Information Systems researchers reach global peaks

The new head of Information Systems, Professor Jean-Paul van Belle, reached the peak of one of Africa’s highest mountains recently, symbolically illustrating the pinnacles of success that the department has made recently on the international stage. Professor van Belle climbed to the top of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, Mount Toubkal, which measures 4167 metres, following his ascents elsewhere in Africa, including Kilimanjaro and in the Drakensberg.

Conquering the Atlas was undertaken shortly after delivering a paper in Morocco - Factors influencing the business value of IS R&D: preliminary findings from a South African study. The study took a qualitative research approach using grounded theory and sampled key IT decision-makers in a few large IT-driven South African organisations. He found that the value that business derived from Research and Development activities was influenced by a number of factors including alignment of R&D strategy with corporate strategy, financial management, organisational considerations, knowledge management and tertiary Involvement in R&D.

The findings were summarised in a proposed IS R&D business value model. The model can be used by IS executives and practitioners of R&D to grasp the state of their organisation’s R&D practices more effectively and to identify potential areas of improvement. From an academic perspective, the tentative model developed in this study can be used as a basis for further research into the area of IS R&D, an area that has been found to be lacking in existing theory, according to Professor Van Belle.

     
Professor Irwin Brown (left) and Professor Michael Kyobe (right)

Professor van Belle then went to India where he presented a joint paper with Dr Margam Madhusudhan, a research collaborator at the University of New Delhi, entitled The use of ICT for Teaching and Learning in South African Higher Education Institutions.

Two colleagues in the department have also made their mark internationally – Professor Michael Kyobe and Professor Irwin Brown.

Professor Michael Kyobe has won an award at the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2009 for his paper The influence of strategy-making types on IT alignment in SMEs. It was published in the Journal of Systems and Information Technology and was selected by the journal’s editorial team as one of three highly commended papers in the past 12 months.

Emma Stevenson of the Emerald Literati Network told Professor Kyobe “Your paper has been selected as it was one of the most impressive pieces of work the team has seen through 2008”.

The purpose of his paper was to evaluate and compare the influence of three strategy-making modes (planned, adaptive and entrepreneurial) on IT-business strategy alignment in SMEs. The methodology he used was to develop empirical research using a questionnaire with. 108 SME owners and managers and the data was analysed using quantitative techniques.

He found that the planned mode provided better results than predicted as it provided better understanding of business and IT objectives and higher growth in sales. The adaptive mode, however, encouraged participation of stakeholders in planning and improved communication and staff productivity while the entrepreneurial mode facilitated immediate revision of plans in organisations operating in a dynamic and competitive environment.

This was the first attempt to investigate the relationship between strategy-making practices and IT alignment in South African SMEs. It provides empirical evidence confirming that these practices influence specific aspects of alignment and performance. SME managers can adopt the approach used to identify practices that ensure better alignment.

Emerald is the world's leading publishers of management research. More than 3 000 University libraries worldwide subscribe to Emerald journal collections. Emerald journals and collections are bought by many of the world’s leading corporations, governments and public bodies. It encourages research excellence in management through several prestigious Emerald Literati Network Awards. These awards recognize the efforts of authors and editors and celebrate the outstanding contributions many have made, not only to the journals, but to the body of knowledge itself.

Meanwhile, a third academic in the department, Professor Irwin Brown, has initiated an important contribution to extend UCT’s footprint across Africa. This followed a workshop to initiate the launch of the Information Systems track of the IT PhD programme at Addis Ababa University (AAU) which was held in March 2008. The workshop included speakers such as Detmar Straub (MIS Quarterly Editor-in-Chief), Rick Watson (leading international IS researcher), and the first PhD graduate from the UCT IS department (in 2002) Alemayehu Molla (an Ethiopian national and now Associate Professor at RMIT University, Melbourne).

According to Professor Brown “I was invited on that occasion to share our experiences here at UCT of having successfully run an IS Doctoral programme as part of our CITANDA (Centre for IT and National Development in Africa) research initiative. The AAU IS Doctoral programme (by coursework and dissertation) finally took off in December 2008 with nine doctoral candidates. I was invited back to Ethiopia in June this year, in order to run one of the core modules for the programme entitled "Systems Thinking and Sustainability". Systems thinking ideas and approaches were explored and practised, and their relevance to IS, sustainability and research in developing countries contexts were comprehensively debated.”


Professor JP Van Belle reached the high peaks of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco