimating is also; and (2) the devil of cost estimating is in the details of knowing which of the many possible variables are the important ones for each particular enterprise and project. This points to the importance of organizations keeping software project metrics and the historical calibration of cost-estimating practices. Project managers must understand the relevant details and their interaction and importance in order to successfully develop a cost estimate for a particular project, even when rational cost models are used. This research also indicates that software cost estimating has political as well as rational influences at play.

Este trabalho buscou identificar como o Brasil está posicionado no contexto internacional da divisão digital assim como também os fatores que influenciam a divisão digital no país. Utilizando dados do cálculo do índice IDI disponibilizados pelo International Telecommunication Union (ITU) para 152 diferentes países obteve-se um modelo de clusterização a partir do aprendizado de Redes Bayesianas que resultou numa distribuição dos países em oito clusters. Este modelo foi alimentado com subconjuntos incompletos de indicadores correspondentes aos componentes do IDI para diversas subdivisões regionais brasileiras (regiões, estados, regiões metropolitanas/interiores dos estados e zonas rural/urbana), conforme a disponibilidade em diferentes fontes como a ANATEL, o IBGE e o CGI.BR. Desta forma foi possível inferir a que cluster mais provavelmente cada subdivisão regional deve pertencer. Enquanto a posição 64 no ranking do IDI coloca o Brasil em uma posição à frente de mais da metade dos 152 países incluídos, a concentração de diversas sub-regiões no sexto cluster coloca a maior parte do país apenas dois níveis acima dos países de pior classificação e a cinco níveis de distância dos melhores classificados. Já a análise dos fatores que influenciam a divisão digital no Brasil utilizou dados fornecidos pelo CGI.BR na obtenção de um modelo diferente de rede Augmented Naive Bayes para cada uma de quatro variáveis representativas de adoção tecnológica: uso da internet, uso do celular, adoção do comércio eletrônico e do internet banking. Como variáveis independentes, os modelos incluíram sexo, faixa etária, grau de instrução, situação de emprego, raça, classe social, zona rural/urbana, região e estado, sendo que as que apresentaram maior grau de influência foram a classe social e o grau de instrução. O conjunto de fatores selecionado demonstrou ser bastante preciso apenas na identificação da divisão digital em relação ao uso de internet, enquanto a utilização do celular, do comércio eletrônico e do internet banking não puderam ser totalmente explicadas, sugerindo a necessidade de mais estudos no sentido de identificar variáveis complementares que influenciem a adoção dessas tecnologias. / This study aimed to identify how Brazil is positioned in the international context of the digital divide as well as the factors influencing the digital divide within the country. A clustering model was obtained by applying Bayesian Networks learning on data for calculating the IDI index provided by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for 152 different countries, resulting in the distribution of the countries among eight clusters. This model was fed with incomplete subsets of indicators corresponding to the various components of the IDI for Brazilian regional subdivisions (regions, states, metropolitan areas/state country sides and rural/urban zones), as available from different sources such as ANATEL, IBGE and CGI.BR. This way it was possible to infer the most likely cluster to which each regional subdivision should belong. The 64 IDI ranking position puts Brazil ahead of more than half of the 152 countries included, but with the majority of sub-regions placed in the sixth cluster, most of the country appears just two levels above the lowest ranking countries and five levels away from the top ranked. The analysis of the factors influencing the digital divide in Brazil used data provided by CGI.BR to obtain a different Augmented Naive Bayes network model for each of four variables representing technology adoption: internet use, cell phone use, ecommerce adoption and internet banking adoption. Gender, age, education level, employment status, race, social class, rural / urban areas, region and state were included as independent variables, with social class and education level showing the most influence. The selected factors proved to be quite accurate in identifying the internet use digital divide, while cell phone use, e-commerce adoption and internet banking adoption could not be fully explained, suggesting the need for further studies to identify additional variables influencing the adoption of these technologies.

