The South African public sector faces significant challenges that impact on its ability to deliver services to the public. There are several parties that can assist the public sector in addressing these challenges. One of these is the internal audit functions of government organisations. For internal auditing to support effectively the managements of the government organisations they serve, the internal audit function should be sufficiently capable. The questions remain as to whether South African public sector internal audit functions are sufficiently capable and how internal audit capability can be measured. The Institute of Internal Auditors Research Foundation published the Internal Audit Capability Model (IA-CM) in 2009. The main purpose of the model is to provide a capability self-assessment tool for public sector internal audit functions. This model could be used as a yardstick in measuring public sector internal audit capability within South Africa, should the elements and key process areas (KPAs) of the model be applicable to the South African context. This study therefore aims to determine whether the IA-CM can be applied within a South African context. The South African public sector, the role of internal auditing within the South African public sector as well as the IA-CM as a tool of measuring public sector internal audit capability were investigated. A literature review was conducted on these topics, as a foundation for the study. Specific data was obtained on each of the KPAs of the IA-CM through a case study design by selecting an appropriate South African national department and ranking the case against the KPAs of the IA-CM. The ranking was conducted based on a review of relevant documents and interviews with applicable internal audit and management staff and audit committee members of the selected case. The study concludes that 82.9% of the KPAs of the IA-CM appear to be applicable within a South African context and that, in essence, the model can be applied within a South African context. However, eight hindrances that may negatively affect the feasibility of implementing the remaining 17.1% of the KPAs or certain components of these KPA’s, have been also been identified. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lk2014 / Auditing / MCom / Unrestricted

Thesis (PhD (Industrial Engineering))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This research has its roots in Industrial Engineering, where the premise of improving and managing efficiency, effectiveness, productivity and quality is the most common and accepted source of organisational sustenance and furtherance. This dissertation, however, addresses the evolutionary and revolutionary imperatives of a new paradigm for competitive advantage – innovation. The notion of innovation is considered many things. First and foremost, however, it has become the primary differentiator of organisational competitiveness, rendering it the source of sustained long-term prosperity. What may seem ambiguous in the title of this dissertation is essentially the imperative of every organisation functioning within the competitive domain. Where organisational maturity and innovativeness were traditionally considered antonymous, the assimilation of these two seemingly contradictory notions is fundamental to the assurance of long-term organisational prosperity. Organisations are required, now more than ever, to grow and mature their innovation capability. In working towards the fulfilment of this objective, the Maturity Modelling approach was recognised for its ability to describe organisational progression in terms of innovation capability. An Innovation Capability Maturity Model, with the intention of describing generic and evolutionary plateaus of innovation capability maturity, was developed from a comprehensive literature study. This model was evaluated with an initial case study which led to a rigorous refinement initiative that included further literature study, a mapping and comparison exercise, and a detailed analysis of innovation capability themes using a Latent Dirichlet Allocation-based topic modelling approach. The consolidation of these activities and integration with the initial model resulted in the second version thereof – ICMM v2. This second version was then utilised in an additional 5 case studies that would serve to evaluate and validate the content and