The study aims to research the possible benefits that SME’s can attain as well as any barriers that they face in an emerging market economy when adopting e-commerce. E-commerce has been growing globally at an astounding rate and even more so in the emerging markets, albeit from a low base. The expectation is that with the looming FIFA World Cup during 2010 in South Africa, more reliance will be put on the adoption of e-commerce’s functionality by Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s), both in the Business-to-business (B2B) and Business-to- Customers (B2C) sectors. The research instrument utilised in this quantitative research takes the format of a survey which will explore some of the factors affecting the SME’s. The study aims to prove that certain barriers, or perceived barriers, actually does exist specifically in an emerging market like South Africa, and that when they are overcome, there definitely are benefits for the SME’s that have taken the decision to adopt e-commerce. It also interrogates the effect that the owners view on technology has on the decision to adopt e-commerce and once the internet has been acquired, how successful the SME leverage of the internet functionalities. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / Unrestricted

Innovative newly qualified graduates need to proof themselves to the world through their God-given talents and ideas and can only really put their name on the map by starting their own company. Graduates being compelled to join a company to attain, over a number of years, the necessary capital investment and business skills, cannot flourish and reach their full potential whilst being overshadowed by the company. There is a need for an interface between the university and the industry, a middle ground and an incubator where newly graduates can be nurtured into maturity in order to be independent. An opportunity for innovative entrepreneurs to start his/her own company by providing them with the necessary services and conveniences, immediate and grand exposure as well as training in the field of business management. Lynnwood Road as the front facade of the University of Pretoria, forms the visual interface with the public sector. Lynnwood Road is a narrative journey describing the translating of information being offered by the University of Pretoria. This narrative is formed in each person's own thoughts driving along Lynnwood Road, but the narrative is incomplete as it is without a conclusion. There isn't a building that serves as an exhibition space for the university to display the products and innovations that comes from absorbing years of information at the University of Pretoria. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Architecture / unrestricted

Millions of dollars are spent every year to plan and introduce educational innovation initiatives in the developing world with the hope of bringing about economic development, social progress, and educational reform (Kozma, 2008; Kombe, 2016). But the challenges with introducing and maintaining any educational innovation are multifold in developing countries, which are plagued by economic instability and a lack of resources. This situation worsens when the innovation involves any form of technology. The end result in most technology enhanced educational innovations (TEEIs) in such contexts is disillusionment -- either because expected outcomes have not been met or the positive impact is not sustainable. This disillusionment is usually caused by multiple gaps in the planning and implementation of the innovation or the unrealistic expectation that technology is the panacea of all ills. Studies on educational innovation endeavors (Vergara & Grazzi, 2008; Jhurree, 2005; Kozma & Vota, 2014) have identified a significant lack of research in developing countries. Building on these concerns, this dissertation is a qualitative introspective case study exploring different perspectives of the various change agents (Fullan, 2016; Rogers, 2003) involved in facilitating a TEEI project in Pakistan, namely Digital Hall Study (DiSH). Combining the experiences of these change agents, the study attempts to improve understanding of the factors that facilitate and/or hinder the process of designing, planning, implementing, adopting, and sustaining a TEEI project in the low resource educational settings of developing countries like Pakistan. Findings have shown four categories of factors that influence TEEI by offering support and posing challenges to the implementers and users: social context-based, institution-based, teacher-based, and innovation project-based factors. This study has also demonstrated that reevaluating the innovation process in TEEI projects is essential to ensure that needs analyses are conducted before those projects are designed.

The forest sector is traditionally viewed as stagnant and non-innovative in comparison to higher-value added industries. The sector is being challenged by environmental, market and consumer changes at home and internationally. To combat these challenges, forestry firms must undergo a transformation in their activities, including their production methods by producing innovative and sustainable products and materials. This involves investing in innovation, advanced technologies and new products. The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of adoption of advanced manufacturing technologies on firm performance in the Canadian forest sector. The study is based on data from the 2007 Survey of Advanced Technology and interviews with technology adopters. The differences between technology adopters and non-adopters in terms of capital investment, R&D, training, management practices and innovation were analyzed. The findings suggest that the adoption of advanced technologies is important for the realizations of innovations. Firms which were both innovative and adopted technology were most likely to report improvements in performance post-adoption.

