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UNIVERSITY OF GHANA 
 
 
PRELIMINARY INSIGHTS INTO RESEARCH MOTIVATIONS OF 
AFRICAN INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCHERS  
 
BY 
DESMOND ATEH LARKAI 
(10419411) 
 
 
THIS THESIS IS SUBMITTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF GHANA, 
LEGON, IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR 
THE AWARD OF MPHIL IN MANAGEMENT INFORMATION 
SYSTEMS DEGREE. 
 
JULY, 2019  
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DECLARATION 
 I do hereby declare that this work is a result of my own research and has not been presented 
by anyone for any academic award in this or any other university. All references used in the 
work was fully acknowledged. 
I bear sole responsibility for any shortcomings. 
 
 
 
…………………………………….    …………………………… 
 DESMOND ATEH LARKAI         DATE 
(10419411) 
 
 
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CERTIFICATION 
I hereby certify that this thesis was supervised in accordance with procedures laid down by the 
university. 
 
 
 
…………………………………..…..    ………………………. 
PROF. RICHARD BOATENG       DATE 
(Supervisor) 
 
 
……………………………………..…..    ………………………. 
DR. ACHEAMPONG OWUSU   DATE 
(Co-Supervisor) 
 
  
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DEDICATION 
I dedicate Preliminary Insights into Research Motivations of African Information Systems 
Researchers to the Almighty God who gave me knowledge and strength to carry out this work 
successfully. He has been my ever-present help in time of need. I also dedicate this study to 
my late dad, Mr. Gabriel Lartey Larkai and mum, Juliana Abiana Sackey, for her support 
throughout this project. Lastly, I dedicate this thesis to my future wife and children. I will be 
waiting for you.  
  
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 
The most thanks go to God for helping me choose this course of study. I thank Him for the 
counsel, wisdom and perseverance to finish these two years of post-graduate university 
education.  
Thanks to Prof. Richard Boateng for his motivation, enthusiasm, immense knowledge and 
continuous support of my research. I am also thankful to my co-supervisor, Dr. Acheampong 
Owusu, for his keen supervision of my thesis and for correcting all my mistakes in kindness.  
I am very grateful to my mum; Juliana Abiana Sackey and siblings, for supporting me 
spiritually, financially and emotionally in all my education.  
I further appreciate Edward Entee, Jonathan Nii Barnor Barnor and Mrs Geraldine Wilson for 
the love, support, interest and care they showed to me during this research. 
I want to further thank my friends, Samuel Aboagye Mensah, Frederick Yeboah, Elise, Laurie, 
Blessing, Andrew, Charles amongst others for their advice, concern and contributions to the 
success of this study. Their immense input in my work can never be forgotten.  
Finally, I thank all respondents for answering all my questions and not holding back 
information. The work couldn’t have been done without the contribution of the respondents. 
  
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 
DECLARATION ........................................................................................................................ i 
CERTIFICATION ..................................................................................................................... ii 
DEDICATION ......................................................................................................................... iii 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................... iv 
LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................... ix 
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................... x 
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................. xii 
CHAPTER ONE ........................................................................................................................ 1 
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 1 
1.1  Research Background .................................................................................................. 1 
1.2  Research Purpose ........................................................................................................ 3 
1.3 Research Objectives .................................................................................................... 3 
1.4 Research Questions ..................................................................................................... 3 
1.5  Significance of the Research ....................................................................................... 4 
1.6 Research Limitations ................................................................................................... 4 
1.7 Synopsis of the Study .................................................................................................. 4 
CHAPTER TWO ....................................................................................................................... 6 
LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................................... 6 
2.0  Chapter Overview ....................................................................................................... 6 
2.1 Overview of IS Field ................................................................................................... 6 
2.2 Defining IS Research .................................................................................................. 7 
2.3 Components of IS ...................................................................................................... 11 
2.3.1 Hardware ............................................................................................................ 12 
2.3.2 Software ............................................................................................................. 12 
2.3.3 Data .................................................................................................................... 12 
2.3.4 People ................................................................................................................. 12 
2.3.5 Process ............................................................................................................... 12 
2.4 Types of IS ................................................................................................................ 13 
2.4.1 Transaction Processing Systems ........................................................................ 13 
2.4.2 Management Information Systems .................................................................... 13 
2.4.3 Decision-Support Systems  ................................................................................ 14 
2.4.4 Systems for Business Intelligence. .................................................................... 14 
2.5 Theories ..................................................................................................................... 15 
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2.5.1 Purpose of Theories ............................................................................................... 16 
2.5.2 Attributes of A Theory ....................................................................................... 17 
2.6 Classification of Research ......................................................................................... 18 
2.6.1 Research Themes ................................................................................................... 18 
2.6.1.1 Potential Benefits and Constraints ................................................................. 19 
2.6.1.2 Adoption and Diffusion .................................................................................. 19 
2.6.1.3 Support and Implementation  ......................................................................... 21 
2.6.2  Design and Application ......................................................................................... 22 
2.6.3 Impact .................................................................................................................... 22 
2.6.4 Research Methodology Adopted in Articles Reviewed ........................................ 23 
2.6.5 Geographical focus ............................................................................................ 23 
2.6.6 Level of analysis ................................................................................................ 23 
2.6.7 Year of Publication ............................................................................................ 24 
2.7 Stakeholder involvement in IS Research ....................................................................... 24 
2.8  Summary ................................................................................................................... 25 
CHAPTER 3 ............................................................................................................................ 26 
METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................................. 26 
3.0 Chapter Overview ..................................................................................................... 26 
3.1 Research Design ........................................................................................................ 26 
3.2 Methodology for Systematic Literature Review ....................................................... 27 
4.2.1 Ranking Experts by Number of ICT Published Papers and Geographic Regions
 30 
3.3 Overview of the Delphi Method................................................................................ 30 
3.4 Survey Structure and Design ..................................................................................... 33 
3.4.1 Round 1 Delphi questionnaire ........................................................................... 33 
3.4.2 Round 2 Delphi questionnaire ........................................................................... 33 
3.5 Delphi Sample Population ......................................................................................... 33 
3.6 Delphi Panel selection and identification .................................................................. 35 
3.7 Delphi Data Collection Method ................................................................................ 35 
3.7.1 Mechanism for administering the questionnaire ................................................ 36 
3.8 Delphi Data Analysis ................................................................................................ 36 
3.8.1 Qualitative Analysis ........................................................................................... 36 
3.8.2 Quantitative Analysis ......................................................................................... 37 
3.9 Summary ........................................................................................................................ 39 
CHAPTER FOUR .................................................................................................................... 40 
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RESEARCH FINDINGS ......................................................................................................... 40 
4.0 Chapter Overview ..................................................................................................... 40 
4.1 Findings from the Systematic literature Review ....................................................... 40 
4.1.1 Publication outlets .............................................................................................. 40 
4.1.2 Research Themes ............................................................................................... 42 
4.1.3 Year of Publication ............................................................................................ 42 
4.1.4 Research Methodology adopted in articles reviewed ........................................ 43 
4.1.5 Level of Analysis ............................................................................................... 44 
4.1.6 Geographical Focus ........................................................................................... 45 
4.1.7 Research Frameworks ........................................................................................ 46 
4.2 Presentation of the Delphi Round 1 Findings ........................................................... 50 
4.3 Findings from Delphi Round 2.................................................................................. 54 
CHAPTER FIVE ..................................................................................................................... 63 
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS .................................................................. 63 
5.0 Chapter Overview ..................................................................................................... 63 
5.1  Answering the Research Questions .......................................................................... 63 
5.1.1  Dominant themes of African IS Research ......................................................... 63 
5.1.2 Technologies have been Studied in IS Research in Africa ................................ 66 
5.1.3 Motivation for Research Choice of African Researchers .................................. 67 
5.1.4 Significant scholarly trends relating to issues, methodologies, topics considered 
as well as future research directions in the area ............................................................... 78 
CHAPTER SIX ........................................................................................................................ 84 
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS .............................................. 84 
6.0 Chapter Overview ......................................................................................................... 84 
6.1 Summary of the Research Process ............................................................................ 84 
6.1.1 What is the nature of IS research and identify an in-depth knowledge to why 
certain choices are made by IS researchers? .................................................................... 85 
6.1.3 Significant scholarly trends relating to research issues, methodologies, 
conceptual approaches, topics considered as well as future research directions in the area
 88 
6.2 Mapping out Research Objectives with Research Findings and Contributions ........ 90 
6.3 Implications for Research........................................................................................ 101 
6.4 Implications for Policy Makers ............................................................................... 101 
6.5 Implications for Practice ......................................................................................... 102 
6.6 Limitations and Future Research Directions ........................................................... 102 
References .............................................................................................................................. 105 
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APPENDIX A  Publication Outlet Distribution ................................................................. 120 
APPENDIX B: Delphi Round One Questionnaire............................................................. 125 
APPENDIX C: Delphi Round Two Questionnaire ............................................................ 127 
 
  
  
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LIST OF TABLES 
Table 2. 1: Comparison of the definitions of IS. ........................................................................ 9 
Table 3.1: Distribution of Databases and number of articles retrieved from search ............... 29 
Table 3.2: Comparison of Delphi Method with Traditional Survey ........................................ 31 
Table 3.3:Definitions of Content Validity ............................................................................... 37 
Table 4.1: Distribution of Publishing Outlets ………………………………………………..40 
Table 4.2: List of Theories Extracted from Reviewed Publications ........................................ 47 
Table 4.3: Interview questions submitted to the panel of experts and their responses ............ 50 
Table 4.4: The I-CVI computation of responses from question one of the questionnaire ....... 55 
Table 4.5: The I-CVI computation of responses from question two of the questionnaire ....... 56 
Table 4.6:The I-CVI computation of responses from question three of the questionnaire...... 57 
Table 4.7: The I-CVI computation of responses from question four of the questionnaire ...... 58 
Table 4.8: The I-CVI computation of responses from question five of the questionnaire ...... 59 
Table 4.9: The I-CVI computation of responses from question six of the questionnaire. ....... 60 
Table 4.10: The I-CVI computation of responses from question seven of the questionnaire. 61 
Table 5.1:Motivations for selecting Research topic………………………………………….67 
Table 5.2: Motivations that influence the choice of Theoretical Framework .......................... 70 
Table 5.3: Motivational Factors that influence the choice of Research Methodology adopted 
in articles reviewed. ................................................................................................................. 72 
Table 5.4: Motivations that influence the selection of a publishing outlet or journal. ............ 74 
Table 5.5:  Research areas being considered by African IS researchers over next 5 years ..... 76 
Table 5.6: Research areas considered to be under researched in Africa ............................. 77 
 
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LIST OF FIGURES 
Figure 2. 1: Components of an IS ............................................................................................ 11 
Figure 2.2: Attributes of A Theory .......................................................................................... 17 
Figure 3. 1: Distribution of ICT Development Index Top 20 African Countries .................... 28 
Figure 4. 1: Research Themes .................................................................................................. 42 
Figure 4.2: Year of Publication ................................................................................................ 43 
Figure 4.3: Research Methodology adopted in articles reviewed ............................................ 44 
Figure 4.4: Level of Analysis................................................................................................... 45 
Figure 4.5: Geographical Focus ............................................................................................... 46 
  
