Breaching Location Silos: An Exploration of social media optimisation by SMMEs in Southern Africa

Published ArticleThis study explores the significance of social media as e-marketplaces for advancing e-commerce for small scale, micro and medium enterprises (SMMEs) in the southern African sub-region – notably in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Evidence from the examination of extant literature and our personal observations reveal that when properly harnessed as e-marketplaces, social media platforms, especially those that are compatible with mobile devices (i.e. smart mobile phones, tablets and notebooks), have tremendous e-commerce potential to enhance brand awareness, market growth, and market share for firms, thereby augmenting and expediting the management of customer relationships and brand loyalty. These benefits have the potential to trigger innovative marketing, brand positioning and creativity for SMMEs in South Africa and Zimbabwe. The main theoretical contribution of this study is the development of a conceptual model of social media that promotes SMME growth especially considering the large percentage of youth with a large appetite for new technology. Therefore, active engagement on social media could breach (the current) location silos," by tapping into the diaspora market

The North West cyber security industry:export potential assessment

Cyber Security businesses in the North West of England form an industry which is growing. This study has taken an in depth analysis of the industry to determine its size, make up and readiness to export and is the first of its kind classifying business within the framework identified by the UKTI cyber export strategy. This report presents the findings of the research undertaken independently by Lancaster University commissioned by the UKTI

Les médias sociaux d’entreprise pour favoriser la maturité numérique

Abstract: Developing their digital maturity is one of the most important goals of contemporary organizations. However, succeeding in this endeavor requires constant changes in the fabric of organizations and within their value-creation processes. Previous studies provided evidence of the benefits of enterprise social media to support value-creation shifts. Hence, exploring the use of enterprise social media to support digital maturity development seems coherent, although underexplored in the extant literature, especially in the context of small organizations. This doctoral research addresses this gap, by studying the use of enterprise social media, an affordable and intuitive technology, to support the development of digital maturity in the context of a small organization. To accomplish this task, we embraced an action research methodology for context understanding and problem-solving. Several data collection techniques were applied, and a template analysis approach supported data analyses, guiding the development of the action research cycles. Our research proposes a theoretical framework in which enterprise social media is likely to trigger different value-creation shifts within the partner organization, supporting the development of a flexible structure to face the challenges of the turbulent digital business environment. The proposed framework is drawn on emergent insights from the action research interventions applied in the context of a small organization. Results suggest that the different forms of value-creation related to the use of enterprise social media platforms supported the partner organization to develop its digital maturity, contributing to the Sociotechnical Systems perspective and the Contingency Theory. Moreover, while describing that technology implementation alone will not advance an organization’s digital maturity, this paper provides managers with insights into how to use enterprise social media as part of their digital maturity strategies, to assess their organizations’ enterprise social media maturity level, and to understand the potential of enterprise social media to create value in the digital business environment.Développer leur maturité numérique est l'un des objectifs les plus importants des entreprises contemporaines. La réussite de cet objectif nécessite des changements constants dans le tissu des organisations et dans leurs processus de création de valeur. Des études antérieures ont démontré les avantages des médias sociaux d'entreprise pour soutenir le changement dans la création de valeur des organisations. Par conséquent, étudier l'utilisation des médias sociaux d'entreprise pour soutenir le développement de la maturité numérique semble cohérent, bien que sous-exploré dans la littérature existante. Pour élargir les connaissances à ce sujet, la présente recherche doctorale vise à comprendre l'utilisation des médias sociaux d'entreprise, une technologie abordable et intuitive pour soutenir le développement de la maturité numérique, dans le cadre d'une petite organisation. La recherche a été menée en s'appuyant sur une méthodologie de recherche-action, afin de bien comprendre le contexte et de soutenir l’organisation partenaire dans ces objectives. Plusieurs techniques de collecte de données ont été employées, et une approche de template analysis a soutenu les analyses de données, guidant le développement des cycles de recherche-action. Notre recherche propose un modèle théorique qui explore l'influence des médias sociaux d'entreprise sur la création de valeur au sein d'une petite organisation. Le cadre théorique proposé a été appliqué dans le contexte de l'organisation partenaire, ce qui nous a permis de constater que les différentes formes de création de valeur liées à l'utilisation des plateformes de médias sociaux d'entreprise ont aidé l'organisation partenaire à développer sa maturité numérique, en ajoutant des contributions aux théories sociotechniques et des contingences. Des contributions managériales de cette recherche incluent des consignes détaillées sur la façon d'utiliser les médias sociaux d'entreprise dans le cadre de leurs stratégies numériques, d'évaluer le niveau de maturité des médias sociaux d'entreprise de leur organisation et de comprendre le potentiel des médias sociaux d'entreprise pour créer de la valeur dans l'environnement numérique d'affaires

