Browsing by Author "Seymour, Lisa F."

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    A process for managing benefits of mobile enterprise applications in the insurance industry
    (2018) Knoesen, Henri; Seymour, Lisa F.
    Mobile enterprise applications (MEAs) are found in increasing numbers in organisations as smart-devices become an everyday necessity amongst employees and customers. Large amounts are invested in these applications, so it is important to see the value in improved business processes and the consequential improvement in business performance. Realising the benefits from their use is important to obtain the value from these investments. Yet, benefits management (BM) is poorly implemented in companies and a first step to improve this situation is to improve the visibility of the benefits that can be achieved by using MEAs. Hence the primary question asked in this study is “How can MEA benefits be successfully realised?” The strategy used to answer the question was action research in a single organisation using three MEAs in two different action research cycles. The study was conducted in a short-term insurance company in the Western Cape of South Africa with an established IT and project capability. Globally, the short-term insurance industry is under a significant threat from disruption by market entrants who don’t have to navigate legacy systems and who are more agile with their product offerings. Traditional insurers are looking for innovative solutions to transform the way in which insurance is sold and serviced. A BM process, which was modified from the literature, was refined through action cycles in three MEA projects to improve benefits realisation. The result showed that for MEA projects, which are not very large investments relative to other IT projects, a lighter, less cumbersome process was more practical and acceptable in the organisation. The creation of a benefits and risks template, during the action cycles, helped the organisation to build stronger business cases for MEA projects and also allowed for more comprehensive benefit identification, measurement and tracking, ultimately realising business performance improvements. The study also used a survey amongst 88 brokers and assessors to determine the factors which influence their adoption of these MEAs. The most significant factors influencing user adoption were the company’s willingness to fund the smart-devices, the ease of use of the MEA, job relevance and location dependence. A limitation of this study is that the organisation has a particular approach to project funding whereby the importance of BM is weighed against the cost of the project, hence BM is more important for very expensive projects. While the model prescribed in this study was sufficient in this context, it may not be suitable for organisations that are more conscientious about BM. This model would need to be tested in other contexts for transferability. A further limitation was the duration of time available for conducting this study because this was a PhD research project. Further action cycles might have refined the process further. The findings from this study are relevant to researchers and to organisations wanting to deploy MEAs. The BM process defined in this study can be used in MEA projects as a process to manage the identified benefits and ensure that they are realised. The benefits template can be used as a first step in the BM process to build the business case and the risks template can be used to identify potential problems that could hinder benefits realisation and can used to put mitigating actions in place to prevent problems to benefits realisation. The identification of factors influencing adoption of MEA can help organisations focus on these factors to ensure that their MEAs are used and they thereby derive benefits. The theoretical contributions of this study are a process model for the BM body of knowledge and a model explaining the factors influencing symbolic adoption of MEA. The identification and description of benefits and risks extends the body of knowledge for mobile applications research. These specific issues in the context of MEAs in the short-term insurance industry are understudied.
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    Developing business process analyst competencies through higher education institution interventions - a Kenyan study
    (2019) Wamicha, Elizabeth; Seymour, Lisa F.
    Kenya is currently experiencing large-scale economic growth. With this economic growth has come the need for organizations to have well-defined business processes largely through the development of business process management (BPM) initiatives. There is also an increasing move towards the automation of these business processes mainly through the implementation of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. This has given rise to the need for business process analyst (BPA) role. BPAs are essential to driving both BPM initiatives and ERP systems implementations. Given this scenario, the first motivation for this study was to investigate the status of BPM in Kenya and the role of the BPA in organizations in Kenya. This study specifically investigated BPA competency-building interventions required to drive BPM maturity and ERP systems implementation projects. Given that no BPM curriculum existed in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in Kenya at the commencement of this study, the second motivation of the study was to investigate how these BPA competency-building interventions could be adapted into BPM curriculum. To answer the research questions for this study, the pragmatic research paradigm was used. A hybrid inductive-deductive research approach was deemed most appropriate. This study used a mixed methods approach. This meant that both quantitative and qualitative data was collected. Data for this study was collected iteratively between March 2016 and October 2018 using a crosssectional or multiple snapshots time horizon. Results from the data analysis explained 12 BPA competency-building interventions. Thereafter, a BPM curriculum was designed using the design science research method (DSRM). The study incorporated the concepts of the 4I framework of organizational learning and the concepts of the activity system. The scientific contributions of this study comprise three aspects. Firstly, this research identified that certain BPA competencies such as business requirements elicitation, business process improvement, business analysis and holistic overview of business thinking were perceived to have been undervalued in the Kenyan context. Business process orchestration competencies were perceived to be critical for driving BPM in organizations and for successfully managing ERP systems implementations. Secondly, the study established that BPA competency-building interventions such as inter-group collaboration, on-the-job/experiential learning and vendor certifications were among the highly impactful interventions. Thirdly, the study designed a novel BPM curriculum, a first for Kenya. The curriculum incorporated the 4I framework of organizational learning and activity systems in its design and implementation. The results of the evaluation of the BPM curriculum established that students found it useful for building critical BPA competencies such as business analysis, business requirements elicitation and business process improvement. Data collection for this study was limited to the BPA role within organizations and Business and Information Technology students undertaking a BPM course in HEI within the Kenyan context. Future research can extend data collection to other key staff members such as managers and human resource experts. Further, the BPM curriculum artefact was evaluated in the last 2 weeks of a 4-month semester within which the BPM curriculum was run. Therefore, a comprehensive evaluation could not be carried out due to time constraints. Future studies can extend findings from this study by using a design science approach of artefact evaluation to implement a comprehensive and detailed evaluation of the BPM curriculum. This can provide additional insights into the ways in which the BPM curriculum can be improved. There is also an opportunity to use action research as a methodology to validate the educational interventions established in this study. Action research would drive in-depth engagement with both BPAs in industry and students undertaking BPM curriculum in HEI with the aim of effecting contributions to both theory and practice.
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    Explaining consumer perspectives on mobile news services: a study in South Africa
    (2019) Maurya, Rubina; Seymour, Lisa F.
    Access to news supports the development of democratic societies. News can promote sustainable community development and encourage healthy social, political, and economic engagement. Mobile news services (MNSs) are one means to reach out to citizens to share news and provide citizens with a forum to review and voice their opinion. However, the extant of research related to technology adoption of MNSs is limited. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to propose a framework which articulates factors influencing the adoption of MNSs particularly by the citizens of South Africa. A review of the literature on MNSs and technology adoption helped to identify potential factors that could influence adoption. This study considers existing theoretical evidence and provides new empirical evidence, to extend current theoretical understanding. Mixed methods research supported the identification of influencing factors and relationships which support the adoption of MNSs. The resultant MNS adoption model offers new insights into the personal and social factors, attributes of adopters and attributes of MNSs influencing adoption of MNSs. The model included influencing factors such as social concerns, psychological drivers, motivators, trust sensitivities for accessing information, relative advantage and value, observability, usability, portability, immediacy, compatibility, and facilitating conditions. The identified relationships between the individual factors introduced a new perspective to the prior models of technology adoption, by highlighting connections between the social environment, the adopter, and MNSs. A pragmatic approach and statistical analysis of the data validated the relationships, and the model. The decision to adopt was found to be directly affected by sixteen interlinked factors. The findings are important to mobile service providers, designers, and developers, in their endeavour to satisfy their consumer’s needs and desires.