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 
AIS   ASSOCIATION OF IS 
AJIS   AFRICAN JOURNAL OF IS 
BI   BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE 
BMC   BIOMED CENTRAL 
DOI   DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION 
DSS    DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM 
E SCHOOL   ELECTRONIC SCHOOL 
E-JOURNAL   ELECTRONIC JOURNAL 
E-LEARNING ELECTRONIC LEARNING 
ICT    INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY 
ICT4D INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY FOR 
DEVELOPMENT 
IS   INFORMATION SYSTEMS 
IT  INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 
ITU   INTERNATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATION UNION 
JMIR   JOURNAL OF MEDIA INTERNET RESEARCH 
KM   KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 
MIS   MANAGEMENT IS 
SA   SOUTH AFRICAN 
SERVQUAL   SERVICE QUALITY 
TAM   TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE MODEL 
TOE   TECHNOLOGY ORGANIZATION ENVIRONMENT 
TPS   TRANSACTION PROCESSING SYSTEM 
TTF   TASK TECHNOLOGY FIT 
UTAUT UNIFIED USE OF TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE AND USE OF 
TECHNOLOGY 
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ABSTRACT 
The field of Information Systems (IS) over the last 5 decades of its existence has witnessed 
diverse research works in the advanced as well as the developing economies. As new concepts 
and issues in Information Communication Technologies (ICT’s) continue to increase, 
continuous efforts are being made to document the research topics, theoretical applications and 
new trends. The advanced economies have predominantly set the pace and direction of research 
in the IS terrain. As a result, the IS field has further seen more research publications in the 
advanced economies. For the developing economies in Africa to catch up with the pace of ICT 
development in advanced economies, there is the need to understand how IS has been 
researched over the last decade in Africa. This study therefore did not only seek to explore the 
dominant trends, research themes and theories of IS in Africa but also serve as the basis to 
understanding motivations and trends in the development of IS in Africa over the last 5 years 
whilst making the study of ICT in Africa a good and attractive means of building knowledge 
in IS. 
This study initially used systematic literature review of 5 important IS related databases. The 
massive database search resolved 1,832 research articles of which 202 were used for the study. 
These articles covered seventy-three Journals. African countries ranked in the top 20 of the 
International Telecommunication Union (ITU) index which were captured in the study. 
Subsequently, two rounds of Delphi interviews were used to garner responses from researchers 
across three geographical regions in Africa: South, East and the West African region. Both 
rounds of the Delphi technique had sixteen respondents each out of the 73 respondents invited 
to contribute to the study. The data from the first round was analysed by content analysis whilst 
the second round of Delphi was analysed by using content validity. 
The findings established that the main research themes of studies undertaken by African IS 
researchers have been predominantly ‘support and implementation’ as well as the ‘adoption 
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and diffusion’. This finding was mainly prevalent in the Southern region of Africa namely: 
South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Malawi and West African region of Africa namely: 
Ghana and Nigeria. From the findings, most studies conducted in the African IS field are 
atheoretical (without theories). Hence there is a need for more theories in is research from 
Africa. Nevertheless, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) 
and Unified Use of Technology Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) were theories 
that were identified to be mostly used by African IS researchers from the findings. 
Concerning the motivations that influence the selection of a publishing outlet or journal by an 
African IS researcher, the Research Topic and Area, Tier of the Journal, Recommendation from 
Other Researchers, Credibility with Respect to Peer Review Level of Visibility, Ranking of 
Journal to mention a few, were the factors that the IS experts who partook in the studies agreed 
upon. The major motivations for studying certain research areas were determined as the 
‘courses studied’, ‘the academic background of the researcher’, ‘personal interest’, ‘impact of 
research on development’, ‘new research trends’ as well as the ‘technological trends in the 
environment’. 
This study makes a key contribution to the existing body of IS knowledge and research by 
combining a rigorous systematic literature review as well as a Delphi technique in the same 
study to unearth the motivations that underpin the choices of African IS researchers. In relation 
to policy, it still remains true that the background of the researcher and the courses studied by 
the researcher influences some research decisions of African IS researchers. This provides the 
necessary basis to assert that policy makers must be ready to adjust the curriculum of 
universities and other higher learning institutions to provide sources of information that can 
stir up the interest of young researchers in emerging topics of research that have the potential  
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CHAPTER ONE 
INTRODUCTION 
1.1  Research Background 
Information Systems (IS) as a discipline has been in existence for the last 5 decades (Willcocks 
& Whitley, 2009) and its pace and direction has been predominantly set by western and 
advanced economies of the world (Avgerou, 2008). Penetration of Information communication 
technologies (ICTs) in the late 2000s and early 2010s has increased across the African 
continent (Ponelis & Holmner, 2015) and this has reflected in the increasing number of research 
in IS in the various continents of the world: mainly the developing economies of Africa, Asia 
and the Latin America in diverse fields of study. However, studies from these developing 
economies have focused on a synthesis of the IS field and disciplines such as accounting 
(Amidu, Effah, & Abor, 2011), education (Boateng, Mbrokoh, Boateng, Senyo, & Ansong, 
2016), healthcare (Vroom, Aryeetey, Boateng, Anto, Aikins & Gyapong, 2015) and marketing 
(Odoom, Narteh, & Boateng, 2017) to name a few. 
 
These studies conducted in Africa are made up of a mixture of studies that have been 
empirically (Evans, Hackney, Raunier, Rawski, Yang & Johnson, 2014) and conceptually 
conducted (Heeks, 2010). Nonetheless, academic studies in IS have proved to be dynamic over 
time (Hanseth & Lyytinen, 2010; Liu, Li, & Zhang, 2014) and there is the need for African 
researchers to explore systematic ways in classifying the various research themes, theoretical 
underpinning as well as the motivations for using various theories in IS research (Hirschheim 
& Klein, 2012). Consequently, this view which is supported by Dwivedi, Mustafee, Williams 
and Lal (2009) that, majority of IS related research are constantly evolving over time, for 
instance, recent conceptualization of bright ICT (Lee, 2015), and therefore, there is the need to 
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continually identify and document new theoretical developments that have been made with 
regards to IS research. 
 
Nevertheless, researchers over time have found it difficult to remain knowledgeable of the 
countless number of facets and developments in the IS domain (Templier & Paré, 2015). A 
significant hindrance to scientific progress of researchers has been their limited ability to retain, 
organize and synthesize prior knowledge whilst remaining well-informed with new scientific 
contributions (Card, 2015). Thus, having a taxonomy of IS research is not only a tool for 
systematic sorting and statistical analysis, but it is also a good and attractive means of 
increasing knowledge and theoretical growth. This study will therefore map out the theories 
that are currently being used, previous and current developments in IS and how these are 
applied to existing theories (Eksioglu, Vural, & Reisman, 2009). 
 
Thus, by reviewing literature of IS experts and scholars, a knowledge gap on IS has been 
identified. Therefore, to fill the gap, this study synthesizes research conducted over the last 
decade on IS in Africa to create a taxonomy of theories in several related areas and propose a 
research agenda (Han, Xu, & Chen, 2018). That is to say, the study synthesizes various IS 
research from diverse fields in Africa that would help draw up a roadmap of issues and pinpoint 
a list of elements: research theme, years of publication, theories, research methods and 
motivations. Thus, a review of prior literature and scholarly works provides a firm foundation 
to advance knowledge in the IS discipline (Eriksson & Kovalainen, 2015). 
 
Additionally, an identified challenge in IS research has been the limited availability of 
academic work that have synthesized different economic underpinnings (George & Bock, 
2011). Bound by the challenge mentioned earlier and other challenges of developing the field 
of IS research, the study seeks to identify and describe the research themes, trends and other 
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characteristics of research works of African IS researchers by conducting a systematic review 
of literature regarding IS African researchers over the last decade.  
 
1.2  Research Purpose  
The study explores the dominant themes and theories of IS research in Africa. Furthermore, 
the study provides a categorization of the contemporary theoretical frameworks, research 
methodologies, current research trends of IS researchers in Africa and provide knowledge gaps 
for future research. 
 
1.3 Research Objectives  
1. To explore the nature of IS research in Africa and identify an in-depth knowledge to 
why certain choices are made by IS researchers. This research objective is further 
broken into the following: 
a) To explore the dominant themes in IS research in Africa 
b) To explore technologies that have been studied in IS research in Africa 
c) To understand the motivations that underpin choices of researchers 
2. To identify the significant scholarly trends relating to research issues, methodologies, 
conceptual approaches, topics considered as well as future research directions in the 
area. 
 
1.4 Research Questions  
1. What is the nature of IS research in Africa and why are certain choices made by IS 
researchers? This research question is further broken into the following: 
a) What are the dominant themes in IS research in Africa? 
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b) What technologies have been studied in IS research in Africa? 
c) What are the motivations that underpin choices of researchers? 
2. What are the significant scholarly trends relating to research issues, methodologies, 
conceptual approaches, topics considered as well as future research directions in the area? 
 
1.5  Significance of the Research  
This study makes a key contribution to the body of IS knowledge and research by combining 
a rigorous systematic literature review as well as a Delphi technique in the same study. Thus, 
providing a foundation for researchers to explore the use of systematic literature review and 
Delphi technique. The study further seeks to provide understanding to the theories used in IS 
related research and to provide guidance to IS practice. Finally, the study will inform the policy 
making bodies on how to best improve the deployment and management of IS initiatives at the 
national and cross-country level. 
 
1.6 Research Limitations 
A key limitation of this study stays that, the email survey sent to the participant retrieved very 
low response rate. Also, the time allocation to the study limited the researcher from conducting 
more Delphi rounds to help scrutinize the relevant factors that were agreed upon by the 
participants.  
 
1.7 Synopsis of the Study 
The thesis is structured in six different chapters as explained below: 
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Chapter One: Background: This chapter gave an outline of the research and it will cover the 
background of the research, research problem, research objectives of the study, the study’s 
research questions and significance of the research and the synopsis of the study. 
Chapter Two: Literature review: In this chapter, relevant literature to the study was reviewed. 
Literature on the field of IS research was mainly discussed. An empirical approach focused on 
the concept definition and the main research themes for the categorization in this study are 
discussed. 
Chapter Three: Methodology: This chapter discussed the study’s methodology adopted in 
conducting the research so as to find appropriate responses to the research questions posed. 
The research methodological approaches which highlights the research design, the systematic 
literature review, overview of the Delphi technique and the discussion of sampling techniques 
and size were utilized. 
Chapter Four: Findings: In this chapter, the research data collected from the systematic 
literature review and the Delphi technique were presented. 
Chapter Five: Analysis and Discussion; Analysis of findings and discussions were captured 
in this chapter. 
Chapter Six: This chapter summarises the research, provides its implications and 
recommendations to research, practice and policy and highlights the future research directions. 
  
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CHAPTER TWO 
LITERATURE REVIEW 
2.0  Chapter Overview 
As noted in the previous chapter, the IS field of study has been studied globally and most of 
these studies conducted in the field of IS in Africa are a fusion of empirical and conceptual 
scholarly works. These IS studies in Africa need a systematic way to classify the various 
themes, theoretical underpinning as well as the motivations for using various theories in IS 
research. This chapter therefore seeks to review relevant literature in the field of IS. The chapter 
begins with an overview of IS field which pertains to the conceptual understanding of IS, in 
terms of its origins, definitions, components and classifications. This approach seeks to provide 
a basis for understanding IS as a field in modern day research. 
2.1 Overview of IS Field 
The concept of IS has been around since the 1960’s when it was frequently denoted as 
“Management Information Systems (MIS)” (Hirschheim & Klein, 2012) and it been evolving 
over the decades. It was identified as the connection between management, computer science, 
and organizational theory, accounting and operations research (Davis & Olson, 1985). Each 
discipline conveyed a varying viewpoint regarding computer usage within organizations, but 
none of the various field focused specifically on the application of computers in organizations. 
However, IS as a field emerged and has evolved to do just that (Hirschheim & Klein, 2012). 
 
Over the last five decades, the IS discipline has grown with new disciplines alongside new 
research communities. Major milestones that have supported the growth of IS include: the 
introduction of new journals (Journal of the Association of IS in the 2000s, Electronic Journal 
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of IS in Developing Countries in the 2000s), new conferences (IS International Conference in 
2011 and Conference on Information Technology and Organisations and Teams in 2007). 
 
Furthermore, other researchers have strived to categorize IS research and its boundaries 
through the development of frameworks over the decades (Gorry & Scott Morton, 1971; Nolan 
& Wetherbe, 1980). These frameworks conflicted over time and hence led to various different 
names such as Information technology (IT), Information Management and MIS over time to 
label the field (Hirschheim & Klein, 2012). The fluid borderline of IS has also introduced the 
possibility of the field being dispersed into other fields both in research and academia overtime. 
For instance, in institutions of higher learning, departments like accounting offer courses in 
accounting IS whilst some marketing departments offer courses in Data mining and 
Ecommerce. 
 
