Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.P.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

This exploratory research examined an information policy formation process for the adoption of open source software (OSS) in Uganda. Grounded in a pragmatist tradition, this theoretical and empirical study pursued a qualitative research approach with a triangulation of theoretical concepts, data collection, and analysis techniques in an iterative and interactive process. The design provided a powerful context to develop and conduct field activities in Kampala with a purposeful sample of 22 participants, 20 in interviews and 5 in a focus group discussion. The research design enhanced consistency in the evidence from the data, increased robustness in the results, and confidence in the findings. The results highlighted a vibrant ICT sector in Uganda, underlined the multiple stakeholders and their competing interests in the policy, revealed a lack of consensus between the government and OSS promoters on the meaning of OSS, and illuminated the benefits in the OSS model over proprietary software. The stakeholders' conflicting perceptions appear to be too far apart to allow meaningful progress and are derailing the policy. Unless their conflicting perceptions are resolved, the OSS policy will continue stagnating. The study fills critical information gaps in Uganda’s policy formation processes, provides timely and relevant information to holistically understand a complex policy formation stage to enable stakeholders to resolve their impasse and enact a law to embrace OSS. It breaks ground in information policy research in framing policy formation processes for new ICTs, such as OSS, as ideologically-oriented. The findings offer ideas to scholars and African countries to draw applicable lessons.

This thesis reviews trends and developments concerning national information policy both internationally and nationally and inform the understanding of the situation in South Africa. Three research questions are investigated in this study, namely: (a) what are the main trends relevant to national information policy development worldwide, based on relevant literature, (b) what are the main trends and developments in other countries, and (c) what are the implications of the current global and national developments regarding national information policy for South Africa, based on the findings of the study? The methodology for this study involved a qualitative textual analysis, addressing these three research questions, and the selection of theoretical frameworks to define the scope of the research. The study discussed the main aspects of concern regarding the following information-related issues: access to information; access to government information; literacy levels; computer literacy levels; levels of education and skills; information society development; the North-South Divide (including the digital divide); information content and industrial competitiveness; other issues such as e-commerce; telecommunication issues; copyright issues; industrial property rights; freedom of speech; censorship; information ownership; library services and archives; the value of information and the flow of information in the public domain in South Africa. The multiplicity of issues reviewed demonstrated the complexity regarding access to information and related issues in the country. The study concludes with a situational analysis of developments relevant to national information policy for South Africa. The findings indicate that the South African government needs to take into account the unevenness of past developments and the challenges created by the emergent global information policy regime. The Government needs to develop a national information policy to address and balance two realities, namely: (a) the technocratic and capitalist values of globalisation pushing global information policy development from outside the country, and (b) national economic, social and cultural developmental needs inside the country. Both these realities are relevant and need to be addressed in a national information policy, as the Government needs to take into account the unevenness of past developments and the challenges created by the emergent global information policy regime. / Information Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Information Science)

The dissertation explores the field of information policy in a historic setting in Sweden, namely the early 1970s. At the time the question of privacy in relation to databanks, data systems and personal records was intensively discussed in all public media, starting in the fall of 1970 when a large-scale population census was carried out in Sweden. The political discussions and public debate resulted in the first Swedish data protection law, Datalag (1973:289), and was counted as one of the first of this type of national legislation in the world. The focus of the empirical study lies in the analysis of the lines of arguments, political reasoning and debates concerning privacy, data protection, information and technology in documents such as official reports, committee reports, proposals and parliamentary records and publications that were produced in the policy process preceding the new legislation. The public debate itself is investigated through the editorials and reports in the daily press of the time. A combination of discourse analysis and agenda-setting theory, as it is presented and used by the political scientist John W Kingdon, constitutes the theoretical framework of the thesis. The study is introduced with a discussion concerning discourse and language use in politics, and here Norman Faircloughs CDA, Critical Discourse Analysis, has been the main inspiration. Kingdon’s agendasetting model contributes with an interesting theoretical perspective on the social and political context of the discourses under study. The research questions also draw upon library and information science and theoretical work within the area of information policy, with issues concerning notions of information and technology, for example information as a public good versus private good in the market, and information as a free or restricted/protected resource. The main findings of the study imply that the political discussion and debate on databanks and privacy were heavily influenced by a public-oriented discourse focusing mainly on governmental authorities’ own use of information systems holding personal data. The new legislation, datalag (1973:289) could also be seen as a tool that sanctions governmental authorities’ extensive use and dependence on new data technologies and automatic data-processing in building up the welfare state and the growing public sector. The discourse was also based on a mixed notion of the new technology, perceiving data technology mainly as the “big machine” which contains a vast amount of personal information. This, at a time when the technology itself was transforming rapidly from bulky machines to personal computers. The practical effects of this discourse could be seen, for example, in the serious underestimation of the overall use of automatic data-processing in society as a whole, the use of which the legislation was set to regulate. When it comes to agenda-setting the public debate together with the activities of different actors in parliament had a major influence on the outcome of the work of the commission of inquiry that was set up. The public debate affected how the problem area of databanks and privacy was considered, but the commission formulated the actual legislation independently, without interference or adjustments by the social democratic government. / <p>Akademisk avhandling som med tillstånd av samhällsvetenskapliga fakulteten vid Göteborgs universitet för vinnande av doktorsexamen framläggs till offentlig granskning kl. 13.15 fredagen den</p><p>11 september 2009 i hörsalen C204, Högskolan i Borås, Allégatan 1 Institutionen Biblioteks- och Informationsvetenskap/Bibliotekshögskolan, Högskolan i Borås och Göteborgs universitet</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Stanford University, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [399]-412).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Syracuse University, 2002. / "UMI Microform 3091416" Includes curriculum vita (p. 460-462). Includes bibliographical references (p. 458-459).