Companies, nations, governments and multilateral organisations are each in their context recognising that 20th-century approaches to innovation and competitiveness are no longer relevant or effective – with whole industries and economies challenged by the fastmoving and disruptive forces of 21st-century technologies that enable unprecedented innovative capability. The rate and scale of change and disruption calls for innovation thinking more suited to a world highly connected and networked and rapidly redefined by global digital architecture and alternative forms of value exchange, value creation and capture enabled through networks, platforms, and innovation ecosystems. For a mature industry to navigate potential disruption on this scale and possibly direct disruptive innovation of its own, will require a dramatic departure from innovation and business as usual. Christensen (1997) posits that disruptive innovation is the only way for incumbents to maintain market leadership and secure future growth. So how should mature firms respond to disruption, and which strategies are effective to become disruptive too? I undertake a grounded theory study into how specifically, the insurance industry (life and health), navigates disruptive influence and plans to become disruptive too. My analysis of the literature and the research findings has led to the development of an Adapt, Regenerate, Transcend response strategy framework, the ART framework, which describes these three broad response strategies and a further set of sub-strategies, that answer the question of how firms respond to disruptive influence and become disruptive too. The ART framework is my contribution to the work on disruptive innovation response strategies. The framework shows how incumbents can apply one or more of these three broad strategies to suit their objectives. The adapt response strategy, a short-term, defensive or opportunistic strategy, aims to extend lifecycles and fend off disruptive challenges. The regenerate response strategy is an expansive, increasingly inclusive, and transformative hybrid strategy that seeks to extend lifecycles and pursue new growth opportunities that might transform the core business over time to become disruptive too. The transcend response strategy is an original and disruptive strategy where the lead firm partners to reframe and reinvent an industry through a collectively directed value proposition that creates an entirely new playing field. Using the ART framework, I also show how disruptive innovation is an inclusive innovation strategy and how the framework applies to and is of use in the context of inclusive and sustainable innovation. In doing so, a new meta-innovation concept of generative innovation emerges, which the framework begins to describe broadly and which I propose as an area of future research.

Global deployment in information technology (IT) requires understandings of the cultural constraints in technology acceptance and usage behavior. Prior research indicates that the salient technology acceptance models may not be applicable to all cultures since empirical support was mainly obtained from North America. Cultural impact on user acceptance is still at the early stage of research. There has been little research done on technology acceptance and usage behavior in the context of China, which exhibits distinctive cultural differences from countries in North America. The purpose of this thesis is to test the cross-cultural applicability of Technology Acceptance Model in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and to investigate the influence of cultural values on user acceptance of IT. Based on a synthesis of technology acceptance and cultural theories, this study incorporates work related cultural values into Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). The four cultural values of individualism/collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and masculinity/femininity identified by Hofstede are posited to either directly influence or to moderate user acceptance to email in the context of the PRC. Data were collected from the banking industry in the PRC. Cultural values were measured at the individual level to avoid over generalizations of cultural typology and to remedy the inadequacy of post hoc explanation in conventional IS cultural studies. Instead of using the scores of national culture proposed by Hofstede’s cultural study in 1980, this study measures cultural values in terms of personal traits to reflect the changes in and the complexity of cultural values in face of a two-decades of societal change. Structural equation models (SEMs) and moderated structural equation models (MSEMs) are used in the study to explore the direct impact and the moderating effect of cultural values. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural path analysis using LISREL were performed to analyze data collected. The findings show that cultural values have both direct impact and moderation effect on user acceptance to email. The TAM general model was found to be applicable in the Chinese context. Collectivism was found to be an antecedent of Subjective Norms, while Masculinity has no significant influence on Perceived Usefulness. In addition, Power Distance was found to moderate the relationship between Subjective Norms and Intention to Use email; while Uncertainty Avoidance moderates the relationship between Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness of email. The findings are expected to provide insights that can help international businesses to enhance technology acceptance across national boundaries. An understanding of the relationship between cultural values and technology acceptance should help organizations understand the influence of core societal values on email acceptance and so to better utilize social and cultural practices in organizational technology diffusion. This study suggests a few guidelines for better utilizing computer mediated communication technology in regard to the cultural challenges.