2.2 Defining IS Research  
Many definitions provided to explain IS over the years have been done by researchers and book 
authors (Alter, 2008). Many of IS researchers have sought to define IS by describing it in two 
ways: (i) the components which make up the IS and, (ii) the contributions that the components 
make in an organization (Bourgeois & Bourgeois, 2012). Table 1.1 identifies how various 
researcher have defined IS over time. 
 
It can be identified in the table that, earlier studies conducted in the 1990’s and 2000’s focused 
on defining IS as a human system (Falkenberg, 1998; Land, 1985; Symons, 1991) rather than 
highlight aspects that include the design and implementation of an IS. Most researchers 
identified the need to elaborate on the makeup and application of IS towards the latter years of 
the 2000. For instance, a study conducted by Jessup and Valacich (2008) and Kroenke (2008) 
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discussed the components of IS, the relevance and the implementation of information in an 
organization. 
 
The varying perspectives and definitions used to define IS by researchers can be extensively 
traced to the backgrounds, training and the differing interests of IS authorities like Keen (1987) 
who sought to shape the goal of IS research. Being mindful of the varying contributions in a 
holistic manner enables academicians to be effective and open minded rather than having a 
narrowed point of view to IS (ibid). Thus, an open mind towards IS enables researchers to 
capture emergent agendas that are arising as the IS field develops as well as the existence and 
other forms of IS (Galliers, 2003). 
 
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Table 2. 1: Comparison of the definitions of IS. 
Author Context Definition/ characteristics of IS Hardware Software Data People Process 
Land IS  An IS is a social system, which has embedded in it information ✓  ✓     
(1985) technology. The extent to which information technology plays a 
part is increasing rapidly. But this does not prevent the overall 
system from being a social system, and it is not possible to design 
a robust, effective IS, incorporating significant amounts of the 
technology without treating it as a social system.  
Symons IS  An IS is a complex social object which results from the ✓  ✓   ✓   
(1991) embedding of computer systems into an organization where it is 
not possible to separate the technical from the social factors 
 
given the variety of human judgments and actions, influenced by 
cultural values, political interests and participants particular 
definitions of their situations intervening in the implementation 
of such a system. 
Falkenberg IS  An IS is a subsystem of an organisational system, comprising the    ✓  ✓  
(1998) conception of how the communication- and information-oriented 
aspects of an organisation are composed (e.g. of specific 
communicating, information-providing and/or information-
seeking actors, and of specific information oriented actants) and 
how these operate, thus describing the (explicit and/or implicit) 
communication-oriented and information-providing actions and 
arrangements existing within that organisation. 
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 "Davis IS  A simple definition might be that an IS is a system in the ✓  ✓   ✓   
(2000)” organization that delivers information and communication 
services needed by the organization.’ ‘This can be expanded to 
describe the system more fully. The IS or management IS of an 
organization consists of the information technology 
infrastructure, application systems, and personnel that employ 
information technology to deliver information and 
communication services for transaction processing/operations 
and administration/management of an organization. 
Kroenke IS  A group of components that interact to produce information. The ✓  ✓  ✓  ✓  ✓  
(2008) five components of an IS are hardware, software, data, 
procedures, and people. 
Jessup and IS  Assumed to mean computer-based systems, which are ✓  ✓  ✓  ✓   
Valacich combinations of hardware, software, and telecommunications 
(2008) networks that people build and use to collect, create, and 
distribute useful information. 
Huber, IS An organized collection of people, information, business ✓  ✓   ✓   
Piercy and  processes, and information technology designed to transform 
McKeown inputs into outputs, in order to achieve a goal. 
(2008) 
Laudon    Interrelated components working together to collect, process,   ✓   ✓  
and  store, and disseminate information to support decision making, 
MIS 
Laudon coordination, control, analysis, and visualization in an 
(2011) organization. 
 
Source: Zervas, Proserpio and Byers (2015) 
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Though different authors conceptualize the definition of IS differently, common themes 
emerged among these various definitions as shown in table 1.1 above. For the purpose of this 
study, the definition given by Kroenke (2008) as “a group of components; mainly hardware, 
software, data, procedures, and people, that interact to produce information” was adopted. 
Kroenke’s definition was adopted because, it highlights all the major components of IS. 
 
2.3 Components of IS 
The first three components in Figure 2.1 can be fitted under the technology category, are largely 
what most persons consider when defining IS (Bourgeois & Bourgeois, 2012). Nevertheless, 
the last two components, people and process, are what isolates the concept of IS from more 
practical fields, such as computer science. To be able to properly comprehend IS, there is the 
need to briefly explain how all the components work together to bring value to practitioners 
and academia. 
Figure 2.1: Components of an IS 
Source: Adapted from Sousa and Oz (2014) 
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2.3.1 Hardware 
The hardware component of the IS comprises of the physical components of the IS system that 
user touch and interact with (Laudon & Laudon, 2015; Rainer & Brad, 2016; Sousa & Oz, 
2014). 
 
2.3.2 Software 
The software refers to the intangible set of instructions that informs the hardware on what to 
do (Laudon & Laudon, 2015; Rainer & Brad, 2016; Sousa & Oz, 2014). 
 
2.3.3 Data  
The data component refers to a cluster of facts that enable users of an IS make decisions 
(Laudon & Laudon, 2015; Rainer & Brad, 2016; Sousa & Oz, 2014). 
 
2.3.4 People 
People refers to the essential people who are involved with the IS (Laudon & Laudon, 2015; 
Rainer & Brad, 2016; Sousa & Oz, 2014). 
 
2.3.5 Process 
The latter component of IS process refers to a sequence of steps undertaken to achieve a desired 
outcome (Laudon & Laudon, 2015; Rainer & Brad, 2016; Sousa & Oz, 2014). 
 
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2.4 Types of IS 
The different types of interests, specialties and levels in an organization gives rise to the 
different types of IS (Laudon & Laudon, 2015). The authors further identified four main types 
of IS for management; transaction processing systems, management IS (MIS), decision-support 
systems and systems for business intelligence.  
 
2.4.1 Transaction Processing Systems  
 A Transaction Processing Systems (TPS) is a computerized system that accomplishes and 
records the daily routine transactions necessary to conduct business (Stair, Moisiadis, Genrich, 
& Reynolds, 2011). The principal purpose of systems at this level is to answer routine questions 
and to track the flow of transactions through the organization (Laudon & Laudon, 2015). 
Furthermore, TPS are used in environments like the stock exchanges to handle stock trading 
and facilitate other salient activities like high request rates of information during peak times 
(Su & Iyengar, 2013). Other examples of TPS include payroll software like BambooHR and 
OnPay as well as sales order entry software like Megaventory and NuOrder.  
 
2.4.2 Management Information Systems 
Management Information Systems (MIS) can be defined as a system that uses the information 
needed by the management of an organization at every level in making strategic, tactical and 
operational decisions to support the planning, controlling and operational functions of an 
organization (Laudon & Laudon, 2015; Shah, 2014). MIS designates a precise category of IS 
which stands to serve management, by providing managers with data and reports on the 
organization’s current performance (Tian, Wang, Li, Li, & Wang, 2007). Data on the 
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organization’s basic operations is supplied by transaction processing systems is summarized 
and provided to MIS (Laudon & Laudon, 2015). This information is further used to monitor 
the business and predict future performance. Thus, MIS consequently identifies  as a tool which 
can help shape raw data of an organization into meaningful and ready information that can 
make impact in the organization’s management (Behl & Singh, 2014). 
 
2.4.3 Decision-Support Systems 
Decision-Support Systems (DSS) can be defined as a system that assists a single manager or a 
proportionately small group of managers who are working on the solution of a semi structured 
problem as a problem-solving team by providing information or making suggestions 
concerning specific decisions (McLeod & Schell, 2007). Additionally, DSS focuses on 
problems that are unique and rapidly changing which are non-routine, for which the procedure 
for arriving at a solution may not be fully predefined in advance. Although DSS use internal 
information from TPS and MIS, they often bring in information from external sources, such as 
current stock prices or product prices of competitors. These systems use a variety of models to 
analyse the data and are designed so that users can work with them directly (Laudon & Laudon, 
2015). Furthermore, many new technologies have been integrated into the development of 
DSS. These new developments include: DSS application in the macroeconomy regulation as 
well as DSS application in enterprise operations management (Tian et al., 2007). 
 
2.4.4 Systems for Business Intelligence 
 Systems for Business Intelligence (BI) was proposed much earlier in the 1950’s (Liang & Liu, 
2018). Luhn (1958) initially began to describe BI as an automatic system that disseminates 
information and supports decision making process. BI has recently been defined as a system 
that is made up of both organizational  and technical elements that offers past information to 
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its users for analysis, query and reporting, to aid effective decision making and management 
support with the aim of increasing the business process performance (Trieu, 2017). 
Additionally, BI can be defined as a contemporary term for data and software tools for 
organizing, analysing, and providing access to data to help managers and other enterprise users 
make more informed decisions (Laudon & Laudon, 2015). BI systems enhance strategic 
management of organizations by enabling them to retrieve, store and analyse colossal data 
involving operations and in so doing help organizations gain competitive advantage of the 
industry (Herschel & Jones, 2005; Owusu, 2019). BI applications are not restricted to middle 
managers but can be found at the senior management level including systems for organizations 
at large. For instance, a study conducted by Owusu, Agbemabiasie, Abdurrahaman and 
Soladoye (2017) revealed that BI implementation amongst Ghanaian banks are far advanced. 
In this same regard, Owusu (2017) found out that BI systems adoption positively impacted the 
learning and growth, internal business process and customer performance of Ghanaian Banks. 
Additionally, Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in Malaysia’s adoption of BI systems are 
influenced by Absorptive Capacity, Competitive Pressure, Complexity, IT Infrastructure, 
Presence of Champion, Top Management Support, and Vendor Selection (Owusu, Ghanbari-
Baghestan, & Kalantari, 2017). Some benefits of BI systems that have been theorized include: 
provision of faster and more accurate reporting, improved decision-making process, improved 
customer satisfaction, increased revenues and increased competitive advantage (Owusu & 
Moyaid, 2016). Examples of BI include software and solutions provided by vendors such as 
SAS, Business Objects and COGNOS (Elbashir, Collier, & Davern, 2008). 
2.5 Theories 
A theory can be defined from varying perspectives depending on the objective of the definition 
(Boateng, 2018). Two important perspectives to defining a theory include the components or 
consistent elements of a theory and the purpose of the theory. 
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The former, in terms of defining a theory according to its components or its consistent elements, 
can be defined as a system of constructs and prepositions that conjointly demonstrates a logical 
and yet systematic and coherent account of a phenomenon bounded by some assumptions and 
conditions (Bacharach, 1989). That is to say, a theory can provide a body of webbed knowledge 
that can be used for studying phenomenon with certain specific conventions serving as a guide. 
 
The latter, defining a theory in terms of its purpose, can be defined as a ‘coherent set of general 
prepositions used as principles of explanation, understanding and/or prediction of the apparent 
relationships of certain observed phenomena’  (Zikmund, Babin, Carr, & Griffin, 2013). In its 
crux, a theory presents a way a phenomenon’s concepts or variables can be studied with the 
purpose of finding the solution to a research problem (Boateng, 2018). 
 
2.5.1 Purpose of Theories 
According to Gregor (2006), there are four primary goals of a theory which can, debatably, be 
used as a taxonomy for classifying theories. The first goal is keenly aligned with analysis and 
description. He posited that theories provide an explanation of the phenomenon in question, 
further analyses the relationship amid those constructs, the degree to which the theory can be 
generalised within the relationships, and the boundaries with which relationship and 
observations hold. Additionally, theories help others to achieve thoughtful insights into the 
phenomenon of interest provide explanation. Also, theories enable prediction of future 
occurrences given that certain preconditions stand. 
 
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2.5.2 Attributes of A Theory 
Apart from the above mentioned purposes being mostly associated with informing research 
and practice, Boateng (2018) highlights other benefits of theories that Bhattacherjee (2012), 
identifies as the characteristics of a theory such as providing an fundamental logic of the 
phenomenon of a social or natural phenomenon by further elucidating what the salient drivers 
as well as the relevant outcomes of the target phenomenon. He further postulated that, when a 
theory is associated with a phenomenon, it assists in providing explanations to the identified 
phenomenon. This means that theories must hold the overall power to explain or predict the 
behaviour of the phenomenon. the falsifiability characteristic elucidates that theories can be 
refuted or proved to be false. That is, it should be possible to disprove theories if the empirical 
data realized by researchers does not match with the theoretical constructs or propositions of 
the theory. Also, he further cited the parsimony of a theory as a characteristic of a theory. This 
characteristic of parsimony can be explained as theories are meant to be highly simplified and 
generalizable enlightenments of the phenomenon. 
 
