Thesis (Ph. D.)--York University, Toronto, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 399-439).

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2010. / Purpose: The aim of this research is to establish an IT outsourcing framework to enable SITA to consider key IT outsourcing elements to provide the required IT outsourcing or similar services to its customers to better fulfil its mandate as outlined in the SITA Act and other related legislation. Design/methodology/approach: The information gathered from various literature sources was analysed, evaluated and assessed to determine trends, lessons learnt and pitfalls of IT outsourcing, and IT mergers and acquisitions to develop an IT outsourcing framework and approach. Findings: The IT outsourcing framework for SITA consists of customer value drivers (motivating factors), governance model, engagement and supplier management model, and business model as the key IT outsourcing elements that SITA must consider to successfully provide the required IT outsourcing or similar services to its customers to improve its credibility. Research limitations/implications: To extend this research, more work is necessary to assess each element of the framework to determine specific actions that must be taken to leverage on economies of scale, improve productivity and IT capability within Government departments. Practical implications: This framework is intended to provide SITA with guidelines and an approach that may be used to successfully respond to the customers requests respond to the IT operations of its customers or to collaborate with the customer in providing its IT outsourcing services. Originality/value: This research will contribute towards establishing the best practices for agencies like SITA to successfully provide IT outsourcing services to Government.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Instructional Systems, Leadership, and Workforce Development. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

M. Tech. Business Administration / It has been noted that in developing countries, including South Africa, many projects on e-Government implementation have failed, while others have added very little value to the everyday lives of the citizenry. Broad reasons for the partial success or failure are related, inter alia, to people, policy, process or infrastructure. According to the management report of 2010 SITA (PTY) Ltd, there are many factors affecting the implementation of e-Government services. In terms of governance, there is a lack of both vision and consultation. In addition, there no is centralised budget for e-Government projects. The other challenge faced by SITA is that of skills inefficiency, as well as lack of technological upgrading that affects e-Government. In terms of process, employees are working in silos; there is no collaboration, and e-Government is a non-integrated service delivery process. The research purpose can be stated into the following objective: To identify governance, technology and financial factors that affect effective implementation of e-Government services at SITA (PTY) Ltd.

In the past, the Chinese economy frequently used the model of state capitalism to ensure the economic growth. As the growth invoked the extreme demand for natural resources, China started to use state enterprises for procurement of necessary resources. As the result of the expansion, we can observe overseas positive and negative effects. At the same time banker and stock exchange brokers are surprised to see first big sovereign fund´s acquisitions seeking prospective technology or profitable assets. The advantage of those funds is possibility to use huge foreign exchange reserves gained by the policy of cheap Yuan. Therefore, the thesis analyzes the overseas manifestations of state capitalism embodied in state enterprises and sovereign wealth funds and investigates whether the main incentives of the Chinese enterprises are resources and technology.

Thesis (M.B.A. (Rhodes Investec Business School)) - Rhodes University, 2008. / Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Business Administration in the Rhodes Investec Business School (RIBS)

Orientador: Bela Feldman-Bianco / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciencias Humanas / Made available in DSpace on 2018-12-19T11:57:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Evangelista_RafaeldeAlmeida_D.pdf: 2715296 bytes, checksum: 68290478e5a4916a8b6a4ec1928e3411 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: Esta tese procura investigar o movimento software livre entendendo-o como um movimento social amplo, formado não apenas por militantes dedicados à escrita de software, mas por um complexo conjunto de entusiasta e promotores, dando especial ênfase a questões que envolvem cultura, poder, trabalho e ideologia. Afirma-se uma divisão política fundamental de âmbito internacional entre os grupos free e open e procura-se entender sua resignificação no contexto brasileiro. O método para a realização dessa análise é um relato etnográfico da nona edição do Fórum Internacional de Software Livre, maior evento mundial a envolver de forma ampla os militantes do movimento brasileiro, enquanto drama social. A tese destaca elementos contidos na etnografia, mas sintetiza um percurso de pesquisa de seis anos em eventos, listas de discussões, entrevistas e encontros do movimento brasileiro. Examina-se detidamente as relações entre a ideologia do software livre e outras questões que emergem ao final do século XX, como o neoliberalismo e seus movimentos de resistência e contestação. Procurase observar como essas relações articulam-se com alguns personagens e conceitos imaginados pelo movimento, como liberdade, o hacker - e a cultura hacker -, o nerd e o geek / Abstract: This thesis aims to investigate the free software movement seen as a broad social movement, constituded not only by programmers and developers but also by a complex group of promoters and enthusiasts. This work gives special emphasis to topics involving culture, power, labor and ideology, stating that there is a fundamental political division between the "free" and "open" groups in the international free software movement scenario. It also tries to understand how this process re-signifies such categories in regard to the Brazilian context. The method of analysis is an ethnography report of the ninth edition of the Fórum Internacional de Software Livre, the world's biggest event in the area, and the one which brings together the militants of the Brazilian movement in a social drama. The thesis highlights elements found on the ethnography and puts together data gathered in more than six years of field work, as well as information collected in other events, mailing lists, interviews and meetings of the Brazilian social movement. The relations between the free software ideology and some of the issues that emerged in the end of the 20th century, such as Neoliberalism and the acts of resistance to it, are strongly analyzed. The aim is to observe how these relations articulate themselves with some of the characters and ideas imagined by the movement, such as "freedom", the "hacker" - and their culture -, the "nerd" and the "geek" / Doutorado / Cultura e Poder / Doutor em Antropologia Social

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Political Science, 2007. / Title from second page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-141).