Editorial

It is tradition that the Electronic Journal of Information Systems Evaluation (EJISE) publish a special issue containing the full versions of the best papers that were presented in a preliminary version during the 8th European Conference on Information Management and Evaluation (ECIME 2014). The faculty of Economics and Business Administration of the Ghent University was host for this successful conference on 11-12th of September 2014. ECIME 2014 received a submission of 86 abstracts and after the double-blind peer review process, thirty one academic research papers, nine PhD research papers, one master research paper and four work-in-progress papers were accepted and selected for presentation. ECIME 2014 hosted academics from twenty-two nationalities, amongst them: Australia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Lebanon, Lithuania, Macedonia (FYROM), Norway, Portugal, Romania, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, Turkey and the UK. From the thirty-one academic papers presented during the conference nine papers were selected for inclusion in this special issue of EJISE. The selected papers represent empirical work as well as theoretical research on the broad topic of management and evaluation of information systems. The papers show a wide variety of perspectives to deal with the problem

The First 25 Years of the Bled eConference: Themes and Impacts

The Bled eConference is the longest-running themed conference associated with the Information Systems discipline. The focus throughout its first quarter-century has been the application of electronic tools, migrating progressively from Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) via Inter-Organisational Systems (IOS) and eCommerce to encompass all aspects of the use of networking facilities in industry and government, and more recently by individuals, groups and society as a whole. This paper reports on an examination of the conference titles and of the titles and abstracts of the 773 refereed papers published in the Proceedings since 1995. This identified a long and strong focus on categories of electronic business and corporate perspectives, which has broadened in recent years to encompass the democratic, the social and the personal. The conference\u27s extend well beyond the papers and their thousands of citations and tens of thousands of downloads. Other impacts have included innovative forms of support for the development of large numbers of graduate students, and the many international research collaborations that have been conceived and developed in a beautiful lake-side setting in Slovenia

The impact of semantic knowledge management system on firms' innovation and competitiveness

D.B.A ThesisIn the knowledge economy, knowledge is increasingly becoming the primary factor of production and foundational component of innovation. Firms must improve their capabilities of handling knowledge in line with its recent explosive growth to stay competitive. This research addresses the effects semantic technology-based knowledge management system (Semantic KMS) can have on firms’ performance. Based on existing literature, a conceptual model covering Semantic KMS, KM, innovation, and competitiveness was designed to test the validity of the hypotheses. A total of 640 survey questionnaires were sent to the companies that practice KM actively. 178 usable responses were received. Pearson’s correlation, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data. The results indicate that Semantic KMS is positively related to the KM effectiveness. Organizational KM is positively linked to innovation and competitiveness directly. In the context of KM, innovation's effect on competitiveness is not convincing. Moreover, the study could not identify that KM has any strong relationship with organizational competitiveness mediated through innovation. Being one of the first significant studies of Semantic KMS and its impact, the study adds to the growing literature on the use of semantic technology in various fields. It develops a new theoretical model which has never been tested before. The study used data collected from single respondent of each firm in a snapshot and did not consider feedback effects. It examined Semantic KMS as a holistic system, but in many cases, companies only deploy certain KM related tools supported by semantic technology. A different research approach could investigate the impacts of those tools on relevant business processes. This study demonstrates that deployment of semantic technology is beneficial for companies and allows them to take advantage of the use of advanced technologies in their KM quest. It brings significant benefits to the firm thanks to improved capabilities of the new KMS in knowledge discovery, aggregation, use, and sharing. The study also confirms that for a successful KM initiative, KM processes need to be optimized and supported by KMS. Semantic technology is a set of advanced tools used lately in many information systems. This study is one of the first in-depth research about their impacts on KMS. It will guide KM managers in their decision-making process when they consider developing or integrating newKMS tools. For academics, this research highlights the importance of investigating KM from the new technology perspective.

Staring down the lion: Uncertainty avoidance and operational risk culture in a tourism organisation

The academic literature is not clear about how uncertainty influences operational risk decision-making. This study, therefore, investigated operational risk-based decision-making in the face of uncertainty in a large African safari tourism organisation by exploring individual and perceived team member approaches to uncertainty. Convenience sampling was used to identify 15 managers across three African countries in three domains of work: safari camp; regional office; and head office. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in which vignettes were incorporated, to which participants responded with their own reactions and decisions to the situations described, as well as with ways they thought other managers would react to these specific operational contexts. The data were transcribed and qualitatively analysed through thematic coding processes. The findings indicated that approaches to uncertainty were influenced by factors including situational context, the availability and communication of information, the level of operational experience, and participants’ roles. Contextual factors alongside diverse individual emotional and cognitive influences were shown to require prudent consideration by safari tourism operators in understanding employee behavioural reactions to uncertain situations. A preliminary model drawn from the findings suggests that, in practice, decision-making in the face of uncertainty is more complex than existing theoretical studies propose. Specifically, the diverse responses anticipated by staff in response to the vignettes could guide safari tourism management towards better handling of risk under uncertainty in remote locations