Figure 2.2: Attributes of A Theory 
logical Explanatory 
consistency power
Parsimony Falsifiability
 
Source: Adapted from Boateng (2018) 
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2.6 Classification of Research 
Over the years, researchers have fashioned out most of the classification frameworks in IS 
research based on several dimensions. A greater number of studies that paid attention to meta-
analysis articles based on  two or more of the following  dimensions: research topic, research 
methodology, research frameworks and paradigmatic research approach (Palvia, Kakhki, 
Ghoshal, Uppala, & Wang, 2015). For example, Boateng, Molla and Heeks (2009) who 
reviewed theoretical frameworks and approaches of E-Commerce in developing economies 
studied the Potential and Constraint, Adoption and Diffusion and Support and Implementation. 
Senyo, Addae and Boateng (2018) also examined literature on meta-analysis of cloud 
computing research in IS with the aim of taking stock of literature and their associated research 
frameworks, research methodology, geographical distribution, level of analysis as well as 
trends of these studies over the period of 7 years. With the aim of understanding the 
advancement and direction of IS studies Africa, it has become prudent to develop a robust 
logical and classificatory framework that aids in understanding and making sense of the trends 
in the IS field and subsequent analysis. Hence the classification scheme of Boateng, Molla and 
Heeks (2009) was adapted with some modifications in order capture the changes in IS research. 
Their study identified three major themes with sub themes. This study stands to build on their 
classification to include Design and Application as well as Impact. 
 
2.6.1 Research Themes 
As mentioned earlier, the theme classification was based on five key themes. These are 
potential and constraint, adoption and diffusion, support and implementation, design and 
application as well as impact. 
 
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2.6.1.1 Potential Benefits and Constraints 
This theme discusses publications that elicit the potential benefits and barriers to IS. 
 
Opportunities 
This sub theme pertains to scholarly works that identifies literature pertaining to the potential 
benefits of IS discussed in studies conducted by African IS researchers. These benefits span 
opportunities of higher productivity, reduction in transaction cost, access to new markets and 
opportunities to enable countries participate in international trade (Boateng et al., 2009). 
 
Constraints  
This sub theme refers to literature that argues the fundamental performance limitations that 
hinder the operationalization of IS (Chen, Fang, & Ishii, 2019) discussed by the researchers. It 
further comprises of publications that specifically discusses constraint to IS in African 
countries. 
 
Adoption and Diffusion 
This theme comprises of literature that discuss adoption as well as diffusion problems of 
various IS discussed by African IS researchers (Boateng et al., 2009; Molla & Licker, 2005). 
 
Technology 
This further includes literature that discusses the technological determining factors of IS 
adoption and diffusion discussed by African IS researchers. It also further comprises of the 
compatibility of existing technology, complexity as well as ease of use (Boateng et al., 2009). 
 
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Managerial 
This sub theme includes scholarly works that report on the managerial factors of IS adoption 
and diffusion by African IS researchers. The strategic vision and decision making of managers, 
commitment of top management and the innovativeness of managers are included in this sub 
theme (Boateng et al., 2009; Raza, Adenola, Nafarieh, & Robertson, 2015). 
 
Organizational 
This sub theme addresses literature that pertains to the factors of IS adoption diffusion by 
African IS researchers that basks the internal structure of the organization (Crespo, Rodrigues, 
Samagaio, & Silva, 2019). These include organizational readiness, functional differentiation 
and organizational innovativeness (Boateng et al., 2009; Weerd, Mangula, & Brinkkemper, 
2016). 
 
Cultural 
This sub theme identifies literature that discusses the cultural factors of IS adoption and 
diffusion by African IS researchers (Boateng et al., 2009; S.-G. Lee, Trimi, & Kim, 2013). 
They include language, norms and values. 
 
Environmental  
This sub theme is also comprised of scholarly works that discusses the environmental factors 
of IS adoption and diffusion by African IS researchers (Boateng et al., 2009). These factors are 
mostly external to the organization or country and they include the readiness of organizational 
underpinnings and external pressures from industry, partners and entrants (Fu, Kok, Dankbaar, 
Ligthart, & van Riel, 2018) 
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Interrelated 
This sub theme includes literature that addresses a combination factors of IS adoption and 
diffusion discussed above. It also pertains to the adoption and diffusion factors that exist in the 
both the internal and external settings of the organization or country in question (Boateng et 
al., 2009). 
 
2.6.1.3 Support and Implementation  
This theme comprises of scholarly works that discusses support and implementation topics of 
various IS discussed by African IS researchers capable of influencing the institutionalization 
of IS after adoption (Boateng et al., 2009). 
 
Strategy 
This comprises of literature that discusses the strategies used by nations, organizations and 
industries with the aim of addressing the challenges of various IS. On the national level, these 
scholarly works deliberate and assess policies that empower countries to put up a complete IS 
structure to buttress institutional policies and make the intended impact to develop the nation 
(Darko & Chan, 2018). Also, pertaining to the organizational level, literature that evaluate and 
assess the strategies that delve beyond the IS adoption to identify the means of institutionalizing 
and entrenching IS into institutional procedures to attain the latent benefits (Boateng et al., 
2009). 
 
Consumer Behaviour 
This sub theme discusses the scholarly works on topics interrelated to consumer behaviour in 
the operationalization of IS (Ali, Azad, Centeno, Hao, & van Moorsel, 2019; Boateng et al., 
2009). 
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Public Policy 
This sub theme encompasses trust, legal and security issues that pertain to the use of IS (Khan 
& Salah, 2018). Agreements and policy which include trust, rights and trade policies that are 
carefully developed to facilitate IS usage amongst parties (Boateng et al., 2009). 
 
Service Evaluation 
This sub theme discusses publications that assess services provided by nations, organizations, 
industries and individuals using IS (Boateng et al., 2009; Lai & Bower, 2019). 
 
Knowledge and learning  
This sub theme encompasses literature on IS education, teaching, learning which influence the 
implementation of IS after adoption (Boateng et al., 2009). 
Design and Application 
This theme includes publications that discuss the technical design and application of IS. These 
encompass the functionality and features provided, and the technical development tools, 
systems and components used in IS (Olszak, Bartuś, & Lorek, 2018). 
 
2.6.3 Impact 
This theme identifies publications that evaluate IS net benefits as perceived by all key 
stakeholders. IS are long term investments expected to yield continuing flow of benefits (Joshi, 
Akbari, & Svensson, 2019; Litescu, Viswanathan, Lees, Knoll, & Aydt, 2015).  
  
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2.6.4 Research Methodology Adopted in Articles Reviewed 
Qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, experiment, design science and ‘no method 
classification were the main basis for the classification for the research methodology (Boateng, 
2018; Palvia, Kakhki, Ghoshal, Uppala & Wang, 2015). The qualitative grouping pertained to 
articles that used qualitative techniques as a research method and collected data through 
observations and interviews. The quantitative grouping included those articles that used 
research techniques and approaches like the survey and questionnaires which are considered to 
be affiliated to the positivist paradigm. The mixed methods category included articles of both 
qualitative and quantitative methods(Myers & Liu, 2009). The experiment category referred to 
the category that sought to test a new idea using a computer program and setting. Design 
science category refers to articles that used design science as the research methodology (Senyo 
et al., 2018). 
 
2.6.5 Geographical focus 
The categories under this classification focused on articles based on the African country were 
the study engrossed or research data was gathered (Boateng, 2018). The cross-country category 
referred to articles that included more than one African country (Boateng, 2018; Senyo et al., 
2018). 
 
2.6.6 Level of analysis 
This category considered the targeted group as well as the stage at which the study sought to 
investigate. IS research can be classified under 3 main categories; micro, meso and macro 
(Senyo et al., 2018). The micro level category pertains to individual whereas, the meso level 
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category pertains to the organization or industries. Articles focused on the country or/and 
association of countries, for instance sub Saharan countries are classified under the macro 
category (Boateng, 2018). 
 
2.6.7 Year of Publication 
This category focused on the years in which the various articles reviewed were published 
(Boateng, 2018). Categorization by year of publication aids researchers to understand the rate 
at which the number of IS related articles published, increased or decreased over the coming 
years (Senyo et al., 2018). 
 
2.7 Stakeholder involvement in IS Research  
The stakeholders in a particular discipline of study are involved in influencing the nature and 
focuses of researches and projects undertaken most researchers (Phillipson, Lowe, Proctor, & 
Ruto, 2012; Sidorova, Evangelopoulos, Valacich, & Ramakrishnan, 2008). It has further been 
identified that a discipline’s scope is built through an interaction process that takes place 
amongst stakeholders (Sidorova et al., 2008). These stakeholders in academia include scholars 
both within and from varying disciplines, private and public funding institutions as well as 
general phenomena in society. Furthermore, journal editors and editorial board members of 
key journals may be key in the nature and focus of researchers in the IS discipline. The main 
stakeholders for this research are the academicians and researchers that actively engage in 
research. 
 
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2.8  Summary 
The chapter began with an overview of IS field which pertains to the conceptual understanding 
of IS, in terms of its origins and definitions. The various components of an IS were then 
discussed. The classifications framework based on the research themes: potentials and 
constraints, adoption and diffusion, support and implementation, design and application as well 
as impact was discussed. Other themes of classification that were also discussed include: 
research methodology adopted in articles reviewed, geographical focus and level of analysis. 
The definition for theories, purpose of theories, as well as the attributes of theories used in IS 
research were discussed. Furthermore, the themes as well as sub-themes used in the 
classification of IS research was discussed.  
 
  
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CHAPTER 3 
METHODOLOGY 
3.0 Chapter Overview 
Understanding the various classification framework used by various IS researchers was the 
focus of the previous chapter. Chapter 2 illustrated the various key terms and themes employed 
in this study in the light of other classification studies conducted. With that background, this 
chapter focuses on the research methodological position employed in reviewing the various 
articles of IS research in Africa. This chapter discusses the research methods and strategies, 
Delphi method, panel selection and identification, data collection method and data analytical 
approach. 
 
3.1 Research Design 
Literature review can be undertaken in four varying ways within the qualitative and quantitative 
field, namely; descriptive, vote counting, narrative and meta-analysis approaches (King & He, 
2006; Schmidt & Hunter, 2014). As such, this research espoused the meta-analysis technique 
for its literature review. Meta-analysis approach was selected because it provides a thorough 
description of an event or occurrence along with providing a valuation of the influence of the 
method of investigation on findings (Timulak, 2009). Furthermore, meta-analysis has been 
identified as a known choice due to the fact that it is able to provide statistical support for the 
study being undertaken (Senyo et al., 2018). 
 
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3.2 Methodology for Systematic Literature Review 
To acquire the right panel for this study, the researcher first conducted a systematic literature 
review of some electronic databases as this practice has become observable among IS 
researches (Petter & McLean, 2009; Senyo et al., 2018; Senyo, Liu, & Effah, 2019). Hereafter, 
using electronic databases were deemed appropriate. The articles reviewed underwent two 
phases of search. First, the Web of Science was searched. Web of Science, developed by 
Thomson Scientific, is a multidisciplinary research platform which enables simultaneous cross-
searching of a range of citation indexes and databases, and it remains the most widely used 
indexes available (Falagas, Pitsouni, Malietzis, & Pappas, 2008; Sheffield, 2019). Secondly, a 
wider search was conducted in other electronic databases like the Ebscohost and ScienceDirect. 
These database sources have been considered to cover a prevalent number of the top fifty IS 
journals. Additionally, these databases were selected as a result of the supply of prime journals 
they provide in IS research. The search further narrowed down to empirical studies and peer-
reviewed articles from 2008 and till 2018. Peer review according to Solomon (2007) is 
generally seen as vital for the role of forming an archive of knowledge and distributing rewards. 
Furthermore, peer review keenly plays a key role in validating the quality of research in a field. 
The assessed articles were screened manually to eliminate editorials; conference papers, review 
articles; and reports since the study set out to include only empirical and peer-reviewed articles 
in the review. The researcher further went ahead to conduct further checks to remove duplicates 
and other articles from other disciplines that did not use an IS perspective for their study.  
 
