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The authors study how cloud adoption decision making unfolds in organizations and present the dynamic process leading to a decision to adopt or reject cloud computing. The authors thus complement earlier literature on factors that influence cloud adoption.

The authors adopt an interpretive epistemology to understand the process of cloud adoption decision making. Following an empirical investigation drawing on interviews with senior managers who led the cloud adoption decision making in organizations from across Europe. The authors outline a framework that shows how cloud adoptions follow multiple cycles in three broad phases.

The study findings demonstrate that cloud adoption decision making is a recursive process of learning about cloud through three broad phases: building perception about cloud possibilities, contextualizing cloud possibilities in terms of current computing resources and exposing the cloud proposition to others involved in making the decision. Building on these findings, the authors construct a framework of this process which can inform practitioners in making decisions on cloud adoption.

This work contributes to authors understanding of how cloud adoption decisions unfold and provides a framework for cloud adoption decisions that has theoretical and practical value. The study further demonstrates the role of the decision-leader, typically the CIO, in this process and identifies how other internal and external stakeholders are involved. It sheds light on the relevance of the phases of the cloud adoption decision-making process to different cloud adoption factors identified in the extant literature.

This paper seeks to consider the collaborative efforts of developing a grid computing infrastructure within problem‐focused, distributed and multi‐disciplinary projects – which the authors term interventionist grid development projects – involving commercial, academic and public collaborators. Such projects present distinctive challenges which have been neglected by existing escience research and information systems (IS) literature. The paper aims to define a research framework for understanding and evaluating the social, political and collaborative challenges of such projects.

The paper develops a research framework which extends Orlikowski and Gash's concept of technological frames to consider two additional frames specific to such grid projects; bureaucratic frames and collaborator frames. These are used to analyse a case study of a grid development project within Healthcare which aimed to deploy a European data‐grid of medical images to facilitate collaboration and communication between clinicians across the European Union.

That grids are shaped to a significant degree by the collaborative practices involved in their construction, and that for projects involving commercial and public partners such collaboration is inhibited by the differing interpretive frames adopted by the different relevant groups.

The paper is limited by the nature of the grid development project studied, and the subsequent availability of research subjects.

The paper provides those involved in such projects, or in policy around such grid developments, with a practical framework by which to evaluate collaborations and their impact on the emergent grid. Further, the paper presents lessons for future such Interventionist grid projects.

This is a new area for research but one which is becoming increasingly important as data‐intensive computing begins to emerge as foundational to many collaborative sciences and enterprises. The work builds on significant literature in escience and IS drawing into this new domain. The research framework developed here, drawn from the IS literature, begins a new stream of systems development research with a distinct focus on bureaucracy, collaboration and technology within such interventionist grid development projects.

In his 2006 State of the Nation Address, President Thabo Mbeki indicated that the regulatory environment for small businesses would be improved, as this sector plays an important role in the national strategy for accelerated and shared growth. The aim of this study is to determine whether the size of an enterprise and the sector in which the enterprise operates has an impact on how the enterprise’s tax responsibilities are administered and managed. A survey was conducted amongst small and medium enterprises in the manufacturing, retail and business services sectors in Gauteng. The study focused on Gauteng because the majority of small, medium and microenterprises (SMMEs) are located in this province. The study found that most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the business services sector outsource their tax responsibilities because they lack the time needed to manage these functions. It was also found that the size and type of organisation affects the role taxation inputs play in business decisions. The SMEs included in the survey preferred a reduction in interest and penalties charged as a taxation relief measure.

Although cloud computing has been heralded as driving the innovation agenda, there is growing evidence that cloud computing is actually a “slow train coming”. The purpose of this paper is to seek to understand the factors that drive and inhibit the adoption of cloud computing, particularly in relation to its use for innovative practices.

The paper draws on a composite research base including two detailed surveys and interviews with 56 participants in the cloud supply chain undertaken between 2010 and 2013. The insights from this data are presented in relation to set of antecedents to innovation and a cloud sourcing model of collaborative innovation.

The paper finds that while some features of cloud computing will hasten the adoption of cloud, and its use for innovative purposes by the enterprise, there are also clear challenges that need to be addressed before cloud can be adopted successfully. Interestingly, the analysis highlights that many of these challenges arise from the technological nature of cloud computing itself.