In the current literature on productivity and economic growth, many studies have explored the relationship between information and communications technology (ICT) and growth. In these studies, ICT capital stock is treated as an individual input in the production process that contributes to output growth. In fact, ICT is found to be a key driver of productivity growth in the developed economies. However, few empirical studies deal with China which has in recent years become one of the world's largest ICT markets and production centres. The lack of empirical work in this field contrasts sharply with the wealth of literature which presents background and descriptive studies of China's high technology sectors that include the telecommunications, the computer and the Internet sectors. This dissertation attempts to fill the void in the literature by examining the role of ICT in China's economy over the past two decades. It aims to develop a framework which emphasizes ICT as a production factor and apply it to interpret China's economic growth. The dissertation contributes to the empirical literature by focusing on the following core aspects underlying the linkage between ICT and economic growth. First, it attempts to estimate the size of China's ICT capital stock using the perpetual inventory method. Second, based on such estimates, the dissertation measures the contribution of ICT to China's economic growth by means of a production function model that segregates ICT from all other forms of capital. Third, the dissertation examines the impact of ICT on technical efficiency in China's regions by applying a stochastic frontier model. Lastly, the dissertation looks at the demand aspect of the ICT industry by estimating and projecting demand for ICT services, namely, the telecommunications and computer markets in China. According to this study, ICT capital is found to be a positive driver for the Chinese economy, and is responsible for about 25% of the country's economic growth, although the percentage varies at different periods. ICT capital is also found to have a positive and significant impact on technical efficiency in the Chinese regions. However, the disparity between the coastal and inland regions in terms of technical efficiency scores is found to be very wide, due to the bulk of ICT investment going into the municipal cities and coastal provinces. It is also found that China may be facing the beginning of a period of strong productivity growth driven by increased investment in ICT, especially innovative investment. Furthermore, projections of demand show that the majority of Chinese citizens will have access to a fixed-line telephone or the mobile phone in five years from now, while about half of the Chinese population is expected to use the computer by 2010.

Orientador: Jose Maria Ferreira Jardim da Silveira / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Economia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-06T18:29:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Vieira_ErivaldoCosta_M.pdf: 624383 bytes, checksum: e056c8e7fd377525c15548f62773b5e1 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: Este trabalho tem por objetivo analisar capacidade que o instrumental teórico microeconômico tem para explicar a estratégia competitiva das empresas do setor de software de gestão integrada (ERP), mais especificamente pela análise da indústria brasileira de software de gestão, tendo como fundamento o trabalho de Shapiro e Varian (1999). Este trabalho está dividido em três fases principais, nas quais foram utilizadas três formas de pesquisa: revisão bibliográfica, pesquisa documental e pesquisa de campo (estudo de caso ou multicaso, já que envolve mais de um sujeito, mais de uma situação). A partir destes elementos elaboram-se considerações sobre as potencialidades e limitações do instrumental teórico microeconômico de explicar o comportamento dos agentes no referido setor / Mestrado / Mestre em Ciências Econômicas