To help capture relevant publications by African IS researchers and improve the quality 
of journal articles assessed for the study, the top 20 African countries from the 2017 ICT 
Development Index (IDI) of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) was used. This 
was deemed necessary because the researcher considered that the level of ICT development in 
countries can influence the nature of studies carried out. The IDI is an amalgamated measure 
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of 11 indicators that serve as a valid measure for assessing the development status of 
information and telecommunication technologies (ICT) at the country level since a nation's 
ICT achievement level is a significant driver of its socio-economic change. Furthermore, 
supplementary scrutinization was undertaken by visiting the profiles of each author of a 
selected publication using various databases like research gate, google scholar and the various 
websites the authors were found to be associated with. 
 
The ICT Development index ranks countries by their general performance in ICT by regions 
and other categories year on year. Since the focus of the study was on African IS researchers, 
the African region ICT performance report was assessed pertained to the Africa. The figure 
below identifies the shortlist African countries. 
 
Figure 3. 1: Distribution of ICT Development Index Top 20 African Countries 
 
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Source: International Telecommunications Union (ITU) 
(https://www.itu.int/net4/ITU-D/idi/2017/index.html#idi2017byregion-tab) 
The databases, Ebscohost and Science Direct were queried using a keyword-based search with 
the search string: “Information”, “systems”, “IS”, “cloud computing”, “Digital platforms”, 
“Social Media” and “Big Data”.  “IS AND Africa”, on the abstracts, keywords and titles across 
the databases.  
 
The search was only limited to peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles from 2008 and till 2018. 
The resulting articles were subjected to manual filtering where editorials; review articles and 
reports were eliminated since only peer review articles were set out to be used in the study. In 
addition, conference papers, dissertations, book reviews and working papers. 
From the searches undertaken across the databases, the table below displays the various 
databases searched, the total number of papers downloaded and the research papers that met 
the criteria of the study. 
 
Table 3.1: Distribution of Databases and number of articles retrieved from search 
Number of papers that met the 
Database searched Number of Search results 
criteria 
WOS 936 102 
AIS 234 65 
AJIS 301 55 
EBSCOHOST 175 49 
ScienceDirect 186 61 
Total  1832 332 
 
Source: Author’s own construct 
From the table above, Web of Science yielded 936 articles from which 102 met the criteria. 
The AIS returned 234 articles whilst only 65 articles met the criteria. The AJIS also yielded 
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301 articles whilst only 55 of the articles met the criteria. The broader search results from 
Ebscohost yielded 175 results with only 49 articles meeting the criteria. Science direct returned 
186 search results whilst the number of papers that remained relevant to the study were 61. 
After duplication checks were carried out, only 202 out of 332 research articles were used for 
this study.  
 
3.2.1 Ranking Experts by Number of ICT Published Papers and Geographic Regions  
After acquiring a large list of experts, the number of ICT publications of these experts were 
compared, ranked in priority for the invitation to partake the study and categorized into the sub 
lists. These sub lists aided the researcher to create separate questionnaires to capture the 
motivations per number of ICT publications. The experts were also segmented into geographic 
regions for the Delphi interview. 
 
3.3 Overview of the Delphi Method 
The Delphi method has been posited to have originated in a series of studies conducted by 
Dalkey and Helmer (1962) for the RAND Corporation. The main objective of the Delphi 
technique  was to present a way to obtain the most reliable consensus and consistency from a 
group of experts apropos a topic or area of interest (Okoli & Pawlowski, 2004; Paré, Cameron, 
Poba-Nzaou, & Templier, 2013). 
 
The Delphi method primarily consists of a sequence of structured group processes, each 
referred to as a round, to survey expert opinion in order to reach a group response (Burt et al., 
2009). Responses collected which may be in the form of opinions, beliefs, and judgments are 
organized in an orderly fashion that focuses primarily on building consensus on dissenting 
views (Steurer, 2011). The principles that back Delphi studies include individual feedback 
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concerning a given. area or questionnaire, valuation of the group’s judgment or views, 
opportunities for individuals to. revise their views and the anonymity. for. individual. responses 
(Lilja, Laakso, & Palomäki, 2011; Worrell, Di Gangi, & Bush, 2013).  
 
The Delphi technique is currently being used in extant studies relating to accounting, 
healthcare, communication, education and other scientific disciplines (Boulkedid, Abdoul, 
Loustau, Sibony, & Alberti, 2011; Keller & Heiko, 2014; Worrell, Di Gangi, & Bush, 2013). 
 
Although, the traditional survey method could have been used to garner data from the sample 
size chosen concerning the motivations that underpin research work of African IS researchers, 
the Delphi method was judged to be a stronger methodology for an extremely thorough and 
careful query of experts. When the Delphi method compared to the traditional survey method, 
several advantages were highlighted over the later. The table below summarises various 
comparisons levels Delphi method and the Traditional survey. 
 
Table 3.2: Comparison of Delphi Method with Traditional Survey 
Evaluation Criteria Delphi Study Traditional Survey 
Representativeness  The Delphi method investigates   Using statistical techniques, 
of sample questions and issues of high researcher can randomly select a 
uncertainty, thus, a general sample size that is representative 
population or a subset of the of the population of interest. 
general population might not be 
sufficiently knowledgeable to 
answer the question accurately. 
Sample Size for  Delphi method literature  The aim of a traditional survey is 
significant findings recommends 10 -18 experts on a to generalize findings; thus, 
Delphi panel. Furthermore, the researchers are required to select 
sample size for a Delphi study a sample size large enough to 
does not depend on statistical detect statistically significant 
power but rather on group effects in the population. 
dynamics for consensus amongst 
exerts to be achieved. 
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Individual Vs. Group  Research has explicitly shown   Individual responses are 
response that for questions requiring expert averaged out by researchers to 
judgment, the averages produced determine the average response 
by group decision processes is by for the sample which is 
far, more superior than the generalized to the relevant 
average of individual responses. population. 
Anonymity  The respondents of a Delphi   Respondents are almost always 
technique are always anonymous anonymous to each other, and 
to each other but are never often anonymous to the 
anonymous to the researcher. researcher. 
This gives the researchers more 
opportunity to follow up for 
clarifications and further 
qualitative data. 
Attrition effects   Attrition tends to be low in Attrition for single traditional 
(participant drop- Delphi studies, and the surveys is a non-issue. For multi-
out) researchers usually can easily step repeated survey studies, 
ascertain the cause by talking researchers should investigate 
with the dropouts. attrition to assure that it is 
random and non-systematic 
Richness of data  Delphi studies inherently provide   The richness of data depends on 
richer data because of their the form and depth of the 
multiple iterations and their questions, and on the possibility 
response revision due to of follow-up, such as interviews. 
feedback. Furthermore, Delphi Follow-up is often limited when 
participants tend to be open to the researchers are unable to 
follow-up interviews. track respondents. 
Construct Validity  In addition to what is required of   Construct validity in a 
a traditional survey, the Delphi traditional survey is mainly 
method can employ further assured by careful survey design 
construct validation by asking and by pretesting. 
experts to validate the 
researcher’s interpretation and 
categorization of the variables. 
The fact that Delphi is not 
anonymous to the researcher 
permits this validation step, 
unlike many surveys. 
Reliability and Delphi method pretesting is also   An important criterion for 
response revision an important reliability evaluating surveys is the 
assurance. However, test-retest reliability of the measures. 
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reliability is not relevant, since Researchers are naturally able 
researchers expect respondents to assure this by pretesting and 
to review their answers by retesting to assure test-retest 
reliability. 
 
Source: Okoli and Pawlowski (2004) 
3.4 Survey Structure and Design 
3.4.1 Round 1 Delphi questionnaire 
The first round of Delphi questionnaire sought to unearth the motivations that underpin studies 
undertaken by African IS Researchers. A draft survey was developed ad piloted by 2 
individuals with similar profile to the targeted panellists which informed the final version that 
was developed after the piloting. The Delphi round 1 survey was limited to 8 open ended 
questions to allow panellist to express themselves. The open-ended questions identified 
participant opinions for use in round 2 as feedback. The round 1 survey had two parts; the first 
part had four questions elicited current personal opinions whilst the second part of the survey 
also had 4 questions that sought opinions on future directions. 
 
3.4.2 Round 2 Delphi questionnaire 
The round 2 questionnaire themed quantitative questions which contained 7 closed questions 
answered with a three-point scale (either “Agree”/ “Yes”, “May consider”/ “Neutral” and 
“Disagree”/ “No”). 
 
3.5 Delphi Sample Population  
The sample population for a Delphi study does not depend on a statistical sample that attempts 
to be representative of any population (Okoli & Pawlowski, 2004). Rather a group decision 
mechanism requiring qualified experts who have deep understanding of the research topic in 
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question is required. Hence, one of the important aspects of a Delphi study is the selection of 
qualified experts. This study employed a two-tier selection process in order to ensure that the 
right experts are used for the study: reviewing literature to identify IS expert research who have 
journal publications and shortlisting the list to single IS experts who have more than 10 research 
publications. A total of 73 individuals were contacted with round 1 questionnaire from whom 
16 usable responses were received, corresponding to 21.9 percent. The round 2 received 18 
responses which corresponded to 24.65 percent response rate. A purposive and convenience 
sampling methods were adopted in the administration of the research questionnaire. Purposive 
sampling refers to the sampling technique that singles out a sample based on the researcher’s 
judgement about some appropriate characteristics required of the sample (Boateng, 2018; 
Zikmund et al., 2013; Tongco, 2007) whereas convenient sampling technique refers to 
sampling technique of selecting respondents who are most conveniently available to respond 
to the study (Neuman, 2011). Since the study required certain characteristics of the 
respondents: respondents must be IS researchers from Africa and have a minimum of 5 research 
publications, it was deemed prudent to select purposive sampling as a sampling technique. 
Subsequently, convenience sampling was also selected as it was easier to access IS lecturers 
and Information Systems PHD students from the University of Ghana Business School who 
met the necessary criteria to partake in the study. 
Cluster sampling which refers to a sampling technique where the entire population is divided 
into clusters or groups usually of geographic areas (Acharya, Prakash, Saxena, & Nigam, 2013) 
was adopted . The African continent was clustered into 5 geographic regions, namely: The 
North Africa, the South Africa, the East Africa, the West Africa and the Central Africa to aid 
the researcher in analysing the findings per region. North and Central African regions were 
deleted from the list of African regions used in the analysis since none of the selected expert 
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respondents responded to the questionnaire sent to them, there by leaving the analysis to be 
undertaken between the South, East and West African regions. 
 
3.6 Delphi Panel selection and identification 
The Delphi method by its basic definition expedites a group consensus building technique 
(Habibi, Sarafrazi, & Izadyar, 2014; Rodríguez-Mañas et al., 2012). Since the quality of data 
from a Delphi study is only as good as the calibre of panel (Madsen et al., 2016), a lot of 
consideration went into IS experts were selected to serve on the panel for this study. The main 
criteria for selection was that the respondents must be an African and must have published not 
less than 5 research papers on ICT. 
 
3.7 Delphi Data Collection Method 
The main objective of this study was to explore what influences the research topics, choice of 
use of theories and the research interests of African IS researchers. Thus, from the knowledge 
and expertise of the panel of experts, a was consensus regarding the essential factors that 
underpin the research works of African IS researchers used as a basis to design the 
questionnaire. 
 
The Delphi method was chosen as the data collection tool for this study due to the fact that it 
provides a basis for a consensus that would unearth the experiences and knowledge of the panel 
of experts from an IS perspective, provided the underlying premise from which group 
consensus was built is met (consensus level of 0.70). The Delphi study had two rounds. The 
first round of the Delphi study included eight opened ended questions designed to try to obtain 
a broad range of responses. These eight opened ended questions had two main parts. The first 
part involved questions that sought to find out more about the factors that affect the current 
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choices of respondents in research. The second part of the interview guide involved questions 
that focused on the future directions of IS research in the African domain. The questions posed 
to the panel of experts have been listed in the Appendix B. 
 
