Browsing by Author "Muganda, Nixon O"

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    THE E-GOVERNMENT ARTIFACT IN THE CONTEXT OF A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: TOWARDS A NOMADIC FRAMEWORK
    (2009) Muganda, Nixon O
    This thesis is concerned with exploring alternative conceptualizations of the e-government artifact relevant to developing countries in Africa. The premise is that e-government, as an artifact of human conception, remains relatively poorly developed at the levels of theory, methodologies and practice. The investigation is focused on two problematic areas of e-government: its conceptualization and its operationalization as an artifact. There is evidence to suggest that conceptualization of e-government takes place at various levels : international, national, local. The thesis therefore explores how e- government is taking form by focusing on the following research question: "How is the e-government artifact conceptualized in the context of a developing country"? The analysis draws on various perspectives; some of which are grounded on empirical results of the study, while others are based on an analysis of literature. Under the alienating conditions of social exclusion, the emergent e-government artifact emerges as an evolving and technical artifact, with strong managerialist orientations of augmenting and reinforcing central governments control over its polity . To achieve this defining logic, the focus or ideology for addressing the social problem of governance is that of information Taylorism with an emphasis on economic rationality and some form of political rationality. Two consequences are highlighted: • an evolution of public administration towards a technocracy, and • increasing the efficiency of the bureaucracy through managerialization. To address the shortcomings of this artifact concept, the study further presents literature and insights from prior analyses to underpin a nomadic e-government model for building information infrastructures (NECE Framework). The emphasis of the framework is on the need to adopt long term organizing visions in building these infrastructures by focusing on using the existing installed base as a foundation. The nomadic framework, anchored on strong modular design borrowed from an information infrastructure perspective, is clustered around three major layers of building confident local communities ; building nomadic networks of governance and building flexible infrastructures . The 'glue', cementing these layers elevates a critical need for building social, human, digital and physical resources targeting the individuals, various organizing forms and formal institutions, services and physical infrastructure respectively. Such an approach to building an e-government information infrastructure is postulated to minimize the unintended negative social implications of its adoption.
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    Evaluating Creative Mobile Applications Development Using Emotional Design
    (2014) Muganda, Nixon O
    In this research paper, we adopt an integrative view of user involvement in software development; where, a user's psychological state, at various phases of development, is linked to the contribution of user involvement in the success of software development. We explore the link between creativity and emotional design in order to evolve a conceptual framework for studying creativity in the fast growing area of mobile applications (apps) development. Action research, which is regarded as participatory, emancipatory and contextual, was adopted in this study. The study used a case study design and a survey of 1,502 students registered for a first year course in Management Information Systems at a large urban University in South Africa. Results from this study found that for app development to be more creative and innovative, emotional design should be part of the broader process of improving requirements engineering in Information Systems Development (ISD). We also found that in situations where emotional feedback is genuine, requirements engineering problems related to the "misinformation effect" common in ISD can be minimized. The third claim we affirm stronger is how users in ISD play a closer role as co-developers of mobile apps in order to realize true creativity and innovativeness. This study further demonstrated how subjective feelings in ISD can be evaluated using visual artifacts such as the Emocard
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    Evaluating Creative Mobile Applications Development Using Emotional Design
    (2014) Muganda, Nixon O; Villiers, Carina De; Twinomurinzi, Hossana; Pretorius, Jaco
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    Linking Reasoning to Theoretical Argument in Information Systems Research
    (2013) Muganda, Nixon O
    This paper looks at the application of theory in research by linking theory use to reasoning and the influence of paradigms. The paper relies on how theory is conceptualized in the philosophy of science and an argument is advanced that theoretical reasoning is the basis of logic in the research process. Theoretical reasoning, which we consider as a social, interactive, goal-directed tool of persuasion for creating scientific knowledge, is considered as the precursor to argumentation typically visible in research products such as journal papers, theses, dissertations, working papers as well as public debates and arguments. Argumentation is then linked to the various reasoning modes: abduction, deduction, induction and retroduction. The function of theory in the various modes of reasoning is highlighted and examples provided.
