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THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT WITHIN THE SOFTWARE INDUSTRY OF THE WESTERN CAPE (SOUTH AFRICA) by Michael John Norman A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Science Department of Computer Science UNIVERSITY OF THE WESTERN CAPE Supervisor: Professor IM Venter Co-supervisor: Professor JM Blackledge Cape Town March 2016 Declaration of Authorship I declare that The strategic role of software development within the software industry of the Western Cape (South Africa) is my own work, that it has not been submitted for any degree or examination in any other university, and that all the sources I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by complete references. Signed: Date: 15 March 2016 ii Abstract Africa’s mobile phone penetration has surpassed that of the United States of America and information communication technologies, according to the World Bank, contribute more to its gross domestic product than the global average. What has been the enabling environment for the development of software and mobile applications to sustain this information revolution? India, an affiliate of the family of economic nations consisting of Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa, has enjoyed remarkable success as a software developing country and thus could provide some guidelines in this respect. Ireland on the other hand, as a developed country, has also established a successful software industry. In this thesis, the key initiatives taken by both India and Ireland to establish their software industries were investigated. A grounded research approach, incorporating case studies of India, Ireland and South Africa, using a content analysis approach, was used to analyse cited literature about software development in these countries. India’s approach, which includes enabling policies, economic incentives, educational and human resource initiatives, attracting outsourced businesses from other countries and a combination of government and industry initiatives, has contributed to its software industry’s success. Ireland’s approach was industry initiatives, policies, software products and educational developments. Since India and South Africa share similar challenges and Ireland and South Africa have a common heritage, the initiatives by India and Ireland were juxtaposed with known initiatives in South Africa to determine what initiatives are needed for potential success of the software industry in the Western Cape region and in developing countries beyond. A better understanding of the software industry in the Western Cape Province of South Africa and the views of software practitioners in the region has been formulated. Recommendations on what needs to be done to promote the software industry in the Western Cape Province in terms of policy (local, provincial and national government), educational (school, tertiary), practice and other criteria are presented. iii Keywords: software industry, software development, software engineering, information technology, information technology policy, software engineering education, computing profession, computing societies, grounded theory, content analysis iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank all who encouraged me and contributed to the successful completion of this thesis: to my supervisors Prof Isabella Venter and Prof Jonathan Blackledge for their inspirational guidance; Prof Renette Blignaut for her helpful advice; Prof Andy Bytheway and Mr Reg Dodds for help and assistance; Ms Ann Bytheway for proofreading; University of the Western Cape for sabbatical time; the National Research Foundation for sabbatical financial support; my wife Patsy and my sons for their support; for all who kept me in their prayers and to God for the strength and health. v Table of Contents List of Figures .................................................................................................. ix List of Tables .................................................................................................... x List of Abbreviations ........................................................................................ xi Chapter 1 Statement and Analysis of the Problem ............................................ 1 1.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Research problem .......................................................................................... 6 1.3 Research framework ...................................................................................... 7 1.4 Research design and methodology ............................................................... 8 1.5 Original contribution of this research thesis ................................................. 8 1.6 The IT skills shortage crisis ............................................................................. 9 1.7 Work-based learning .................................................................................... 10 1.8 Curriculum relevance ................................................................................... 10 1.9 Summary and organization of the thesis..................................................... 12 Chapter 2 Software Engineering History ......................................................... 13 2.1 Brief history of Software Engineering ......................................................... 13 2.1.1 The early years ...................................................................................... 13 2.1.2 The modern years ................................................................................. 14 2.2 The computer industry................................................................................. 15 2.3 The software industry and the role of the United States ........................... 17 2.3.1 Prior to 1965. ........................................................................................ 17 2.3.2 Period after 1965 .................................................................................. 18 2.4 Summary....................................................................................................... 18 Chapter 3 Literature Review ........................................................................... 19 3.1 The software industry .................................................................................. 19 3.1.1 The software crisis and the emergence of Software Engineering ....... 19 3.1.2 Software Engineering ........................................................................... 20 3.1.3 Software development ......................................................................... 21 3.1.4 Certification........................................................................................... 21 3.2 Information Technology ............................................................................... 22 3.2.1 Gartner’s nexus of forces ...................................................................... 22 3.2.2 Cloud computing ................................................................................... 22 3.2.3 Mobile computing ................................................................................. 22 3.2.4 Big data ................................................................................................. 23 3.2.5 Social networks ..................................................................................... 23 3.2.6 End user computing .............................................................................. 23 3.2.7 Information and communication technology policies ......................... 24 3.2.8 Legal aspects of computing .................................................................. 24 3.3 Education and curriculum ............................................................................ 24 3.4 The computing profession ........................................................................... 25 3.4.1 Computing societies .............................................................................. 26 vi 3.5 Other software related surveys ................................................................... 27 3.6 Software development survey results from ITWeb .................................... 27 3.6.1 Learning’s from the ITWeb software development survey: ................ 27 3.7 Chief information officer survey results from ITWeb ................................. 28 3.7.1 Learning’s from the ITWeb chief information officer survey:.............. 28 3.8 Summary....................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 4 Research Design and Methodology ................................................. 30 4.1 Epistemology ................................................................................................ 30 4.1.1 Constructionism .................................................................................... 30 4.2 Theoretical perspective................................................................................ 31 4.2.1 Critical inquiry ....................................................................................... 31 4.3 Research methodology ................................................................................ 32 4.3.1 Grounded theory ................................................................................... 32 4.4 Methods ......................................................................................................