structure thereof, but also make a fundamental contribution to the application of the model – captured in the so called Innovation Capability Improvement Methodology. The case studies provide evidence that the content and structure of the ICMM v2, including the approach used to convey these aspects, fulfil their intended purpose by appropriately identifying the innovation capability strengths and weaknesses of the represented organisations. The ICMM v2 and accompanying methodology provides an organisation with a systematic approach for identifying organisational innovation capability strengths and weaknesses and a framework for identifying and prioritising innovation capability improvement opportunities in an organised and coordinated manner. This dissertation concludes with a few fundamental findings pertaining to innovation and a discussion of potential future collaboration and research opportunities. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie navorsingsprojek het sy oorsprong binne die bedryfsingenieursdomain. Bedryfsingenieurswese is primêr gerig op die verbetering en bestuur van doelmatigheid, doeltreffendheid, produktiwiteit en gehalte. Dit is voorts „n vry-algemeen aanvaarde bron van organisatoriese volhoubaarheid en verbetering van maatskappye. Hierdie navorsingsverslag spreek die evolusionêre en revolusionêre vereistes van „n nuwe paradigme vir mededingendheid, naamlik innovasie, aan. Die term innovasie beteken verskillende dinge vir verskillende mense. Dit is sedert die 1930‟s intensief nagevors. Meer onlangs het innovasie ontwikkel tot „n primêre onderskeider van maatskappy-mededingendheid. Dit is vinnig besig om te ontwikkel in „n sleutelbron van volhoubare, langtermyn welvaartskepping. Die titel van hierdie proefskrif mag aanvangklik dubbelsinnig klink, maar dit beskryf eintlik die fundamentele vereistes van elke organisasie wat binne die mededingendheidsdomain funksioneer. Aanvanklik is innovasie en organisatoriese volwassenheid as teenstrydige konsepte beskou. Die versoening van hierdie twee oënskynlike teenstrydige konsepte is egter fundamenteel tot die ontwikkeling van langtermyn organisatoriese mededingendheid en gepaargaande welvaart. Mededingendheid word tans verseker deur die tempo en volhoubaarheid waarmee maatskappye hulle innovasie-vermoeë beoefen en uitbou. Die konsep van volwassenheidsmodelering is identifiseer as „n belangrike element om die innovasie volwassenheid van maatskappye volledig uit te bou, asook om organisatoriese groei in ten opsigte van innovasie-vermoeëns te beskryf. „n Eerste orde innovasie-vermoeë volwassenheidsmodel (ICMM v1) is met behulp van „n uitgebreide literatuur-ondersoek ontwikkel. Hierdie model het ten doel gehad om generiese en evolusionêre plateau‟s van innovasie-vermoeë volwassenheid te beskryf. Die aanvanklike model is geëvalueer met „n gevallestudie waarna dit drasties verfyn is, deur gebruik te maak van „n sekondêre literatuurstudie, die kartering en „n vergelykende evaluering, asook „n gedetailleerde ontleding van innovasie-vermoeë tema‟s. Dit is gedoen deur gebruik te maak van “Latent Dirichlet Allocation”-gebaseerde konsepmodellering. Hierdie aktiwiteite is gekonsolideer en geintegreer met die eerste model in „n weergawe twee, wat bekend staan as ICMM v2. Hierdie weergawe is verder ontplooi in vyf opvolg-gevallestudies wat gebruik is. Die doel hiervan was om die nuwe model te evalueer en valideer ten opsigte van die inhoud en struktuur daarvan. Voorts het die ook „n fundamentele bydra gemaak tot die toepassing van die model waartydens resulutate van die model vervat is in „n sogenaamde innovasie-vermoeë verbeterings metodologie. Die onderskeie gevallestudies het bevestig dat die inhoud en die struktuur van die ICMM v2 hulle aanvanklike doelwitte volledig bereik het deur beide die innovasie-vermoeë sterkpunte en swakpunte van die organisasies te identifiseer en uit te lig. Die ICMM v2 en gepaardgaande metodologie bied aan „n organisasie „n sistematiese benadering tot die identifisering van organisatoriese innovasie-vermoeë sterkpunte en swakpunte. Dit voorsien verder „n raamwerk vir die identifisering en prioritisering van innovasie-vermoeë verbeterings geleenthede binne maatskappye. Hierdie proefskrif word afgesluit met „n aantal fundamentele bevindings met betrekking tot innovasie en „n bespreking van toekomstige samewerking ten opsigte van navorsingsgeleenthede.