Grassroots innovation has been recognized as a valuable means to empower local communities to address developmental issues. Enabling youth in townships to solve local problems is of particular interest in South Africa due to the poor socioeconomic conditions in these areas. These conditions include high unemployment rates amongst youth, which leads to youth disenfranchisement. There is a lack of support for grassroots innovation because it falls outside of mainstream support structures for innovation. Standard market incentives are less relevant for this socially driven form of innovation. Innovation competitions are a potential alternate mechanism to incentivize grassroots innovation. However, the danger with external incentives is that they can crowd out intrinsic motivation through the overjustification effect. Intrinsic motivation is necessary to increase creativity, performance and long-term engagement in an activity. Therefore, this study seeks to understand what motivates youth to take part in grassroots innovation activities, and how to use an innovation competition to provide appropriate incentives for these motivations. A gamification framework is used to analyse these motivations and the effects of incentives. This is an empirical study that focuses on Innovate the Cape, a high school innovation competition in Cape Town. Furthermore, given that this form of innovation in this developmental context is poorly understood, the learning processes are analysed. An innovation systems approach is used to explore the motivations of the actors and analyse their interactions within this institutional context. A qualitative study was conducted with 18 semi-structured interviews and 9 focus groups. The analysis revealed that participants had a broad range of motivations beyond the competition prize, which was seen more as a means to an end. Dominant motivations included making a social impact, social influence, personal development and the desire to learn. By taking these motivations into account, competition incentives can be used as a means to empower participants through rich learning experiences. Diverse interpersonal interaction and experiential learning were found to be vital components of the learning process. These components are sorely lacking in the local school system. There is a lack of accessible and relevant formal institutional support for early stage grassroots innovation. Furthermore, informal institutional factors underpinned many of the findings on the motivations and learning processes of the participants. On a systems level, it was shown that facilitating innovative behaviour on the grassroots level resulted in institutional building.

Abstact 1 - Over the past few years, mobile broadband technologies and speeds have greatly increased in the European Union, reaching an ever larger share of broadband consumers. These changes have implications for broadband market competition. In the past, mobile services offered slow but mobile internet whereas fixed services offered faster but fixed internet. Fixed and mobile broad-band were therefore obviously complementary services. While mobile broadband speeds have significantly increased over the latest years, fixed broadband is remaining rather a fixed technol-ogy. Consequently, if mobile broadband becomes fast enough considering some consumers’ needs, we believe that the same consumers will choose to use only the mobile broadband tech-nology (who by itself offers high-speed and mobility) instead of both fixed and mobile broad-band technologies. As a result, we may observe an increasing trend towards fixed to mobile substitution. Our study investigates empirically this trend. More specifically, it analyzes the im-pact of mobile broadband technology evolution - through 4G adoption - on fixed to mobile sub-stitution in the 28 European countries from 2009 until 2015. The few studies examining this sub-ject show that fixed to mobile substitution exists although none of these studies analyze the evo-lution of this substitution. The results confirm a significant existence of a fixed to mobile substi-tution in the EU, and show that this substitution is more than doubled when a country adopts 4G. The growing competitive pressure from mobile operators also provides fixed operators with incentives to acquire – or merge with – mobile operators. This fact should be a concern for policy makers as it could have harmful consequences for competition and investment on the broad-band market. / Abstract 2 - Whereas open science – i.e. publishing articles in scientific journals – had been largely studied on the academic side, there is still a need to explore the subject on the industry side. This study spe-cifically analyzes the role of academic institutions in firms’ scientific publications and uses a novel approach to explore the subject. Publications issued from collaborations with academic institutions are indeed differentiated from other publications. The first type of publications is considered as an indicator of firms’ collaborative activities with academic institutions whereas the second type of publications is considered as the result of firms’ strategies and/or firms’ capa-bilities to publish. This study provides evidence that industry publications are a valuable signal to attract academic partners. In addition, this study provides evidence that potential academic partners are more willing to team up with firms’ researchers who have proven their ability to achieve high-quality research/publications without the help of academic partners. Finally, the study provides evidence that past successful collaborations with academic partners lead the firm to reiterate such collaborations in the short term (2 years max.). / Abstract 3 - The objective of this study is twofold. First, it provides further knowledge on the subject of prof-itability of industry science/publications as it is not clear yet whether industry sci-ence/publications are profitable to firms. Second, it considers the central role of academic part-ners in the profitability of firms’ scientific publications as previous empirical studies do not con-sider such role. To investigate the subject, we perform several regressions with firms profits as dependent variable. The results provide evidence that the publication of scientific articles is not a profitable activity in itself (as it was demonstrated in two previous studies). Collaborations with academic institutions are the real basis of profitable results; the production of scientific publica-tions is only one of the consequences of these collaborations. This study also shows that not all collaborations are profitable, only collaborations in high-tech sectors that lead to high-quality publications lead to larger profits. Indeed, in their quest for survival and profitability, companies competing in high-tech sectors often need the help of academic partners to exploit scientific knowledge. On average, a rise of about 7% in successful collaborations (leading to high-quality publications) raises the profit of high-tech firms by about 1%. - / Abstract 4 - This chapter analyzes the factors influencing the quality of the output of I-A collaborations ap-proximated by the quality of the I-A co-publications. More specifically it analyzes two subjects that are typically complicated to study empirically because of a lack of available data: (1) it compares US and EU I-A partnerships and (2) it discusses if and how internet is a useful tool in I-A collaborations. The results empirically confirm that EU universities are less efficient partners than US universities when collaborating with the private sector. This study also demonstrates a much larger gap between EU and US academic partners in high-tech sectors. Finally, the results provide evidence that broadband is a useful tool for international I-A collaborations although broadband is less important in the success of I-A international collaborations in high-tech sectors compared to lower-tech sectors. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