Este trabalho buscou identificar como o Brasil está posicionado no contexto internacional da divisão digital assim como também os fatores que influenciam a divisão digital no país. Utilizando dados do cálculo do índice IDI disponibilizados pelo International Telecommunication Union (ITU) para 152 diferentes países obteve-se um modelo de clusterização a partir do aprendizado de Redes Bayesianas que resultou numa distribuição dos países em oito clusters. Este modelo foi alimentado com subconjuntos incompletos de indicadores correspondentes aos componentes do IDI para diversas subdivisões regionais brasileiras (regiões, estados, regiões metropolitanas/interiores dos estados e zonas rural/urbana), conforme a disponibilidade em diferentes fontes como a ANATEL, o IBGE e o CGI.BR. Desta forma foi possível inferir a que cluster mais provavelmente cada subdivisão regional deve pertencer. Enquanto a posição 64 no ranking do IDI coloca o Brasil em uma posição à frente de mais da metade dos 152 países incluídos, a concentração de diversas sub-regiões no sexto cluster coloca a maior parte do país apenas dois níveis acima dos países de pior classificação e a cinco níveis de distância dos melhores classificados. Já a análise dos fatores que influenciam a divisão digital no Brasil utilizou dados fornecidos pelo CGI.BR na obtenção de um modelo diferente de rede Augmented Naive Bayes para cada uma de quatro variáveis representativas de adoção tecnológica: uso da internet, uso do celular, adoção do comércio eletrônico e do internet banking. Como variáveis independentes, os modelos incluíram sexo, faixa etária, grau de instrução, situação de emprego, raça, classe social, zona rural/urbana, região e estado, sendo que as que apresentaram maior grau de influência foram a classe social e o grau de instrução. O conjunto de fatores selecionado demonstrou ser bastante preciso apenas na identificação da divisão digital em relação ao uso de internet, enquanto a utilização do celular, do comércio eletrônico e do internet banking não puderam ser totalmente explicadas, sugerindo a necessidade de mais estudos no sentido de identificar variáveis complementares que influenciem a adoção dessas tecnologias. / This study aimed to identify how Brazil is positioned in the international context of the digital divide as well as the factors influencing the digital divide within the country. A clustering model was obtained by applying Bayesian Networks learning on data for calculating the IDI index provided by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for 152 different countries, resulting in the distribution of the countries among eight clusters. This model was fed with incomplete subsets of indicators corresponding to the various components of the IDI for Brazilian regional subdivisions (regions, states, metropolitan areas/state country sides and rural/urban zones), as available from different sources such as ANATEL, IBGE and CGI.BR. This way it was possible to infer the most likely cluster to which each regional subdivision should belong. The 64 IDI ranking position puts Brazil ahead of more than half of the 152 countries included, but with the majority of sub-regions placed in the sixth cluster, most of the country appears just two levels above the lowest ranking countries and five levels away from the top ranked. The analysis of the factors influencing the digital divide in Brazil used data provided by CGI.BR to obtain a different Augmented Naive Bayes network model for each of four variables representing technology adoption: internet use, cell phone use, ecommerce adoption and internet banking adoption. Gender, age, education level, employment status, race, social class, rural / urban areas, region and state were included as independent variables, with social class and education level showing the most influence. The selected factors proved to be quite accurate in identifying the internet use digital divide, while cell phone use, e-commerce adoption and internet banking adoption could not be fully explained, suggesting the need for further studies to identify additional variables influencing the adoption of these technologies.

Thesis (M. Com. (Business Management)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / Information and communication technologies (ICT) and its impact in the economic, social and personal development has become an important object of scientific research in recent decades. Theoretical and empirical studies have demonstrated the necessity to gain and exploit positive outcomes such as productivity growth, organisation expansion, efficiency, effectiveness, competitiveness and so on of ICT adoption and implementation in various organisations. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to investigate the determinants of ICT adoption by SMEs for improved performance. The study utilised the quantitative research approach whereby a survey was conducted using convenience and snowball sampling methods. Data was tested for reliability using the Cronbach’ Alpha. Furthermore, descriptive analysis was conducted as well as correlation and regression tests. The questionnaire was developed from the empirical literature review. The determinants of ICT adoption were represented by perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneurial passion, personal factors, business characteristics and performance. Based on the results, SMEs should seek to adopt ICT using the determinants which were assessed as they show how effective a business can improve performance if these determinants are used to adopt ICT. Furthermore, more should be done by government to give support and awareness to SMEs on various aspects that can improve their businesses such as ICT. Keywords: ICT, SMEs, Determinants, Adoption, Performance

Thesis (MBA (Business Management))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The central question that this research report attempts to answer is how southern African countries can leapfrog from agrarian to knowledge-based economies. There is no single answer to this question, but rather a complex solution. This can best be answered using scenario planning; hence the title 'Scenario planning 2020 for southern African economic empowerment'. Scenario planning is not the only way of answering the central question, but is the one preferred by the author. The scenario-building process helps to identify a number of key forces or factors that impact on the region. Culture and openness were top of the list with regard to importance and uncertainty in answering the central question. Using culture and openness, the author was able to develop a matrix with four quadrants. With these quadrants the author developed four plausible futures for the region, using the other forces identified and listed as characters, guided by the technique developed by experts in the field of scenario planning. The scenario process gives insightful information that helps one appreciate the dynamic forces, both positive and negative, and how they interact with each other to translate into an outcome - be it a desirable or undesirable outcome. There is a strong business case for recognising and appreciating the existence of culture and that this is the reason why people (and their culture) cannot be separated from the way of business. People have a way of life and, in order to do business with them, their culture must be understood. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die sentrale vraag wat hierdie navorsingsverslag probeer beantwoord, is hoe lande in Suider Afrika die sprong van landbou- tot kennis-gebaseerde ekonomiee kan bewerkstellig. Daar is geen enkel-antwoord tot hierdie vraag nie, maar eerder 'n komplekse oplossing. Dit kan die beste beantwoord word deur scenariobeplanning; daarom die titel 'Scenario planning 2020 for Southern African economic empowerment. Scenario-beplanning is nie die enigste wyse om die sentrale vraag te beantwoord nie, maar is die een wat deur die skrywer verkies word. Die scenariobouproses help om 'n aantal sleutelkragte of -faktore te identifiseer wat 'n impak op die streek het. Kultuur en openheid was bo aan die lys met betrekking tot belangrikheid en onsekerheid. Met die gebruik van kultuur en openheid, was dit vir die skrywer moontlik om 'n matriks te ontwikkel met vier kwadrante. Met hierdie kwadrante het die skrywer vier geloofwaardige toekomsbeelde vir die streek ontwikkel, met gebruikmaking van die ander kragte wat geldentifiseer en gelys is as karakters, gelei deur die tegniek deur kenners ontwikkel in die veld van scenariobeplanning. Die scenarioproses hied insig wat 'n mens help om die dinamiese kragte te waardeer, positief sowel as negatief, en hoe hulle met mekaar in wisselwerking is om'n uitslag te bewerkstellig - wenslik of nie-wenslik. Daar is 'n sterk saak uit te maak vir sakeondememings om herkenning en waardering te gee vir die bestaan van kultuur en dat dit die rede is waarom mense (en bulle kultuur) nie geskei kan word van die wyse waarop sakebelange bedryf word nie. Mense het 'n leefwyse en om sake met hulle te bedryf, moet hul kultuur verstaan word.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

Thesis (Master's Degree in Technology: Entrepreneurship), Durban Institute of Technology, 2003. / Over the last decade computer technology has impacted tremendously on the survival and productivity of organisations. In today's technologically advanced business environment, much emphasis is being placed on obtaining a competitive advantage through the use of computers - a commodity that has become available to almost everyone in an organisation. Increasing global competition and pressing social needs have impacted with such vigo~ that even tertiary institutions are now facing major financial constraints, thus forcing them to investigate alternative sources of income to maintain sustainability. Through the use of computer technology - searching, retrieving, sorting, producing and organising data efficiently and accurately - the belief is that many departments at the M L Sultan Campus of the Durban Institute of Technology can be converted into income-generating units that can be self-sustaining. There are many departments at the M L Sultan Campus with the relevant infrastructure and person-power to establish business units. These departments vary in the services that they provide, thus relevant information systems need to be aligned to future business units within these departments. This study focuses on a) investigating the impact of information technology and its systems on businesses; b) ensuring that information technology and its systems is looked at a~ a cost effective resource for maintaining a competitive edge and promoting business value. The interaction of business processes, people and technology will ensure successful planning and implementation of strategies within the potential business units; and c) recommending to selected departments the expected fmdings whereby they could choose to adopt these recommendations to transform themselves into business units in order to maintain a competitive edge for financial sustainability. / M

No description available.