1,720,958 research outputs found
A conceptual framework to enhance performance in virtual information technology project teams
No full textAbstract: The globalisation of business and markets is growing rapidly and information and communication technologies (ICT) are developing at a very fast pace. This has resulted in the emergence and formation of virtual project teams, also referred to as global project teams. Virtual project teams have increased global competitiveness as well as investments in several types of projects in manufacturing, telecommunications, information technology, engineering, financial services and construction, and are used as a means of enhancing team performance. From this globalisation of business and markets, virtual project teams are now operating within the boundaries of the operational requirements of the team members. This allows for flexibility of working from anywhere without restrictions imposed by geographical boundaries, differences in time zones and heavily relying on communication technologies. The aim of this study was to develop a conceptual framework to improve the performance of virtual project teams, which information technology (IT) project managers can use to better understand how teams can be managed. The quantitative research methodology was employed in this study to collect data using an online questionnaire and the data was analysed using statistical methods. This research methodology allowed the researcher to explore this phenomenon in greater depth. The purposive sampling method (non-probability) was adopted for this study. The key findings of this research are that the following factors improve the performance of virtual IT project teams in South Africa: communication, good leadership, trust, social interaction, team cooperation and commitment. The research further reveals that there is a strong correlation between these factors; hence the factors identified were all essential for the development of the conceptual framework.Ph.D. (Informatics
The impact of blockchain technology on information technology governance
Get PDFAbstract : This dissertation forms a hypothesis that Blockchain technology is giving rise to a new form of enterprise IT governance. Blockchain is a computational design that first emerged as the technology underpinning the popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Despite its use in cryptocurrency, it has an array of different use cases that may significantly impact the global economy. Some areas that Blockchain will affect were never truly re-engineered by the internet era, namely Economics and Governance. This dissertation is a qualitative exploration and analysis of blockchain’s impact on Information Technology Governance. The research unpacks these implications by comparing governance in hierarchical organisations and decentralised autonomous organisations. The primary data is attained through a questionnaire and the secondary data from a case study. The research contains two literature reviews on Blockchain and IT governance. The primary finding of this research reveals that although conventional IT Governance will still be used in the future, fifty percent of the sentiments shared by subject matter experts indicate that unconventional governance will take precedence with decentralised autonomous organisations. This implies that changes in traditional governance frameworks may be required in the future.M.Com. (Information Technology Management
The influence of organizational culture and project management maturity in virtual project teams
Get PDFAbstract: The growth of organisations and businesses have resulted in the organisations having offices in different geographical areas. The partnerships of different organisations have caused them to create a team that is not situated in one area. A virtual project team is one where the project team is located in different geographical areas and rely on technology for communication. Different factors can affect the performance of the virtual team. The aim of this article was to find the level of influence that the organisational culture and the project management maturity of an organisation has on virtual project team. The quantitative research methodology was used in the research. An online survey was used as the data collection tool. The google forms application and the Microsoft excel software were used for the data analysis of the feedback from the participants taking part in the research. The results of the research indicate that organisational culture has an influence in the virtual project performance and that the elimination of project management maturity affects the success of the virtual project negatively
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Information technology governance in decentralised autonomous organisations
Get PDFAbstract: This paper explores the implications of decentralized autonomous organisations by examining a Blockchain operating system for collective intelligence called DAOStack. This technology may affect the role of IT directors in the future because it provides ways to effectively automate governance practices. The paper details a comparative analysis of decision-making factors in hierarchical organisations and decentralized autonomous organisations. The study suggests that although these modern organisations facilitate collaboration and decision making for directors, it is recommended that directors lean more toward influence-oriented skills as opposed to traditional control-based governance approaches. This can be done by making use of tacit knowledge, acting as the facilitators and relinquishing certain aspects of traditional powers and authority to the community
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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