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During a discussion with the head of the software infrastructure team about the need for software architecture practices at Temple-Inland Company, the manager responded by noting since the company is not a software development company “there are no real benefits to implementing software development practices in the company”. This is an approach taken by many companies whose software development activity is primarily undertaken to support business activities such as the case with manufacturing or financial companies. This paper examines the process of implementing software architectural practices into an organization. The information contained here should be useful to small startup software companies who might assume that it is too costly to incorporate software architectural practices into their current development process. This paper should also benefit large organizations who primarily view software as solutions for short term immediate support and not in terms longer term strategic goals. Software development teams with projects that suffer from cost overruns, scheduling problems and user dissatisfaction should also find this information useful. / text

This thesis discusses the challenges and opportunities facing the field of accessibility, particularly as computing becomes ubiquitous. It is argued that a new approach is needed that centres around adaptations (specific, atomic changes) to user interfaces and content in order to improve their accessibility for a wider range of people than targeted by present Assistive Technologies (ATs). Further, the approach must take into consideration the capabilities of people at the human level and facilitate collaboration, in planned and ad-hoc environments. There are two main areas of focus: (1) helping people experiencing minor-to-moderate, transient and potentially-overlapping impairments, as may be brought about by the ageing process and (2) supporting collaboration between people by reasoning about the consequences, from different users perspectives, of the adaptations they may require. A theoretical basis for describing these problems and a reasoning process for the semi-automatic application of adaptations is developed. Impairments caused by the environment in which a device is being used are considered. Adaptations are drawn from other research and industry artefacts. Mechanical testing is carried out on key areas of the reasoning process, demonstrating fitness for purpose. Several fundamental techniques to extend the reasoning process in order to take temporal factors (such as fluctuating user and device capabilities) into account are broadly described. These are proposed to be feasible, though inherently bring compromises (which are defined) in interaction stability and the needs of different actors (user, device, target level of accessibility). This technical work forms the basis of the contribution of one work-package of the Sustaining ICT use to promote autonomy (Sus-IT) project, under the New Dynamics of Ageing (NDA) programme of research in the UK. Test designs for larger-scale assessment of the system with real-world participants are given. The wider Sus-IT project provides social motivations and informed design decisions for this work and is carrying out longitudinal acceptance testing of the processes developed here.

Coaching has increasingly been used in organisations to develop leadership capability. However, due to a lack of empirical research, very little is actually known about what it is and how it works, resulting often in organisations experiencing difficulties and frustration when they come to use and review its effectiveness. Coaching carries many different definitions, none of which is accepted as ‘universal’. This implies that the term is complex. In order to understand coaching more clearly the thesis dedicates a separate chapter to each of the following eight sub-questions: 1. What is understood by the term coaching? 2. What impact does the retail organisation have on the coachee? 3. What are the desirable characteristics of the coachee? 4. What skills does a person need to be able to coach? 5. What does the coach do? 6. What does the coachee experience during a coaching session? 7. What are the outputs from coaching for the organisation and the coachee? 8. How can the organisational sponsors control the quality and consistency of the coaching? Qualitative research is gathered from coachees in a major UK retailer to suggest four key coaching insights. Firstly the majority of coachees experience a change in their ‘self’ as a result of their coaching. Secondly coaching is valued highly by coachees as the only opportunity they get to talk about themselves. Thirdly many of the potential benefits from linking coaching to broader theories and philosophies do not appear to be evidenced in this research. Fourthly there is little evidence to suggest there has been any explicit transfer of capability from the coach to the coachee. The thesis concludes that coaching is a complex that can be used to raise awareness in the multiple elements that constitute the self. In this way the coachee becomes more conscious of how they interpret events, more considered in choices they reflect, more precise in decisions they make, and more adept at controlling their reactions. Coaching can focus on different dimensions of the self and change in what is done accordingly. For example it can consider past events having similarities to therapy: it can consider current events with a focus on organisational performance and goals, and it can consider the coachee’s future potential to influence transformational change with a focus on theories and philosophies. Although changing depending on the element and dimension of self, coaching often involves talking, listening, and reflection to increase understanding. By focusing on deepening self-awareness, coaching has the potential to create a spiral of self-development. For this to be possible the coachee must prepare for independence from the coaches by taking responsibility for their own development. This is possible by firstly developing their own self-learning mechanisms and secondly by developing a ‘life goal’ or ‘guiding philosophy’ capable of igniting an inner drive to carry out these self-learning mechanisms on a continuous basis. The coaching stakeholders are responsible for what coaching achieves. The coach has a responsibility to make the other coaching stakeholders aware of its complexity as well as providing a profound appreciation of its potential. However the need for the coachee to be of the right mindset for coaching (i.e. willing to face themselves and commit to the rigors of intrinsic development) is a vital stakeholder characteristic if it is to be potentially successful. Coaching impacts the coachee’s self-awareness, which leads to greater ‘self-leadership’ capability, which is likely to impact their behaviours and actions and enhance the interpretation they give to others who recognise traits that may attract their followership.