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    National culture and organizational capabilities of IT offshoring services in Kenya
    (2013) Muganda, Nixon O; Fadhili, Athman
    The pervasive adoption of outsourced information technology (IT) services has made the multi-billion dollar information technology outsourcing industry become important to individual organizations and governments as well. IT offshoring elevates the importance of country destination where services are outsourced to with increasing attention shifting to offshore destinations in Africa. African countries are emerging as offshore destinations because they are regarded as low cost regions, while the traditional ‘captive’ destinations such as India and China are becoming middle income and thus with increasing cost levels. To examine the influence of organization capability and national cultures in offshoring success, a case study was used and theoretical thematic analysis employed. From the analysis, this study recommends a framework dubbed the renewal, credibility and sensitivity (RCS) framework. The critical dimensions revolve around the need for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) firms to enhance their capabilities through organizational renewal; countries to enhance their competitiveness through development of their national credibility; while global stakeholders should recognize that there is a need for development of intercultural competence, not only from vendor perspectives, but also from client organizations. The framework recognizes that the key drivers that underlie the development of offshoring success include the need to build organizational capability, positive convergence of country factor conditions and enhancing intercultural competence
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    A Proposed Framework for E-Government Knowledge Infrastructures for Africa’s Transition Economies
    (2010) Muganda, Nixon O; Belle, Jean-Paul Van
    This paper proposes an empirically founded framework for building E-Government knowledge infrastructures in transition economies such as those in Africa. The proposed framework builds on the concepts of nomadic information environments. The f ramework, under the acronym NECE (Nomadic E- Government Co-Evolutionary) framework, caters for th e three levels of government: national, regional and local. At the national level lies the responsib ility of building Flexible Infrastructures. The regi onal level concentrates on the creation of nomadic netwo rks. The local level addresses the fostering of confident communities. The framework recognizes expl icitly the links and dependencies between the various levels. The strength of the framework is its systemic view in recognizing the roles of social, human resources, digital and physical resources requi red for addressing the possible social exclusion resulting from traditional “Western style” E-Govern ment implementations in developing countries. Importantly, e-government should not be conceptualize d primarily as from a technological perspective but as a tool to build of social, human, digital and physical resources in order to empower individuals, communities and whole societies
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    Sustainability of e-participation through mobile technologies
    (2013) Muganda, Nixon O; Mawela, Tendani
    The social sustainability of ICT for development projects such as e-government in developing nations remains a challenging issue. Particularly pertinent to the concept of e-government is that of electronic participation (e-participation) of citizens in services offered over an e-government platform, yet studies claim that such initiatives exacerbate social exclusion problem. Globally, and specifically in Africa, the ineffective participation of citizens is marked by waning confidence in service delivery capabilities of political institutions, yet e-government is considered as one of the reform instruments for the attainment of good governance. Governments and pressure groups in many countries are realizing that these trends are problematic, and are seeking to broaden and deepen citizen participation in governance, notably through the use of mobile technologies that continues to play a vital role in the trajectory of ICT development in Africa. This study advances the prominent role that mobile technology will play in anchoring e-participation strategies and policies to improve the social sustainability of ICT4D projects geared towards improving governance. The paper presents the results of cluster analysis of a South African survey aimed at assessing the accessibility, attitudes and the skills necessary for embedding mobile technology as part of an e-participation strategy. The results indicate that, despite the predominant perception that socially excluded groups typically lack the skills, equitable access and the right attitudes for e-inclusion mobile technology provides a viable platform for enhancing e-participation. The results also highlighted skepticism related to the potential of mobile technology in augmenting government services. Our analysis revealed that the skepticism is partly linked to aspects of electronic illiteracy. We therefore recommend that for e-government to achieve long term sustainability there should be a focus on electronic literacy in the formal educational sphere and also in work practices.
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