Published Articles

Latest Articles : 2021


The year 2022 marks ten years since the South African government adopted the National Development Plan 2030 (NDP 2012). The Plan is supposed to steer the country's development until 2030. The mantra of the development plan is “Our future - Make it work”. The major objective of the NDP is to “eliminate poverty and reduce inequality by 2030 through uniting South Africans, unleashing the energies of its citizens, growing an inclusive economy, building capabilities, enhancin ...

Read More

2024-Mar-05 11:50:42

The purpose of the research study was to determine the quality of the services provided at Community Information Centres (CIC) in Zimbabwe. The research is premised on Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry's (1998) Gaps model. It used a cross-sectional survey of a purposively selected sample of 475 respondents in three sampled cen ...

Read More

2024-Mar-05 11:27:07

The value-proposition of e-Procurement towards enhancing organisational performance has become an inevitable phenomenon. However, arriving at a decision to acquire an e-Procurement system is not a product of a thumb-sucking exercise. This stems from the fact that acquiring such a system requires a financial injection and also re-alignment of the organisational setup. This is a conceptual article based on content analysis of literature reviewed in the PhD study entitled "Developing e-Proc ...

Read More

2024-Mar-05 11:08:00

In South Africa, technological advancement did not benefit the citizenry as it preferably should in an effective and efficient state. The literature reviewed suggests that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is characterised by controversy, with variations of polarised positions, each advocating an altered view. In his book The Master algorithm, Domingos (2015) states that "people worry that technology will get too smart and take over the world, but the real problem is that they&# ...

Read More

2024-Mar-05 11:03:18

Local government could be regarded as the sphere closest to the people. Essentially this sphere has been given a Constitutional mandate to ensure the provision of services, promote democracy and accountability and encourage community participation in matters of local governance, among others. In this regard, the advent of information and communications technologies (ICT) fundamentally changed the manner in which local government conducts its business. As a result, the researchers assert that ...

Read More

2024-Mar-05 10:59:46

The 4IR is the contemporary unfolding environment in which evolving technologies and developments such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) are changing how private and public entity's function. While the benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) abound in literature, there is scant evidence of risks and challenges in such literature. Drawing on secondary literature sources accessed in academic and grey literature databases using 4IR, innovation, and s ...

Read More

2024-Mar-05 10:34:16

The dawn of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) demands that government departments in South Africa be prepared to adopt ICTs and related digital technologies to achieve smart service delivery. Smart service delivery in government includes leveraging ICT, smart digital technologies, business processes, and models to enhance efficiency in public service delivery. The study draws from the Diffusion of Innovation (DoI) Theory and the Technology Organisation Environment (TOE) framework, which ...

Read More

2024-Mar-05 10:29:44

Innovations are vital in addressing service delivery challenges in South Africa. As the country’s democracy matures, service delivery dissatisfactions remain on the rise, with violent destruction of property that questions participatory governance in the country. This study explores participatory governance innovations in enabling community participation in enhancing service delivery in uMshwathi Local Municipality of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province in South Africa. Through a qualitative r ...

Read More

2024-Mar-05 10:26:07

This article explores the plausibility of using co-production as a local government innovation in South Africa. The exploration conceptualises co-production emerging from the New Public Governance frameworks and as a phenomenon with solid western roots. The authors argue that co-production is a well-meaning innovation that responds to the South African local government aspirations. This study examines co-production’s utility in South Africa, acknowledging the contextual and environmenta ...

Read More

2024-Mar-05 10:22:30

The South African government's goal to achieve an effective and efficient public service that is development-orientated has led it towards a greater focus on innovation. In this context, public servants have been identified as one of the key sources of innovation and are called upon to generate innovative solutions to public service challenges ‒ a practice referred to as intrapreneurship. However, studies on intrapreneurship in South Africa's public service have revealed the lack of ...

Read More

2024-Mar-05 09:24:57

The significance of innovation in improving public value is evident in extensive literature (Bommert, 2010; Hartley, 2005; Damanpour, De Vries, Bekkers, & Tummers, 2015; Osborne & Brown 2011; Walker, 2014; Hartley, Sørensen & Torfing, 2013; Hofisi, 2018, Osborne & Brown, 2011; Sørensen & Torfing, 2011; Newman, Raine, & Skelcher, 2001; Walker & Avellaneda, 2009). It has been argued that innovation improves the effectiveness and efficiency of the public ...

Read More

2024-Mar-05 09:19:40