The Application of a Business Intelligence Tool for Service Delivery Improvement: the Case of South Africa
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COPYRIGHT AND CITATION CONSIDERATIONS FOR THIS THESIS/ DISSERTATION o Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. o NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. o ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. How to cite this thesis Surname, Initial(s). (2012). Title of the thesis or dissertation (Doctoral Thesis / Master’s Dissertation). Johannesburg: University of Johannesburg. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/102000/0002 (Accessed: 22 August 2017). The application of a business intelligence tool for service delivery improvement: The case of South Africa Nelson Sizwe Madonsela 201336261 Supervisor: Professor B Twala Co-Supervisor: Professor J Pretorius A project report in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy (DPhil) in Engineering Management in the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment at the Postgraduate School of Engineering Management at the University of Johannesburg PERMISSION TO COPY THIS REPORT In presenting this report in fulfilment of the requirement for a degree at the University of Johannesburg, I agree that permission for extensive copying of this report for scholarly purposes may be granted by the head of my department or by his or her representatives. It is understood that copying or publication of this report for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. 02 January 2020 Nelson Sizwe Madonsela Date __________________________________________ Postgraduate School of Engineering Management Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment The University of Johannesburg APB Campus P O Box 524 Auckland Park 2006 Johannesburg South Africa ii DECLARATION I, Nelson Sizwe Madonsela, do hereby conscientiously declare that the thesis entitled: The application of a business intelligence tool for service delivery improvement: The case of South Africa, submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the PhD (Engineering Management) at the University of Johannesburg, is solely my own work, and that sources that I have used or quoted have been indicated and accordingly acknowledged by means of complete references, and that this thesis has not been submitted before for any other degree at any institution. 02 January 2020 Nelson Sizwe Madonsela Date iii DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my dearest mother, Gugulakhe Nkambule, and my stepfather, Alphios Maseko, for their love and support. In addition, to my dearest grandmother, Trimphinah Nkambule, for her unconditional love, mentorship, coaching, guidance and understanding support over the past four decades. Moreover, to my dearest late sisters, Thuli Maseko and Norah Mngwenya, may their souls rest in peace. Lastly, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my late grandfathers and grandmother, who prepared me for this journey and raised me to be the man I have become, Mr Solomon Madonsela, Mr Johannes Nkambule, and Mrs Nomvula Madonsela. Thank you all. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my mentor, coach and supervisor, Professor Bhekisipho Twala, for his professional academic guidance and mentorship during this endeavour. Also, I would like to acknowledge my co-supervisor, Professor Jan-Harm Pretorius, for his contribution and guidance. To my editors, Susan Hall and Dr Noleen Loubser, thank you so much for your outstanding service. I would also like to express my deepest appreciation to my peers and brothers, Prof Daniel Maduku and Dr Adelino Chissale. I am also grateful to my friends, Nobuhle Mkhabela, Kenneth Malinga, Nina Thabethe, Percy Mathebula, Dali Mahaye, Bayanda Mahaye, Dr Jabu Ngobe and others, for their moral support, which made it easier for me to conduct this study. I would like to single out my sponsor, MerSeta, for the DPhil scholarship, which made it possible for me to complete my studies successfully, as well as Ms Dudu Mbatha from the University of Johannesburg Postgraduate Centre. Moreover, thanks to MerSeta for your investment in the University of Johannesburg and students like me, who hope to make a difference to the youth of South Africa and society as a whole. Equally, I hope you will continue to give back to the University of Johannesburg by helping other students to achieve their educational goals. I’m so grateful for your support toward this endeavour. My appreciation also goes to Mr Rueben Mabeo and Ms Margaret Tleane, for sharing their expertise on service delivery interventions. In addition, my grateful thanks go to Dr Victor Motlhale and Dr Zuki Ndudane- Motlhale, my God-given parents. I would also like to thank my spiritual father and my spiritual mother Pastor Felix and Pastor Hester Okoh, for their spiritual mentorship and prayers – I’m grateful. v Finally, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to my family for their endless prayers. Without them I would not be where I am today. vi ARTICLES FOR PUBLICATION BASED ON THE THESIS 1. Madonsela, N. S., Mbecke, P., Mbohwa, C. (2015). Integrating Artificial Intelligence into Data Warehousing and Data Mining. Proceedings of the International Conference on Machine Learning and Data Analysis. World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science, 2015, San Francisco, USA, 21- 23 October 2015. 2. Madonsela, N. S. Sobiyi, K., Twala, B. (2017). Managing operations in complex economic environments. Proceedings of the 19th Annual International Conference of Global Business and Technology Association (GBATA), Vienna, Austria July 11-15, 2017. 3. Madonsela, N., S. Twala, B., Mbohwa, C. (2016). The relative impact of best practices on a business process. Proceedings of the 18th Annual International Conference of Global Business and Technology Association (GBATA), Dubai, U.A.E, October 16-20, 2016. 4. Madonsela, N., S. Sobiyi, K., Twala, B. (2017). Competitive Business Intelligence and Analytics Systems: A strategy for the SME organizations. Proceedings of the 19th Annual International Conference of Global Business and Technology Association (GBATA), Vienna, Austria July 11-15, 2017. 5. Madonsela, N. S., Twala, B., Pretorius, J. (2019). The use of Twitter Sentiment Analysis for service delivery interventions. International Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems (IJCIS). In progress vii ABSTRACT The global environment requires organisations to adapt and respond quickly to the complexity of its nature. Responding to such an environment depends on real-time information. In the last decade, organisations have relied much on human expertise to extract and analyse and process data into meaningful information for decision making. Many will probably agree with the assertion that the complexity of the globalisation has led to a complexity in modern data analysis, which encompasses different elements (technology and innovation, internet of things and influx of data to name but few), resulting in modern scientific problems. It is evident that organisational knowledge has become the enabling factor for decision-making in both the private and public sector. Yet, the study of the opinion that the advancement of technology and internet of things has complicated matters further for humankind to interpret complex and vast amounts of data at the speed required to keep up with the demands of the global environment in which they operate. Therefore, it is likely that the discovered knowledge may be inaccurate at times. In responding to these dynamics, organisations require computational intelligence systems to transform the data they acquire into real-time meaningful information in order to make informed decisions. The philosophical thinking of this study is that the application of business intelligence (BI) tools can result in better decision-making in an organisation and can enhance the organisation’s performance and competitiveness. For the public sector, making decisions is complicated and yet well-informed decisions are vital if citizens are to be provided with better public services. Inadequate decisions might result in poor service delivery leading to dissatisfied citizens, and to consequent unnecessary protests. Recently, the South African public service has implemented online platforms such as a website, Twitter account and Facebook page to gather feedback from citizens pertaining to service delivery, with the notion that analysing all the complaints and requests will enable them to redress the issues that have led to public protests in the past. viii With this in mind, the purpose of this study is to explore how business intelligence tools can enhance decision-making and service performance in the South African public service through the gathering of views of citizens in support of service delivery interventions. Additionally, the study aims to provide insights into the benefits of using social media for citizen engagement and Twitter data to gather citizens’ sentiments to measure public service delivery performance since the South African government has provided the Twitter platform for citizens’ engagement pertaining services delivery feedback. A scientometric analysis of the progression of BI as a field was conducted, which led to the discovery of the study domain of information systems (IS). Additionally, the study observed that the nature or research paradigm is a design science paradigm