3.7.1 Mechanism for administering the questionnaire 
The Delphi questionnaires was administered using emails and WhatsApp. These media were 
chosen because they enabled a quick turnaround time between the questionnaires. 
 
3.8 Delphi Data Analysis  
Both Qualitative and quantitative data were retrieved from the data collected. The sub sections 
below discuss in detail the procedure that were used to analyse both the qualitative and 
quantitative data. 
3.8.1 Qualitative Analysis 
The responses from the first round of the Delphi were qualitative in nature, thus, they were 
amalgamated. Separate list of answers was unearthed to echo the input for each question. Thus, 
similar responses from each question were consolidated. This then served as the basis for the 
second round of the Delphi study. The second round of the Delphi study included instructions 
for the Panel of experts to rank the responses provided in from the open-ended question in 
Delphi 1. Explicitly, the participants were asked to indicated whether they ‘Agree’, ‘Remain 
Neutral’ or ‘Disagree’ to each of the responses from the factors that influenced their area of 
research, the factors that influenced their choice of theoretical frameworks for research, factors 
that influenced their choice of research methodology used to conduct a research, the factors 
that influenced their choice of publishing outlet researchers chose, the likely areas they are 
considering to research into in the next two years, the top research areas they consider under-
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researched in Africa and the research areas that they assume would be very relevant to Africa 
in the next five years. Individual responses from the second round of the Delphi study were 
collated, weighted and the individual responses generated from Delphi round 2. 
 
3.8.2 Quantitative Analysis 
The analysis of the quantitative data collected from the Delphi study was largely undertaken 
using Content validity data analysis technique as used by Polit and Beck (2006).  
 
Content Validity 
Content validity has been described over the years in varying studies and Table 3.3 summarizes 
some definitions of content validity by some authors. 
 
Table 3.3:Definitions of Content Validity 
Author Definition 
Wynd, Schmidt and “The extent to which an instrument adequately samples the 
Schaefer (2003) research domain of interest when attempting to measure 
phenomena.” 
Polit and Beck (2004) “The degree to which an instrument has an appropriate sample of 
items for the construct being measured.” 
Waltz, Strickland, Lenz “Whether or not the items sampled for inclusion on the tool 
and Soeken (2005) adequately represent the domain of content addressed by the 
instrument.” 
Polit and Beck (2006) “A posteriori effort to evaluate the relevance of the scale’s content 
through expert assessment.” 
 
Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
A careful look at these definition from the table above elucidates a general agreement that 
content validity, is related to the degree to which a sample of items inclusively constitute a 
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suitable operational definition of an idea. Thus, content validity is a method of quantifying the 
degree of agreement amongst experts regarding the content relevance of a proposed instrument. 
The most widely stated measure of content validity is the Content Validity Index (CVI). But 
the CVI has received a fair share of criticism from researchers. For example, Wynd, Schmidt 
and Schaefer (2003) argued that the CVI discards information by collapsing expert’s multipoint 
ordinal ratings into two categories, that is, relevant or not relevant. 
 
Item Content Validity Index (I-CVI) 
Researchers have been identified to compute the I-CVI. The item CVI refers to the content 
validity of individual items. Researchers generally use the I-CVI computed information to 
guide them in revising, deleting, or substituting items (Polit & Beck, 2006).  
To determine the I-CVI, the “Agree”/ “Yes” responses for each individual item was added and 
then it was divided by the total number of experts who responded to that item expressed as a 
percentage (Polit & Beck, 2006). This could be mathematically represented in an equation as; 
∑ x
I-CVI =  x 100 percent 
𝐸
where x refers to the number of “Agree”/”Yes” 
E refers to the number of experts 
A response may be deemed valid when it attains a pre-set level of consensus (agreement 
between experts). The pre-set consensus level in some studies vary between 51 percent and 80 
percent. It is however worthy to note that, the larger the number of participants, the lower the 
level of consensus expected (Keeney, Hasson, & McKenna, 2006). Being mindful of the fact 
that the larger the expert number, the harder it is to attain consensus (agreement), the pre-set 
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item consensus level for this study was set at 70 percent. This level of consensus was identified 
as being strong for fewer participant numbers (less than 20). 
3.9 Summary 
This chapter provided a synopsis for the methodology that was employed in this study. A 
review of the scope of the panel selection and identification was presented. the section 
procedures for the sample (panel of experts) was reviewed.  
Justification to the indicate that the Delphi method was an effective methodology to use to 
build group consensus regarding the complex topic of explore what influences the research 
topics, choice of use of theories and the research interests of African IS researchers. A review 
of data collection, data analysis, and impact of data on subsequent rounds of the Delphi were 
discussed. 
  
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CHAPTER FOUR 
RESEARCH FINDINGS 
4.0 Chapter Overview 
The previous chapter described the methodology for this study. It further presented the research 
design, an overview of the Delphi method and the data collection method used for this study. 
This chapter first presents the findings from the literature review to provide a foundation for 
the presentation of the Delphi study findings. The Delphi study findings are then presented in 
order of the rounds in which they were conducted, Delphi round 1 and Delphi round 2. This 
will serve as a footing for the analysis and discussion of the findings in the next chapter. 
 
4.1 Findings from the Systematic literature Review 
4.1.1 Publication outlets 
Table 4.1 below presents the publication outlets and the number of journal articles published. 
Table 4.1: Distribution of Publishing Outlets 
Publishing Outlet  Totals  Percentage  
AJIS 98 48.8 
Others (Outlets with less than Two Articles) 63 31.5 
South African Journal of information Management 6 3.0 
Information Technology for Development 6 3.0 
Information development  5 2.5 
International Journal of Medical Informatics 4 2.0 
International Journal of Information Management 4 2.0 
Telematics and informatics  4 2.0 
Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies 4 2.0 
Plos one 4 2.0 
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Publishing Outlet  Totals  Percentage  
Telecommunications policy 3 1.5 
Health Information Management Journal 3 1.5 
Future Generation Computer Systems 3 1.5 
SA Journal of Human Resource Management 3 1.5 
International Journal of Information Security Science 3 1.5 
The Electronic Journal on IS in Developing Countries 3 1.5 
Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 2 1.0 
BMC medical education 2 1.0 
BMC health services research 2 1.0 
JMIR medical informatics 2 1.0 
Government information Quarterly 2 1.0 
International Journal of Educational Sciences 2 1.0 
Procedia Social and Human Behaviour 2 1.0 
Health policy and Technology 2 1.0 
Journal of Enterprise Information Management 2 1.0 
Global Health Action 2 1.0 
Source: Author’s Construct 
The AJIS had 98 research articles from the findings. This finding was not surprising as the 
African Journal of Information Systems mainly deals with African related research articles. 
The focus of this research was on African researchers, hence the reason that most of the 
research articles were from the AJIS. 
 
Outlets with less than Two Articles referred to articles that recorded only one (1) article from 
their journal. They include Journal of Biomedical informatics, Journal of the American medical 
informatics association, Methods of information in medicine, South African Journal of Science, 
Research in comparative and international education, African journal of business management, 
Financial innovation amongst others.  
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4.1.2 Research Themes 
The presentation of articles classified under the IS research themes are as follows. The adoption 
and diffusion theme recorded (31.9 percent), design and application (11.3 percent), potential 
and constraints (7.3 percent), support and implementation (33.1 percent) and impact (16.5 
percent).  
 
Figure 4.1 Distribution of articles under the respective research themes. 
Research theme
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Adoption and Potential and Support and Design and Impact
diffusion constraint Implementation Application
Column1
 
Figure 4. 1: Research Themes  
 
4.1.3 Year of Publication  
The categorization by year of publication presented a growing trend of articles published by 
African IS researchers. Figure 4.2 displays the distribution of articles by year of publication. 
In the year 2008, 4 articles were recorded. The next year, 2009, saw a rise in the number of 
articles (6) recorded and then it reduced in the year 2010 to 5 articles. Successive years recorded 
a progressive rise in the number of articles published by IS researchers.  
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The year 2011 saw 15 articles published, followed by 2012 with 18 articles, then 2013 with 21 
articles, followed by 17 articles in 2014, 2015 saw a sharp rise in the number of articles 
published with 27 articles, then 2016 with 32 articles, and 2017 together with 2018 recorded 
51 articles and 49 articles respectively. In view of the increasing number of articles over the 
years, it can be predicted that there is a steady rise in the number articles published by IS 
researcher and these number would continue to rise. 
 
Figure 4.2: Year of Publication 
Year of Publication
60
51
49
50
40
32
30 27
21
18
20 1715
10 64 5
0
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
 
Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
4.1.4 Research Methodology adopted in articles reviewed 
With regards to the research methodologies utilized in the articles reviewed, most studies 
conducted by IS researchers that are more quantitative in nature recorded the highest tally of 
36.6 percent, followed by qualitative studies with 33.3 percent and then mixed method 13.5 
percent. The remainders are simulation/experimentations (11.4 percent), design science (2.4 
percent) was first recorded in the data set in 2014 (0.4 percent) and was fairly being used by 
most IS researchers in 2018 (1.8 percent). Studies classified as under “other methodologies” 
category, 2.8 percent, refer to those studies which included data envelopment analysis, case 
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building and living lap methodologies. Figure 4.3 displays the distribution of the articles per 
research methodologies utilized according to their number and percentages.  
 
Figure 4.3: Research Methodology adopted in articles reviewed 
Number %
O T H E R  M E T H O D O L O G I E S 7 2.8
D E S I G N  S C I E N C E 62.4
S I M U L A T I O N /  E X P E R I M E N T 28 11.4
M I X E D  M E T H O D  33 13.4
Q U A L I T A T I V E 82 33.3
Q U A N T I T A T I V E 90 36.6
 
Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
4.1.5 Level of Analysis 
This section (Figure 4.4) pertains to the levels at which the studies reviewed were conducted. 
The findings in this sub section were however not surprising that majority of the articles were 
in the “micro” category (62.2 percent) as most of these articles were in adoption and diffusion. 
Thus, these IS articles provide a body of knowledge that are applicable to individuals. 
Grounded articles selected for this study, the statistics proved that, studies conducted under the 
“meso” category and the “macro” were 27.9 percent and 14.1 percent respectively. 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Figure 4.4: Level of Analysis 
Level of Analysis
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Micro Meso Macro  
Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
4.1.6 Geographical Focus 
The evidence gathered from articles in various journals for this study indicates, that South 
Africa (37.3 percent) has more IS researches conducted in the country and about the country. 
Articles in the “cross country” category (13.3 percent) cover studies in two or more countries. 
The rest of the distribution are as follows, Ghana (13.3 percent), Kenya (8.4 percent), Nigeria 
(5.6 percent), Uganda (4.4 percent), Tanzania (3.6 percent), Ethiopia (2.0 percent), Malawi (1.6 
percent), Botswana (1.6 percent), Namibia (1.2 percent), Zimbabwe (1.2 percent), 
Mozambique (0.8 percent), Mauritius (0.8 percent), Rwanda (0.8 percent), Libya (0.4 percent), 
Burundi (0.4 percent), Mali (0.4 percent), Congo (0.4 percent), Sierra Leone (0.4 percent), 
Egypt (0.4 percent), Cameroon (0.4 percent), Senegal (0.4 percent), Burkina Faso (0.4 percent) 
and Morocco (0.4 percent). Figure 4.5 shows the distribution of articles.  
 
 
 
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Figure 4.5: Geographical Focus 
40.0
35.0
30.0
25.0
20.0
15.0
10.0
5.0
0.0
 
Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
4.1.7 Research Frameworks  
Based on the research frameworks, model and theories articles reviewed were categorized. The 
findings indicated that, most of the studies did not use theories frameworks (55.2 percent). 
Nevertheless, the frameworks used in some of the articles include TAM (Eelu & Nakakawa, 
2018), UTAUT (Olasina, 2015), Diffusion of Innovation (Ogunyemi & Johnston, 2015), Actor 
Network theory (Effah & Nuhu, 2012;), TOE (Kademeteme, Kalema & Pretorius, 2016), 
grounded theory (Brandon, 2013), Structuration theory (Bernardi, 2017), design theory 
(Khanyile & Coetzee, 2018), Delphi technique theory and Unified Model of Electronic 
Government Adoption (UMEGA). 
 