There has been an increasing amount of investment in Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) interventions in developing countries under the premise of accelerating the process of social, economic and political development. These interventions are usually driven by the symbolic power of ICTs which signify progress and upon which the governments of developing countries try to draw to modernise the functioning of the state and to further enhance public service delivery to citizens. However, in this thesis it is argued that the actions and events that lead to the design and implementation of ICT4D tend to be politically motivated because ICT4D are simply interventions used by powerful actors and institutions to achieve their goals. These powerful actors include international donor agencies, politicians, top bureaucrats and private entities. In addition, it is argued that, due to these politically motivated agendas, ICT4D projects tend to be implemented in a top-down fashion and within an economic development perspective that appears to isolate the concerns of the country itself and the wellbeing of its citizens. In an attempt to try and redress social exclusion and imbalance, the capability approach drawn from the work of Amartya Sen (1999) stresses the enhancement of human capabilities and the moral aspects of development. Theoretically, the study is based on the key concepts of Sen’s Capability Approach. However, Lukes’s (1974) concepts of power are also drawn upon to address the limitation of the capability approach in addressing the concept of power. The research questions guiding this thesis are as follows: (1) How do the underlying motivations of different actors drive the design and implementation of ICT4D initiatives in developing countries? (2) How can researchers usefully conceptualise the relationship between ICT and development given the complexities in which ICT4D initiatives are undertaken? What conceptual framework could help theorise the complex relationship between ICT and development? Epistemologically, the study was conducted by following an interpretive research approach. The research was carried out in two states of Nigeria, Abuja and Plateau, and took place during the period of 2010-2011. The case-study centres on the initiation and implementation of the Computerised Electricity Management System (CEMS). Empirically, data collection techniques include 65 individual interviews, field observations and document analysis. The following are key findings of this thesis: ICT4D interventions are a complex process shaped at two levels. At the international level, they are shaped by donor agendas such as privatisation, and at the national or local level they are shaped by political and private interests. These agendas and interest are driven by powerful actors such as international donor agencies that often impose such interventions as a condition of aid, politicians who often use such interventions as campaign tools, and other top public and private actors who often use such interventions for personal gain. Hence, the beneficiaries of these projects usually have no say in the design of ICT4D projects but are rather forced to accept these interventions. Corruption is a major obstacle that hinders the expected ICT4D contributions in terms of individual opportunities and freedoms of living better lives inscribed in ICT4D interventions. Corruption exists as a “network” involving different actors present at three levels of ICT4D projects, namely the design, implementation and usage stages. Viewed from this perspective, the findings of this study show that international donor agencies, politicians, public bureaucrats and private entities are equally responsible for promoting corrupt practices in the context of ICT4D interventions. Theoretically, this thesis progresses the operationalisation of the capability approach (CA) by encapsulating the central aspect of the approach and Lukes’s (1974) concept of power. This is an innovative way of operationalising the capability approach by addressing its limitations in explaining the notion of power; the study thereby contributes to the field of IS using the capability approach and expanding the scope of theoretical analysis of contemporary ICT4D studies. Practically, to make the relationship between ICT and development more effective in meeting broader development goals, it is necessary for government policies to move beyond the mere provision of technology to also concentrate on the cultural, institutional, social and political aspects in ensuring the effective use of ICT resources, which should serve to improve people’s opportunity to participate more in social, political and economic activities.