This thesis reviews trends and developments concerning national information policy both internationally and nationally and inform the understanding of the situation in South Africa. Three research questions are investigated in this study, namely: (a) what are the main trends relevant to national information policy development worldwide, based on relevant literature, (b) what are the main trends and developments in other countries, and (c) what are the implications of the current global and national developments regarding national information policy for South Africa, based on the findings of the study? The methodology for this study involved a qualitative textual analysis, addressing these three research questions, and the selection of theoretical frameworks to define the scope of the research. The study discussed the main aspects of concern regarding the following information-related issues: access to information; access to government information; literacy levels; computer literacy levels; levels of education and skills; information society development; the North-South Divide (including the digital divide); information content and industrial competitiveness; other issues such as e-commerce; telecommunication issues; copyright issues; industrial property rights; freedom of speech; censorship; information ownership; library services and archives; the value of information and the flow of information in the public domain in South Africa. The multiplicity of issues reviewed demonstrated the complexity regarding access to information and related issues in the country. The study concludes with a situational analysis of developments relevant to national information policy for South Africa. The findings indicate that the South African government needs to take into account the unevenness of past developments and the challenges created by the emergent global information policy regime. The Government needs to develop a national information policy to address and balance two realities, namely: (a) the technocratic and capitalist values of globalisation pushing global information policy development from outside the country, and (b) national economic, social and cultural developmental needs inside the country. Both these realities are relevant and need to be addressed in a national information policy, as the Government needs to take into account the unevenness of past developments and the challenges created by the emergent global information policy regime. / Information Science / D. Litt. et Phil. (Information Science)

M.A. (Information Science) / As organisations exist in the constantly overwhelming information age, more emphasis is put on information as resource and the economic value it has in the organisation. The South African life insurance industry is no different from other organisations and deals with a vast number ofinformation that flows through these organisations daily. In this study, the role of information, the management of information and the existence and implementation of an information policy are examined. The appointment of an information manager to manage information is also examined. The study was done to determine the level of importance and value of information in this type of industry and whether the South African insurance industry has identified information as a valuable resource in the organisation. Information as resource and the management thereof as competitive advantage is studied. The research methods applied were to carry out a literature study on information and its role as resource in an organisation, the roles and responsibilities of an information manager and the advantage and implementation of an information policy in the organisation. A questionnaire was compiled and sent to all the major South African life insurance companies to determine the above aspects and the current status in this industry.

Although idiosyncratic return volatility has been used in a number of studies to capture the informativeness of stock prices, the relation between the two is still under controversy. Researchers raise more questions about the existence of such a relation in emerging markets since the efficient market hypothesis (EMH) may not sustain in these markets. Therefore, use idiosyncratic return volatility estimated from the common asset pricing models as a measure of stock price informativeness becomes questionable. The first part of this thesis serves to validate the use of idiosyncratic return volatility as a stock price informativeness measure in the China settings. In particular, using a battery of information flow proxies, I empirically test the relation between stock price informativeness and idiosyncratic return volatility; the empirical evidence supports the existence of such a relation. However, there exists an inverse U-shape relation between firm-specific information and idiosyncratic return volatility. Therefore, in the second essay, when using idiosyncratic return volatility as a measure of informativeness of stock prices, I truncate the sample as Morek et al. (2000) do in their study. / From an institutional perspective, my dissertation attempts to explain why firms operating in emerging markets such as China have inferior information environments. The main theme of this thesis is to provide firm-level evidence that the institutional settings in China change firms' incentives to provide firm-specific information to the stock market and thus impair the information environments and lower the idiosyncratic return volatilities of these firms. / Keywords: Institutions; information environments; performance hiding / The second part of this thesis addresses the research question on how firms' information environments are shaped by a country's institutions. Morek et al. (2000) document that more developed countries usually have better information environments, and vice versa. The authors offer an "institutional explanation" that attributes the poor information environments in emerging markets to the lack of property rights protections in these markets. However, previous literature provides only limited evidences on how institutions affect the supply of firm-specific information to the market. Hence, this paper uses China as case to investigate how extensive government interventions in China generate incentives for firms to hide their information. I find that, first, excessive local government in a region increases firms' incentives to hide their true performance, after controlling for firm characteristics. A further analysis shows that the directions of firms' hiding activities vary across firms and are contingent on the nature of the firms' ultimate owners, because of different political pressures exerted. In particular, I find that family firms are more likely to suppress good news to avoid governments' "grabbing hands", while State-owned Enterprises (SOEs) are more likely to hide their bad performances to protect local governments' image from being damaged. Second, firms' hiding activities do impair firms' information environment, resulting in lower idiosyncratic stock return volatilities. To strengthen this argument, I test the "information link" between firms' hiding activities and their information environments. I find that firms' incentives to hide their performances reduce market participants' motives to acquire private information, evident by fewer analyst following. Moreover, my results show that involvement of information intermediaries alleviates the negative effects of firms' hiding activities on the information environments. / pt. 1. Information environments in China: availability of firm-specific information to the capital market -- pt. 2. Government intervention, firms' hiding activities and information environments: evidence from China. / Lin, Jingrong. / Adviser: T. J. Wong. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-04, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.