Amid the articles reviewed, TAM recorded 4.1 whilst UTAUT recorded 3.4 percent, Diffusion 
of Innovation recorded 3 percent and TOE had 2.6 percent. Some other publications combined 
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two or more theories in their study. Table 4.2 illustrates the distribution of the articles by their 
respective research frameworks. 
 
Table 4.2: List of Theories Extracted from Reviewed Publications  
Research theory No Percentage  
. 
No Theory  148 55.6 
TAM 11 4.1 
Diffusion of Innovation 8 3.0 
UTAUT 6 2.3 
Structuration Theory 5 1.9 
TOE  4 1.5 
Grounded Theory 3 1.1 
Critical Social Theory 2 0.8 
Social Ecological Theory  2 0.8 
Theory of Planned Behaviour 2 0.8 
Unified Model of Electronic Government Adoption (UMEGA) 2 0.8 
Activity Theory 2 0.8 
Resource Based Theory 2 0.8 
SERVQUAL 2 0.8 
Absorptive Capacity 1 0.4 
Analysis and Development Framework 1 0.4 
Attitudinal Theory 1 0.4 
Attribution Theory 1 0.4 
Batho Pele Framework 1 0.4 
Boundary Resources 1 0.4 
Cognitive Theory 1 0.4 
Contingency Model 1 0.4 
Critical Discourse Analysis 1 0.4 
Data Analysis Envelopment (DEA) Model  1 0.4 
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Delone And Mclean Is Success Model 1 0.4 
Delphi Technique Theory 1 0.4 
Dependency Theory 1 0.4 
Discrepancy Theory 1 0.4 
Disruptive Innovation Theory 1 0.4 
Economic Growth Theory 1 0.4 
Economic Production Theory 1 0.4 
Ehealth Behavior Management Model 1 0.4 
Electronic Marketplace Theory 1 0.4 
Equity Theory 1 0.4 
E-School Success Model 1 0.4 
Farrell Framework 1 0.4 
Generational Cohort Theory 1 0.4 
Improvisation Theory 1 0.4 
IS Success Model 1 0.4 
Institutional Theory 1 0.4 
Intellectual Capital 1 0.4 
Intermediation 1 0.4 
Johnson's Model 1 0.4 
KM Theory 1 0.4 
Knowledge Based 1 0.4 
Modernization Theory 1 0.4 
Network Theory of Social Capital 1 0.4 
Neutralization Theory 1 0.4 
Open System Theory 1 0.4 
Service Management Model 1 0.4 
Situational Awareness Theory 1 0.4 
Social Cognitive 1 0.4 
Social Contract Theory 1 0.4 
Social Exchange Theory 1 0.4 
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Soft Set Theory 1 0.4 
Speech Act Theory 1 0.4 
Theory of Emancipation 1 0.4 
Theory of Reasoned Action 1 0.4 
Transparency Theory  1 0.4 
Probit, Ordered Probit Model and Tobit Model 1 0.4 
Batho Pele Framework and SERVQUAL 1 0.4 
Critical Social Theory, Theory of Emancipation 1 0.4 
Diffusion of Innovation and TAM Model 1 0.4 
Diffusion of Innovations Theory and The Toe Model 1 0.4 
Equity Theory and Discrepancy 1 0.4 
Intellectual Capital, Resource Based, Knowledge Based 1 0.4 
Intermediation, Electronic Marketplace Theory, and Transparency 1 0.4 
Theory  
Organisational Onion and Organizational Morphology 1 0.4 
Situational Awareness Theory, Disruptive Innovation Theory 1 0.4 
TAM 2 and Indicator of Resilience Model 1 0.4 
TAM and Diffusion of Innovation Theory 1 0.4 
TAM, TTF And Social Cognitive 1 0.4 
Task Technology Fit and UTAUT 1 0.4 
Technology, Individual, Process-Fit Model 1 0.4 
Theory of Planned Behaviour and Diffusion of Innovation Theory 1 0.4 
Theory of Trust in Social Exchange, IS Success Model and Attribution 1 0.4 
Theory 
TOE Model and UTAUT Model 1 0.4 
TOE, TAM, Social Identification Theory 1 0.4 
UTAUT 2 and E-government Adoption Model 1 0.4 
Theory of Planned Behaviour and TOE 1 0.4 
Social Contract Theory, Social Ecological Theory 1 0.4 
 
266 100.0 
 
 
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Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
4.2 Presentation of the Delphi Round 1 Findings 
The first round of the Delphi study included the eight open-ended questions that were designed 
to try to obtain a broad range of responses (Appendix B).  
A total number of 16 respondents partook in the first round of the Delphi interview. The 
responses from the first round of the Delphi were consolidated. Also, similar responses to each 
of the questions were also consolidated. Separated lists were advanced to reflect responses to 
each question. Checks were made to eliminate non related or incomplete responses. 
The table 4.3 below elucidates the interview questions submitted to the panel of experts and 
the responses in each of the areas of inquiry for the Delphi round one. The first column lists 
the question posed to the respondents and the second column contains the responses pertaining 
to the questions asked. 
Table 4.3: Interview questions submitted to the panel of experts and their responses 
Interview Question Delphi Round One Responses 
1 Courses studied 
2 Academic background 
3 Personal interest 
4 Current social Issues  
5 Impact of research on development 
6 Ability to impact development 
7 Supervisor's preference 
8 Research problems 
9 Research gaps 
1. What influences your choice of 
10 New trends 
area of research? 
11 Industry problems 
12 Institutional research environment  
13 Technological trends 
14 Scholarly relevance 
15 Policy relevance 
16 Challenges in current environment 
17 Scalability of the research to other contexts 
18 Call for papers 
19 Global trends 
1. Research questions  
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2. Awareness of the theoretical framework 
3. Relevance of framework to the study 
4. Research problem identified 
5. Desired outcome of the study 
6. Type and context of the research. 
7. Personal research orientation 
2.What influences your choice of 8. Research paradigm  
theoretical frameworks for 9. Ability to contribute to the theory 
research? 10. Fitness of the theory 
11. Experience and knowledge  
12. Research objectives 
13. Application of the theory in extant literature 
14. Relevant factors to be studied 
15. Applicability of the theory to the context 
16. Ability to make modifications to the theory 
1. Research's background of study 
2. Nature of courses studied 
3. Methods used by existing research 
4. Relevance to the study 
5. Time allocated to the study  
6. Value that I may from the responses 
7. Level of familiarity  
8. The problem at hand 
9. Nature and context of the study 
10. Research paradigm 
3. What influences your choice of 
research methodology used to 11. Research questions 
conduct a research? 12. Personal skills and training  
13. Application in the extant literature 
14. Its robustness and relevance to the problem 
statement 
15. Its consistency with the data behavior 
16. Available funds  
17. Type of data required for meaningful and 
relevant results. 
18. Type of data to be gathered 
19. Theoretical framework used 
20. Stated purpose of the study 
1. Research topic and area  
2. Tier of the journal 
3. Impact score 
4. Recommendation from other researchers 
4. What influences the choice of 5. Scopus index 
publishing outlet researchers 6. Accredited by the ministry of higher education 
chosen? * for subsidy purposes 
7. Credibility with respect to peer review 
8. Level of visibility  
9. Publication forums with higher impact factor for 
my paper to get cited 
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10. Ranking of journal 
11. Potential of being published very fast 
12. The nature of topic 
13. Where I can make more impact 
14. Academic status 
15. Career trajectory  
16. Quality of manuscripts 
17. Co-authors 
18. Suitability 
19. Institutional environment  
20. Ranking of the journal 
21. The area of specialization of the journal and its 
readership 
22. Supervisors' recommendations 
23. The list of approved publishing outlets in my 
department 
24. Level of acceptability 
1. Cyber crime 
2. Mobile application development 
3. Information security and privacy 
4. Social media engagement  
5. Telework 
6. Ict4d  
7. Health informatics 
8. ICT in agriculture  
9. ICT in health 
10. Learner analytics 
11. E-learning 
12. E-commerce  
5. What are the top 2 research 13. Nexuses between information technology and 
areas you have undertaken in the development outcomes 
past 5 years?" 14. ICT in education 
15. Technology enhancing learning  
16. IS for disaster management  
17. Cloud computing  
18. Big data analytics  
19. Impact of ICT on reading culture and research in 
developing countries 
20. Innovation diffusion 
21. Information security 
22. E-learning  
23. Digital business strategy 
24. Acceptance of eLearning systems 
25. Management theory 
1. Artificial intelligence  
6. What are the top 2 research 
2. Church IS adoption  
areas you are considering to 
3. Information security 
research in the next 5 years? * 
4. Ethical computing 
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5. Ict4d 
6. Health informatics 
7. Blockchain 
8. ICT in Health 
9. ICT in Education  
10. BI  
11. Social media analytics  
12. Pre cognitive systems 
13. Sustainable digital transformation 
14. Digital business innovation   
15. Machine learning 
16. Educational quality assurance 
17. Adoption of medical decision support systems in 
developing countries 
18. Extension of mobile virtual network operations 
into the delivery of competitive mobile provision 
in developing countries 
19. Enterprise informatics 
20. Cyber psychology 
21. Digital business strategy 
22. Internet of things 
23. Cryptocurrency  
24. The sharing economy 
25. Artificial intelligence 
26. Robotics 
1. IT investment 
2. Blockchain 
3. Big data 
4. ICT and the SDG's 
5. Natural language processing 
6. Machine learning (supervised and unsupervised) 
7. Developing academic textbooks to Teach ICT in 
Africa 
8. Culture and AI 
9. Digital agriculture 
7. Are there any areas in ICT in 
10. Socio-political impact of emerging technologies 
the African context you consider 
(in some countries social 
under researched which 
11. Media is destroying the socio-political fabric) 
researchers can take advantaged? 
12. Learning analytics  
13. Educational quality assurance 
14. Mobile banking adoption 
15. Development of smartphone apps to support 
sustainable farming and advertising 
16. Of farm produce through apps to larger markets 
17. ICT usage in mobile and remote healthcare 
delivery and diagnosis of diseases 
18. Cyber psychology 
19. Privacy of data 
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20. Cryptocurrency 
21. Ict4d 
22. Sharing economy 
23. Artificial intelligence 
24. Robotics 
25. Outsourcing it capabilities 
1. ICT for Development 
2. Distributed teamwork 
3. Mobile computing 
4. Blockchain 
5. Big data 
6. ICT and poverty eradication 
7. Natural language processing 
8. Machine learning (supervised and unsupervised) 
9. Socio-economic development 
10. Data Analytics in Government 
11. Sustainable digital transformation of different 
8. In your opinion, which ICT 
economic sectors (agriculture, 
areas of research that would be 
12. Health, education; governance etc.) 
very relevant to Africa in the next 
13. Learning analytics 
5 years? 
14. Using mobile and smartphones for all aspects of 
business, health and education 
15. Through cloud hosted services and big data 
16. Enterprise informatics  
17. Cyberpsychology 
18. Data mining 
19. Digital Business strategy 
20. Data driven culture 
21. BI  
22. Cryptocurrency 
23. Internet fraud 
 
Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
4.3 Findings from Delphi Round 2 
The round 2 of the Delphi study comprised of instructions for the panellists to rate the 
responses provided from the open-ended session above. Sixteen responses were received by 
April 2019. The participants were asked to rate the responses on the influence the area of 
research, the influence on the choice of a theoretical framework, the influence on the choice of 
research methodology adopted, the influence on their choice of publishing outlet, the top 
research areas they would be considering to research in the next 5 years, the areas in research 
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they thought were under researched that could be taken advantage of and the research areas 
that would be very relevant to Africa in the next 5 years. The method of rating was a three point 
scale (either “Agree”/“Yes”, “May consider”/”Neutral” and “Disagree”/”No”). 
 