Thesis advisor: Kenji Hayao / This paper discusses the forces driving variation in the success of state pension system retrenchment. Two case studies are presented: the United Kingdom’s largely successful effort in 1986, and Germany’s less than stellar effort in 2001. After examining the general impact of institutional effects, ideology, path dependency, and demographic pressures on retrenchment, the importance of these factors in each country is discussed. These two countries are particularly enlightening due to their prototypical natures and opposing democratic traditions. One objective of this paper is to explain an unexpected outcome: the successful retrenchment produced in a low-pressure environment in the U.K., and ineffective reform in Germany in a high-pressure environment. This discussion frames the factors that determine successful retrenchment as such: whether a government has the ‘will,’ or motive, to retrench, whether it has the capability to do so, and whether it has the awareness and acumen to implement low-visibility strategies. I find that low-visibilities are extremely important to success in this area, and due to the nature of pension policy, the implications of this conclusion may be applicable to other policy-making challenges. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: Political Science Honors Program. / Discipline: Political Science.

The recent financial crisis of 2008 has caused significant turbulence in the financial sector and the strategic direction of a number of banking organizations. To survive situations characterised by adversity and changing institutions, various organisations in the sector needed to renew their legitimacy with diverse groups of stakeholders and to refocus their business models into more sustainable ones requiring change and development in the company’s operational capabilities. Recent scholarly interest in the study of organisational and more specifically dynamic capabilities has focused on exploring the development processes through such capabilities emerge. However, the recent literature has been focused much more on the conceptual nature of capabilities rather than on offering empirically grounded accounts on how a specific type of an organisational capability is developed and transforms in line with the changing institutional contexts, and fluctuating levels of environmental uncertainty. Scant attention has been paid to the relationship between institutional change and the capability development process. In order to shed light on the development of such capabilities, this study specifies the micro-foundations of the capability development process and illustrates the relationships between the development process and the changing institutional context through a multilevel of analysis. Explicitly, it aims to find out how and what micro-foundations participate in the development of a sustainability-banking capability and how the changing institutional and market contexts and its dynamics influence the development process. This work is a phenomenon-driven study, which centres its empirical and theoretical contributions in the exploration of the case of the Royal Bank of Scotland – a particularly interesting case of an organisation, which has survived a near-death experience during times of immense institutional turbulence. The selected company case is special for the richness of organisational changes that assisted in tracing the main events and processes in which dynamic capabilities emerge. Inductively, this research study found ‘sustainability-banking’ capability to be conductive for the explored case company’s adaptation in the rapidly changing context of the financial crisis of 2008. To respond to the research questions and meet the research objectives, the work follows a process research methodology, involving the triangulation of multiple sources of primary and secondary qualitative data, collected both in real-time and retrospectively of the observed longitudinal period 2004-2012. The adopted process analysis revealed three key phases through which sustainability banking capability which emerged in the context of Royal Bank of Scotland, accordingly Phase One: The Philanthropic route (2004-2007), Phase Two: The Responsive engagement route (2008-2009) and Phase Three: The Stakeholder co-creation route (2010-2012). Each one of the charted phases of development pictures diverse set of micro-foundations constituted the company’s capability diachronically (over time) and synchronically (across levels and layers of learning). The research indicates that the capability development process is a complex process moderated by changing market environment and the presence of a number of institutional and market inhibitors and accelerators which moderate the occurring micro-foundational transformations. By illustrating the transformations in the micro-foundations of the explored capability, the research work casts light on the temporal changes that accompany capability learning, which affect the capability nature and unfold into different forms of capabilities – ordinary, transitional and dynamic. The key finding of this study is that the variability in the alignment of micro-foundational constructs defines the form and the function of the observed organizational capability – sustainability-banking capability. Although drawing on macro-institutional perspective to demonstrate the types of institutional pressures, which trigger