In a seemingly ever faster moving world where global competition is rising, companies has to find their competitive advantage. This advantage could be by offering a lower price on similar products or for instance by offering a superior product. What makes a product superior in comparison with the competitor’s products and how can the company maintain its competitive advantage. One of the main solutions for this dilemma is to be more innovative than the competitors and thereby gaining the competitive advantage. Becoming innovative doesn’t mean relying on sheer luck; instead the company has to adapt the proper innovation management. This thesis aims to research and suggest how a conceptual innovation management framework could be modelled for a large technology heavy organization. The findings of applicable theories together with the empirical study clearly show that in order for a large technology heavy company to improve its innovativeness it has to act under an innovation management framework, where innovation strategy and designated roles are clearly stated.

Titel: “Ska vi arbeta hårdast eller smartast?” – En kvalitativ studie med fokus på IT-företag i Växjö och deras arbete med processinnovationer.  Bakgrund: Företag arbetar dagligen i processer. Det blir väsentligt för företag att utveckla sina processer för att säkerställa att de bedriver sitt arbete på det mest effektiva arbetssättet - med fokus på att arbeta smartare snarare än hårdare. Processinnovationer innebär att vara innovativ med fokus på att förändra sina befintliga processer och dess arbetssätt för att säkerställa effektiva processer. Resultatet av processinnovationer kan exempelvis innebära minskade kostnader, tidsbesparing och ökat kundvärde. IT-branschen har visat sig vara den mest innovationsaktiva bransch i Sverige där processinnovationer var den mest förekommande.  Syfte och problemformulering: Syftet med studien är att skapa förståelse kring hur IT- företag i Växjö arbetar med processinnovationer. Studiens två problemformuleringar är: 1. Hur bedrivs processinnovationer på IT-företag i Växjö? 2. Vilka likheter respektive skillnader går att identifiera i processinnovationerna på IT-företag i Växjö?  Teori: Den teoretiska referensramen bygger på processinnovation med stöd av genomgång av innovation och processer. Dessutom görs en djupare redogörelse för centrala och essentiella delar inom arbetet med processinnovationer: öppenhet, samarbete, processkartläggning och IT-system vid processinnovationer.  Metod: Studien bygger på en fallstudiedesign med tre fall (tre IT-företag i Växjö). Den empiriska insamlingen bestod av totalt elva semistrukturerade intervjuer med representanter fördelat mellan studiens tre företag. Urvalet av respondenter gjordes via ett målstyrt urval och snöbollsurval för att säkerställa medverkande respondenter som hade inblick i företagens arbete med processinnovationer.  Slutsats: Resultatet av studien visar att samtliga företag arbetar tydligt och strukturerat med processinnovation. Vi har kunnat skapa en god förståelse samt kunskap om arbetssättet kring processinnovationer på IT-företag i Växjö. Studien har även identifierat likheter och skillnader kring företagens arbetssätt vid processinnovationer.