Generic advertising impacts on demands for orange juice in fifty Nielsen metropolitan regions

Agribusiness, Demand and Price Analysis,

Triple-crown advertising impacts on demands for orange juice in fifty Nielsen metropolitan regions

Agribusiness, Demand and Price Analysis,

Impacts of information technology (IT) outsourcing on organizational performance: A firm-level empirical analysis

There is a wealth of knowledge linking Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) to human development, but Africa’s leaders have not used it well to develop its human capital. The continent has the lowest global levels of ICT diffusion and human development. This paper proposes a way of developing Africa’s vital access to knowledge through ICT, by reviewing and using the human development record of South Africa to develop a research framework for a human development – based ICT development strategy. The framework comprises a research-based bottom-up participative action program that responds directly to the specific information needs of the country’s socioeconomically marginalized communities, the so-called “Bottom of the Pyramid” (BOP), by ensuring their maximum participation in the research and development process. The proposed framework draws liberally from the vast accumulated knowledge about human development and its principal tool, the ICTs, especially from Asia where similar development activities are delivering impressive results. The multi-cultural and multi-lingual characteristic of South African society, including its recent sociopolitical history, presents numerous challenges for balanced human development, but also unique opportunities to build an effective model for improving the usefulness of ICTs for human development in the country and by extension, in Africa as a whol

Using Grounded Theory in the Analysis of Literature: The Case of Strategic Information Systems Planning

Strategic Information Systems Planning (SISP) has been widely researched, yet continues to be ranked as a key concern to IS managers. There have thus been calls for a strong theory to underpin SISP. In this study a theory is developed by integrating the findings from several major research studies published in the academic literature. The method employed is the grounded theory method, which is a qualitative research approach whose goal is specifically the generation of theory from data. The resultant theory possesses some unique characteristics as a result of using the grounded theory method

Realizing Partnership Needs: A Grounded Theory of Mobile Banking Service Providers in Zimbabwe

Mobile banking in Zimbabwe as a new phenomenon has been generally unexplored academically. The infant industry has seen various stakeholders step up to partake in the development of mobile banking services with various renditions of the phenomenon surfacing. The coming together of the stakeholders from different backgrounds has not been without complications. This study employs the Classic Grounded Theory methodology in an effort to discover the main concerns of the stakeholders involved in the development of mobile banking in Zimbabwe. The study finds that the main concern of these people is partnering. A grounded theory on how the need for partnering is realized and pursued through a three stage process named the Realizations Process is developed. The Realizations Process is how the stakeholders involved resolve their main concern by initially realizing their need for partnering, reaching out to and engaging potential partners and eventually partnering with them on the condition they similarly realize the need to partner

Key Leadership Skills required for Digital Transformation: A Delphi Study based on Financial Institutions in Namibia

Digital transformation (DT) provides financial institutions with opportunities for growth as well as an expanded reach to a variety of market spaces. One major challenge of DT efforts is the skillset of leaders along with the lack of the commitment to drive the DT initiative. The insufficient digital leadership skills and undefined digital strategies may lead to failed DT and wasted resources. This study followed a Delphi approach to identify the critical skills necessary for leaders in financial service organizations embarking on a DT journey. Based on an initial panel of 10 experts employed in financial institutions in Namibia, the top 3 skills identified pertained to (1) assessing the real benefits of the DT initiative, (2) garnering buy-in from business colleagues for DT initiatives and (3) analysing data for meaningful conclusions. The study also identified ways in which financial institutions can develop skills for DT amongst the leadership teams

Social Media Marketing Strategy in Organizations: A South African Case Study

Business has passed the exploratory stage of social media adoption where the focus was on trying to determine how best to use the social media platforms within an organisational context. The need is now for effective business strategies to support the use of social media with internal processes to manage the day-to-day operations of social media. This shift in thinking has forced businesses to focus more critically on their social media strategies. The knowledge gap identified in academic literature is the limited amount of research conducted on social media strategies to support the effective use of social media technologies in organisations. This paper reports on research in progress that aims to fill this gap. Due to the emergent nature of the social media strategy phenomenon, the grounded theory method (GTM) is used with the aim of developing a substantive theory that will help increase our understanding of this particular phenomenon

Examining the Interplay between Decision-making and Big Data Analytics in driving Decision Value: A Critical Realist Case

To improve organisational performance, much attention has been paid to the value that BDA can produce beyond data-driven decision-making. However, there has been less emphasis on decision value (DV) arising from BDA. To compound this, definitions of DV remain fragmented across different views from social, to technical and economic. We aim to develop an empirically grounded theoretical model characterising how BDA is used in organisations to realize DV and to provide a mechanism-based causal explanation of how DV arises from the interplay between BDA (technical subsystem) and decisionmaking(social subsystem) using a real-world environment. As a result, we propose using retroductive reasoning through Critical Realism (CR) as the overarching philosophy, and Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM) techniques to collect and analyse data. Potential contributions from this research will include the development of a mechanism-based theory explaining how DV arises from the interplay between BDA and decision-making

Ethics Research in the Context of Social Media

In this paper we position a perspective for exploring ethical issues in the context of social media which we conceptualise as an instance of an information system (IS) artefact. We follow a general systems theory-informed view of the IS artefact (and hence social media), constituted by social, technology and information components. Information is placed at the nexus of the social and technology subsystems and positioned at the centre of moral claims. Differences between distinguishing characteristics of social media and IS artefacts that preceded its development and use raise new ethical issues and call into question the efficacy of applied ethics concepts in use in the IS field of study to effectively address these. We submit that new perspectives are needed for research exploring ethical issues associated with social media