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Enterprise architecture driven design of an artefact to support strategic Information Technology decision-making of Small Enterprises in Nigeria and South Africa
Information Technology (IT) is inevitably influencing the way enterprises operate, compete, and grow. The contemporary disruption has not excluded small companies. Small enterprises play a significant role in the growth of every economy but are hindered by limited skills, time, and money. The attrib...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Department of Information Systems
2018
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| _version_ | 1867611339261739008 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Alhassan, Mohammed |
| author2 | Brown, Irwin |
| author_browse | Alhassan, Mohammed Brown, Irwin |
| author_facet | Brown, Irwin Alhassan, Mohammed |
| author_sort | Alhassan, Mohammed |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Information Technology (IT) is inevitably influencing the way enterprises operate, compete, and grow. The contemporary disruption has not excluded small companies. Small enterprises play a significant role in the growth of every economy but are hindered by limited skills, time, and money. The attributes of small enterprises influence the strategic and day-to-day operations. Small enterprise owners are often the managers who make the strategic decisions in order to solve specific problems. The decision style of small enterprise owner-managers limits the leveraging of IT. To ensure the sustainability of small enterprises in a contemporary business ecosystem, it is pertinent to strategise IT investment decisions. Enterprise architecture is a well-known approach to business and IT alignment. This study aimsto discover and develop how the complex enterprise architecture principles can strategise the IT decisionmaking process in small enterprises with limited resources and informal structures. The pragmatic philosophic stance was the premise for understanding the decision challenges and the development of a roadmap to intervene the problems the researcher identified. The Vaishnavi and Kuechler design science research methodology guided this study. The qualitative research approach was employed to collect verbal data with eleven small enterprise ownermanagers to understand the processes and the challenges of making IT decision in small enterprises. A thematic analysis of the findings revealed that lack of formalisation, limited information, and lack of IT skill created a critical bottleneck of IT investment decisions in small enterprises. An enterprise architecture-driven framework was developed to overcome the bounded rationality approach to IT choices in small enterprises. The framework holistically assesses organisational business-IT capabilities, constraints, and criteria to guide the decisionmaker's choice. The characteristics of small enterprises limit the successful implementation of the enterprise architecture-driven framework as a theoretical guideline for making optimal IT decisions in small enterprises. This study further developed an online IT decision-assistive tool informed by the framework. The instantiation artefact was demonstrated with six small enterprise owners from Nigeria and South Africa. The findings affirmed the prospect, potential, and relevance of an enterprise architecture-driven artefact as a tool to optimise strategic IT decisions in small manufacturing, service, and retail enterprises. The artefact developed in this study provided a practical intervention to the challenges of IT investment decisions in small enterprises. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/28345 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publishDateRange | 2018 |
| publishDateSort | 2018 |
| publisher | Department of Information Systems |
| publisherStr | Department of Information Systems |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/28345 Enterprise architecture driven design of an artefact to support strategic Information Technology decision-making of Small Enterprises in Nigeria and South Africa Alhassan, Mohammed Brown, Irwin Information Technology IT contemporary business ecosystem small enterprise Information Technology (IT) is inevitably influencing the way enterprises operate, compete, and grow. The contemporary disruption has not excluded small companies. Small enterprises play a significant role in the growth of every economy but are hindered by limited skills, time, and money. The attributes of small enterprises influence the strategic and day-to-day operations. Small enterprise owners are often the managers who make the strategic decisions in order to solve specific problems. The decision style of small enterprise owner-managers limits the leveraging of IT. To ensure the sustainability of small enterprises in a contemporary business ecosystem, it is pertinent to strategise IT investment decisions. Enterprise architecture is a well-known approach to business and IT alignment. This study aimsto discover and develop how the complex enterprise architecture principles can strategise the IT decisionmaking process in small enterprises with limited resources and informal structures. The pragmatic philosophic stance was the premise for understanding the decision challenges and the development of a roadmap to intervene the problems the researcher identified. The Vaishnavi and Kuechler design science research methodology guided this study. The qualitative research approach was employed to collect verbal data with eleven small enterprise ownermanagers to understand the processes and the challenges of making IT decision in small enterprises. A thematic analysis of the findings revealed that lack of formalisation, limited information, and lack of IT skill created a critical bottleneck of IT investment decisions in small enterprises. An enterprise architecture-driven framework was developed to overcome the bounded rationality approach to IT choices in small enterprises. The framework holistically assesses organisational business-IT capabilities, constraints, and criteria to guide the decisionmaker's choice. The characteristics of small enterprises limit the successful implementation of the enterprise architecture-driven framework as a theoretical guideline for making optimal IT decisions in small enterprises. This study further developed an online IT decision-assistive tool informed by the framework. The instantiation artefact was demonstrated with six small enterprise owners from Nigeria and South Africa. The findings affirmed the prospect, potential, and relevance of an enterprise architecture-driven artefact as a tool to optimise strategic IT decisions in small manufacturing, service, and retail enterprises. The artefact developed in this study provided a practical intervention to the challenges of IT investment decisions in small enterprises. 2018-08-30T06:44:07Z 2018-08-30T06:44:07Z 2018 2018-08-08T12:31:58Z Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/11427/28345 eng application/pdf Department of Information Systems Faculty of Commerce University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Information Technology IT contemporary business ecosystem small enterprise Alhassan, Mohammed Enterprise architecture driven design of an artefact to support strategic Information Technology decision-making of Small Enterprises in Nigeria and South Africa |
| title | Enterprise architecture driven design of an artefact to support strategic Information Technology decision-making of Small Enterprises in Nigeria and South Africa |
| title_full | Enterprise architecture driven design of an artefact to support strategic Information Technology decision-making of Small Enterprises in Nigeria and South Africa |
| title_fullStr | Enterprise architecture driven design of an artefact to support strategic Information Technology decision-making of Small Enterprises in Nigeria and South Africa |
| title_full_unstemmed | Enterprise architecture driven design of an artefact to support strategic Information Technology decision-making of Small Enterprises in Nigeria and South Africa |
| title_short | Enterprise architecture driven design of an artefact to support strategic Information Technology decision-making of Small Enterprises in Nigeria and South Africa |
| title_sort | enterprise architecture driven design of an artefact to support strategic information technology decision making of small enterprises in nigeria and south africa |
| topic | Information Technology IT contemporary business ecosystem small enterprise |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/28345 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT alhassanmohammed enterprisearchitecturedrivendesignofanartefacttosupportstrategicinformationtechnologydecisionmakingofsmallenterprisesinnigeriaandsouthafrica |