changes in individual and organizational behaviours and processes, this research study contributes primarily to the organisational capability literature. First, the main contribution of this thesis is the development of a novel process model perspective of sustainability-banking capability in the context of institutional and market changes. The process model indicates the interactions between individual-based, process-based and structure-based micro-foundations and how this interaction, alignment, between their capability micro-foundations changes in the course of social, political and regulatory disruptions in the sector, which either inhibit or accelerate these transformations. Secondly, the observed processes of interaction suggest how an operational capability can escalate to become a dynamic capability, which has not been mapped in the field of study. Previously, scholars (e.g. Helfat and Winter, 2011) have suggested conceptually the possible existence of dual-purpose or multiple variant capabilities where the complication of drawing a line between operational and dynamic capabilities occurs due to the speed of change they enable in organisations. Within the context and content of study – sustainability-banking capability at the Royal Bank of Scotland, this study demonstrates the existence of what is entitled in the thesis as a “transitional capability”, which responds to the recent call for research work in this domain. Scholars have suggested that sometimes the low pace in which changes occur can disguise one capability as operational but in fact it can have a dynamic variant when it is explored longitudinally. The analysis of the findings in the second stage of capability development proves that the contrary can be also true. Although previously the literature has associated radical changes somehow instantly with dynamic capabilities, the analysis suggest that extremely turbulent exogenous shocks can lead to internal disturbances and misalignment in the relationship between some of the micro-foundations composing them which on the other hand can constrain the level of impact that the capability under study has in the process of organisational adaptation and development. The third contribution of this work is methodological which is accomplished by the adoption of a process methodology and a ‘hybrid’ strategy of processual data analysis, which complements the existing variance research stream in the study of organisational capability, which is predominately positivist in nature. Lastly but not the least important, this phenomenon-driven research contributes to the recent call in the strategic management field for exploring “bigger issues”, such as the global financial crisis which are often a “window of opportunity” and lead to relevant knowledge for managerial practice, citizens and policy makers.

The aim of this thesis is to adress the problem of capability brokering. A capability-brokering agent recieves capability advertisements from problem-solving agents and problem descriptions from problem-holding agents. The amin task for the broker is to find problem-solving agents that have the capabilities to address problems described to the broker by a problem-holding agent. Capability brokering poses two problems: for advertisements, and matching problems and capabilities, to find capable problem-solvers. For the representation part of the problem, there have been a number of representations in AI that address similar issues. We review various logical representations, action representations, and representations for models of problem solving and conclude that, while all of these areas have some positive features for the representation of capabilities, they also all have serious drawbacks. We describe a new capability description language, CDL, which shares the positive features of previous languages while avoiding their drawbacks. CDL is a decoupled action representation into which arbitrary state representations can be plugged, resulting in the expressiveness and flexibility needed for capability brokering. Reasoning over capability descriptions takes place on two levels. The outer level deals with agent communication and we have devloped the Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language (KQML) here. At the inner level the main task is to decide whether a capability description subsumes a problem description. In CDL thee subsumtion relation for achievable objectives is defined in terms of the logical entailment relation betwenn sentences in the state language used within CDL. The definition of subsumption for performable tasks in turn is based on this definition for achievable objectives. We describe algoritms in this thesis which have all been implemented and incorporated into he Java Agent Template where they proved sufficient to operationalise anumber of example scenarios. The two most important featues of CDL are its expressiveness and its flexibility. By expressiveness we mean the ability to express more than is possible in other representations. By flexibility we mean the possibility to delay decisions regarding the compromises that have to be made to knowledge representation time. The scenarions we ahve implemted illustrate the importance of the features and we have shown in this thesis that CDL indeed possess thease features. Thus, CDL is an expressive and flexible capability description language that can be used to address the problem of capability brokering.