The aim of this research is to evaluate the process and impact of outsourcing information technology (IT) services of Eastern Cape Treasury Department (ECTD) to State Information Technology Agency (SITA). This research study has been prompted by the fact that the South African Government through the National Department of Public Service and Administration has established SITA with a sole purpose of improving service delivery by all national, provincial and local government departments. The researcher’s concern is whether the relationship between SITA and these departments is working or not. The research paradigm adopted is a constructivist approach and the ontological position adopted assumed multiple realities. The research method used in this study is the evaluation research method. Key to the research procedure was the fact that four senior officials were interviewed using audio recording, where in two were each chosen from SITA and ECTD. The researcher used document analysis and interviews as a means of collecting data. Separate open-ended questions for SITA and ECTD were structured in such a way that it would be easy to extract themes describing the details of a particular question. The researcher made use of thematic analysis. The theory drive-code development process was key in the research analysis. ECTD outsourced to SITA the following IT services, namely, provision or maintenance of a private telecommunication network (PTN) or a value-added network (VAN); transversal information systems and its data-processing or associated services; training in IT/IS; application software development; maintenance services for IT software or infrastructure; data-processing or associated services for specific IT applications or systems such as website development; and IT support. The interviewed officials from ECTD contend that they used the SCM Guide and SITA ACT when pursuing IT outsourcing for projects such as those listed above. One of the key projects outsourced to SITA is the IFMS, which is a project programme of the National Treasury Department working closely with provinces (e.g. ECTD), National Department of Public Service and Administration (NDPSA) and SITA. The IFMS project has been implemented following the SCM guidelines. The key SCM Guide components are demand, acquisition, logistics, and disposal management. The engagement model used by SITA to guide them on the process of engaging in an IT outsourcing relationship has, according to the officials interviewed, been a success. SITA uses a standard contract wherein other specific contracts receive minor adjustments. The impact of IT outsourcing has shown increases in customer satisfaction improvement, transformation of government procurement and provisioning practices, appointment of Consultants, interpretation of the Preferential Procurement Policy, promotion of the consistent application of Best Practices, information systems security environment, and improving service delivery.

Beneath North America's roads lie 1.6 million miles of pipeline that provides users with potable water and carry away wastewater. These buried infrastructure systems have been functioning for duration longer than their intended design life, often with little or no repair. Asset management of pipeline systems pose a major challenge for most municipalities due to budgetary constraints, demand for quality service, and need to preserve existing pipeline infrastructure. The first step in developing and implementing a comprehensive asset management plan is to perform a condition assessment. There is a gamut of inspection and monitoring technologies available to enable the condition assessment of pipelines. All of these have advantages and limitations, which determine the performance quality and effectiveness of an individual technology for particular utility assets. Unfortunately, utilities choose technologies not suitable for their specific assets and collect data that is not useful for understanding the condition of their system. The objective of this thesis is to develop a framework for the effective selection of condition assessment technologies for water and wastewater utilities. A Microsoft-Excel based framework is developed to help the utility managers in selecting condition assessment technologies for their water and wastewater pipeline assets. The recommended tool selection approach uses a multi-step exclusion protocol in which the tools are excluded on the basis of their applicability relating to technical feasibility and technical suitability for a particular situation. Usable tools are then compared against a performance and cost database to determine performance and cost in a given project/ utility condition. This thesis provides a brief description and review of 24 non-destructive commercialized condition assessment technologies, including the principal and implementation considerations. A framework for decision system tool was developed to facilitate utilities in selecting appropriate condition assessment technologies. This framework could facilitate the selection of usable technologies by excluding the options which are not technically feasible and suitable. The user can then further explore the usable tools and determine the most suitable technologies for their assets. The data considered in the research is provided by technology providers, thus it may lack complete understanding of the capabilities and limitations of technology. This thesis also presents a case study which highlights the existing gap between the understanding of capabilities and limitations of various technologies. A program is developed as a part of this thesis, Condition Assessment Selection Tool (CAST), which consists of performance and economic database, a graphical user interface to facilitate user input, and the results of the comparison of each usable technology in the database to the project information provided by the user for their assets. The results are presented as performance indices and economic indices indicating the performance and technology cost of usable technologies. A data reliability index was also developed to provide a scale for comparing the reliability of the existing data in the database. / Master of Science