The research highlights a series of factors that need to be better understood for the maximum benefit from cloud computing to be achieved. Further research is needed to assess the best responses to these challenges.

The research suggests that enterprises need to undertake a number of steps for the full benefits of cloud computing to be achieved. It suggests that collaborative innovation is not necessarily an immediate consequence of adopting cloud computing.

The paper draws on an extensive research base to provide empirically informed analysis of the complexities of adopting cloud computing for innovation.

South African companies have, in the past, not recognised an asset for unused Secondary Tax on Companies (“STC”) credits. AC 501, Accounting for “Secondary Tax on Companies (STC)”, which is effective for annual periods beginning on or after 1 January 2004, now requires South African companies to recognise a deferred tax asset for unused STC credits, to the extent that it is probable that an entity will declare dividends of its own, against which the unused STC credits can be utilised. In terms of AC 501 and IAS 12 (AC 102), Income Taxes (the local and international accounting standard on income taxes), the recognition of a liability to pay STC has to be postponed until the declaration of a dividend. Some accounting commentators have indicated that they find it anomalous to recognise a deferred tax asset in respect of unused STC credits, while no liability is recognised for the STC that would be payable on the future distribution of retained earnings. The objective of the study is to consider whether it is conceptually anomalous to recognise a deferred tax asset for unused STC credits while no liability is raised for the STC that would become payable on future dividend declarations on profits already recognised in the financial statements. The study concludes that it is conceptually anomalous to recognise a deferred tax asset for unused STC credits when no corresponding liability is raised.

The high occurrence of procurement fraud requires the management of an enterprise, the risk manager of the enterprise and the internal auditor to address procurement fraud risks effectively within the enterprise risk management concept. The purpose of the article is to explain a procurement fraud risk management process which will serve as a comprehensive framework for enterprise risk managers and for internal auditors to limit the enterprise’s exposure to procurement fraud as far as possible. The study by Venter (2005) on which the article is based proposes a procurement fraud risk matrix which can be used to manage fraud risks within the procurement function efficiently. This matrix is based on the Committee of Supporting Organizations of the Treadway Commission’s (COSO’s) Enterprise Risk Management ‐Integrated Framework which is specifically applied to address the procurement fraud risk problem.

The current chapter presents a qualitative analysis of the emotional and substantive content of 300 vents found on public job-related venting web sites. We leverage the related yet distinct literatures on venting, complaining, expressive writing, and computer-mediated communication to gain insight into how employees understand, communicate, and try to manage emotional experiences at work through these types of outlets. We found that employees vent about mistreatment by others, others’ incompetence or laziness, inequity, under-stimulation, and broader economic trends. In doing so, they often express anger in extreme forms involving profanity, personal attacks, and desires for retribution.

Take a look at eight people behind the eight ball.

In his 2006 State of the Nation Address, President Thabo Mbeki indicated that the regulatory environment for small businesses would be improved, as this sector plays an important role in the national strategy for accelerated and shared growth. The aim of this study is to determine whether the size of an enterprise and the sector in which the enterprise operates has an impact on how the enterprise’s tax responsibilities are administered and managed. A survey was conducted amongst small and medium enterprises in the manufacturing, retail and business services sectors in Gauteng. The study focused on Gauteng because the majority of small, medium and microenterprises (SMMEs) are located in this province. The study found that most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the business services sector outsource their tax responsibilities because they lack the time needed to manage these functions. It was also found that the size and type of organisation affects the role taxation inputs play in business decisions. The SMEs included in the survey preferred a reduction in interest and penalties charged as a taxation relief measure.

Synthetic biology begins with the underlying assumption that life and life forms can be divided into parts and reassembled or redesigned according to the whims of their creators. Therefore, synthetic biology needs to be at the centre of ethical thinking since it engages the very concept of life and radically changes it. In this paper, we will investigate the phenomenon of synthetic biology through an ethical analysis of the unfulfilled promises and potential perils surrounding this technology. The paper consists of four parts. In the first part, we will deal with the problem of defining synthetic biology since it is a field in which many scientific disciplines meet and intertwine. The second part will present a brief history of systemic biology and the groundbreaking creation of Synthia, the first synthetic organism. The third part focuses on synthetic biology's potential benefits and some prominent ethical issues. In the fourth part, we will point out the problem of synthetic biology regulation. In conclusion, we will highlight the essential ethical remarks on synthetic biology and provide the impetus for further ethical debate.