The responses from the Delphi round 2 were coded in excel and the data was compiled. 
Since the second round of Delphi was quantitative in nature, the data analysis primarily 
followed Parratt, Fahy, Hutchinson, Lohmann and Hastie (2016) which was consistent with 
(Popham, 1999). The quantitative analysis of the Delphi round 2 involved calculating for the 
Item Content Validity Index (I-CVI) (Polit & Beck, 2006). 
 
Table 4.4: The I-CVI computation of responses from question one of the questionnaire 
(ƒ/No. of Accept or 
Title A(ƒ) respondents) * Reject 
100 percent 
Courses Studied 14 0.875 Accept 
Academic Background 13 0.8125 Accept 
Personal Interest 12 0.75 Accept 
Current Social issues 7 0.4375 Reject 
Impact Of Research On Development 12 0.75 Accept 
Ability To Impact Development 9 0.5625 Reject 
Supervisor's Preference 10 0.625 Reject 
Research Problems 10 0.625 Reject 
New Trends 14 0.875 Accept 
Industry Problems 5 0.3125 Reject 
Institutional Research Environment 9 0.5625 Reject 
Technological Trends 16 1 Accept 
Scholarly Relevance 10 0.625 Reject 
Policy Relevance 5 0.3125 Reject 
Challenges in Current Environment 8 0.5 Reject 
Scalability of The Research to Other Contexts 5 0.3125 Reject 
Call for Papers 10 0.625 Reject 
Global Trends 10 0.625 Reject 
 
Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
The table above elicits the I-CVI computation for the first question. The courses studied, 
personal interest, academic background, impact of research on development, the new trends 
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and Technological Trends had I-CVI’s that were above the pre-set consensus level of 70 
percent. Thus, there was a high level of agreement amongst the experts that these factors were 
more likely to influence the research area of the African IS researchers. Furthermore, the 
courses studied and the academic background had an I-CVI score of more than 80 percent 
which indicated a higher level of consensus amongst all the participants. The technological 
trends had an I-CVI score of 1. This meant that all the experts agreed that the technological 
trends available at a t time affected the area of research Thus, it can be said that, an African IS 
researcher’s area of focus is mainly as a result of his exposure and training. 
Table 4.5: The I-CVI computation of responses from question two of the questionnaire 
(Ƒ/No. Of Accept 
Title A(Ƒ) Respondents) or Reject 
* 100 percent 
Research Questions 15 0.9375 Accept 
Awareness of The Theoretical Framework 14 0.875 Accept 
Relevance of Framework to The Study 16 1 Accept 
Research Problem Identified 11 0.6875 Reject 
Desired Outcome of The Study 6 0.375 Reject 
Type and Context of The Research. 10 0.625 Reject 
Personal Research Orientation 9 0.5625 Reject 
Research Paradigm  8 0.5 Reject 
Ability to Contribute to The Theory 7 0.4375 Reject 
Fitness of The Theory 16 1 Accept 
Experience and Knowledge  12 0.75 Accept 
Research Objectives 12 0.75 Accept 
Application of The Theory in Extant Literature 10 0.625 Reject 
Relevant Factors to Be Studied 10 0.625 Reject 
Applicability of The Theory to the Context 11 0.6875 Reject 
Ability to Make Modifications to The Theory 9 0.5625 Reject 
 
Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
Table 4.6 elicits the I-CVI computation for the second question. The research questions, 
awareness of the theoretical framework, relevance of framework to the study, fitness of the 
theory, experience and knowledge and research objectives obtained an I-CVI value of more 
than 70 percent. Thus, the experts expressed a higher consensus with these factors. It is not 
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surprising that the relevance of framework to the study and fitness of the theory came out as 
two of the most agreed factors in the domain. Since the theory is the lens through the analysis 
of the study is conducted, it is prudent that much emphasis is placed on the whether the theory 
is well placed to address the phenomenon being studied. 
Table 4.6:The I-CVI computation of responses from question three of the questionnaire 
(Ƒ/No. Of Accept 
Title A(Ƒ) Respondents) * 100 or Reject 
percent 
Research's Background of Study 13 0.8125 Accept 
Nature of Courses Studied 9 0.5625 Reject 
Methods Used by Existing Research 15 0.9375 Accept 
Relevance to the Study 13 0.8125 Accept 
Time Allocated to the Study  6 0.375 Reject 
Value That I May from the Responses 9 0.5625 Reject 
Level of Familiarity  15 0.9375 Accept 
The Problem at Hand 11 0.6875 Reject 
Nature and Context of the Study 10 0.625 Reject 
Research Paradigm 11 0.6875 Reject 
Research Questions 11 0.6875 Reject 
Personal Skills and Training  12 0.75 Accept 
Application in The Extant Literature 11 0.6875 Reject 
Its Robustness and Relevance to the Problem Reject 
Statement 10 0.625 
Its Consistency with the Data Behavior 7 0.4375 Reject 
Available Funds  4 0.25 Reject 
Type of Data Required for Meaningful and Reject 
Relevant Results. 9 0.5625 
Type of Data to Be Gathered 15 0.9375 Accept 
Theoretical Framework Used 10 0.625 Reject 
Stated Purpose of The Study 9 0.5625 Reject 
 
Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
Table 4.5 elicits the I-CVI computation for the third question. Research's background of study, 
methods used by existing research, the methodology’s relevance to the study, level of 
familiarity, personal skills and training and type of data to be gathered were the responses that 
attained the pre-set level of consensus of 70 percent. Thus, all the respondents to the round 2 
of the Delphi study agreed on the relevance of these factors to the choice of methodology. The 
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existing research methodology adopted in the articles reviewed exhibited the highest level of 
consensus that indicated that the kind of methodology being used in the topic area impacts the 
researcher’s choice of a methodology. 
Table 4.7: The I-CVI computation of responses from question four of the questionnaire 
(Ƒ/No. Of   
Title A(Ƒ) Respondents) * 100 
percent 
Research Topic and Area  15 0.9375 Accept 
Tier of the Journal 12 0.75 Accept 
Impact Score 11 0.6875 Reject 
Recommendation from Other Researchers 13 0.8125 Accept 
Scopus Index 9 0.5625 Reject 
Accredited by The Ministry of Higher Education for Reject 
Subsidy Purposes 5 0.3125 
Credibility with Respect to Peer Review 15 0.9375 Accept 
Level of Visibility  13 0.8125 Accept 
Ranking of Journal   15 0.9375 Accept 
Potential of Being Published Very Fast 11 0.6875 Reject 
Where I Can Make More Impact 13 0.8125 Accept 
Academic Status 3 0.1875 Reject 
Career Trajectory  6 0.375 Reject 
Quality Of Manuscripts 8 0.5 Reject 
Co-Authors 5 0.3125 Reject 
Suitability 14 0.875 Accept 
Institutional Environment  6 0.375  
The Area Of Specialization Of The Journal And Its Accept 
Readership 15 0.9375 
Supervisors' Recommendations 12 0.75 Accept 
The List Of Approved Publishing Outlets In My Reject 
Department 9 0.5625 
Level Of Acceptability 13 0.8125 Accept 
 
Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
 
The I-CVI computation for the fourth question is elicited in the Table 4.7. Larger number of 
individual items in this domain attained the pre-set consensus level as compared to the previous 
questions. The research topic and area, tier of the journal, recommendation from other 
researchers, credibility with respect to peer review, level of visibility, ranking of journal, where 
more impact can be made, suitability of the research for the journal, the area of specialization 
of the journal and its readership and the level of acceptability were the factors that attained the 
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preset level of consensus. The research topic and area, credibility with respect to peer review 
and ranking of journal were highly agreed upon as they attained a consensus level above 90 
percent. The high level of consensus of these three factors amongst the rest indicated that, some 
journals are mostly noted to attract research papers from certain fields, thus, African IS 
researcher would prefer to select journals that match their topic and area of focus. Also, all IS 
researchers want to have their articles published in peer reviewed journals as this guarantees 
their articles as being counted as good after they have been reviewed and published. Hence, 
they would prefer to publish in peer reviewed journals. Journals with good rankings tend to 
attract good audience and readership. the search article published in them get to be cited more 
often than not. Hence, it is not surprising that the experts highly agreed on these top three 
factors. 
Table 4.8: The I-CVI computation of responses from question five of the questionnaire 
(ƒ/No. of Accept or 
Title A(ƒ) respondents) * 100 Reject 
percent 
Artificial Intelligence  10 0.625 Reject 
Church IS Adoption  3 0.1875 Reject 
Information Security 13 0.8125 Accept 
Ethical Computing 6 0.375 Reject 
ICT4D 13 0.8125 Accept 
Health Informatics 12 0.75 Accept 
Blockchain 6 0.375 Reject 
ICT In Health 11 0.6875 Reject 
ICT In Education  12 0.75 Accept 
BI  11 0.6875 Reject 
Social Media Analytics  12 0.75 Accept 
Pre-Cognitive Systems 2 0.125 Reject 
Sustainable Digital Transformation 12 0.75 Accept 
Digital Business Innovation   13 0.8125 Accept 
Machine Learning 7 0.4375 Reject 
Educational Quality Assurance 4 0.25 Reject 
Adoption of Medical Decision Support Systems In Reject 
Developing Countries 8 0.5 
Extension Of Mobile Virtual Network Operations Reject 
Into The Delivery Of Competitive Mobile 
Provision In Developing Countries 7 0.4375 
Enterprise Informatics 7 0.4375 Reject 
Cyber Psychology 5 0.3125 Reject 
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Digital Business Strategy 11 0.6875 Reject 
10 0.625 Reject 
Internet Of Things 
7 0.4375 Reject 
Cryptocurrency  
10 0.625 Reject 
The Sharing Economy 
 
Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
The computation in table 4.8 elicits the I-CVI values for the fifth question. The responses that 
adhere to the pre-set consensus level of 70 percent are Information Security, ICT4D, Health 
Informatics, ICT In Education, Social Media Analytics, Sustainable Digital Transformation 
and Digital Business Innovation. Nonetheless, Information Security, ICT4D, Digital Business 
Innovation attained greater consensus or level of agreement amongst all the relevant responses. 
 
Table 4.9: The I-CVI computation of responses from question six of the questionnaire.  
(ƒ/No. Of Accept 
Title A(ƒ) respondents) * or Reject 
100 percent 
AI 14 0.875 Accept 
Robotics 14 0.875 Accept 
IT investment 4 0.25 Reject 
Blockchain 9 0.5625 Reject 
Big data 10 0.625 Reject 
ICT and the SDG's 10 0.625 Reject 
Natural language processing 12 0.75 Accept 
Machine learning (supervised and unsupervised) 7 0.4375 Reject 
Developing academic textbooks to Teach ICT in Africa 13 0.8125 Accept 
Culture and AI 13 0.8125 Accept 
Digital agriculture 10 0.625 Reject 
Socio-political impact of emerging technologies (in some Reject 
countries social media is destroying the socio-political 
fabric) 11 0.6875 
Learning analytics  5 0.3125 Reject 
Educational quality assurance 6 0.375 Reject 
Mobile banking adoption 9 0.5625 Reject 
Development of smartphone apps to support sustainable Reject 
farming and advertising of farm produce through apps to 
larger markets 9 0.5625 
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ICT usage in mobile and remote healthcare delivery and Accept 
diagnosis of diseases 12 0.75 
Cyber Psychology 7 0.4375 Reject 
Privacy of data 10 0.625 Reject 
Cryptocurrency 8 0.5 Reject 
ICT4D 12 0.75 Accept 
Sharing economy 12 0.75 Accept 
 
Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
Out of the above I-CVI computations obtained from Table 4.9, AI, Robotics, Natural language 
processing, developing academic textbooks to Teach ICT in Africa, Culture and AI, ICT usage 
in mobile and remote healthcare delivery and diagnosis of diseases, ICT4D and Sharing 
economy attained the pre-set consensus level of 70 percent. That is, the experts interviewed 
agreed that that they consider these topics under researched and the African Is researchers 
should consider these research areas. 
Table 4.10: The I-CVI computation of responses from question seven of the 
questionnaire. 
(ƒ/No. Of Accept or 
Title A(ƒ) respondents) * 100 Reject 
percent 
AI 8 0.5 Reject 
Robotics 12 0.75  
Outsourcing IT Capabilities 6 0.375 Reject 
ICT for Development 10 0.625 Reject 
Distributed Teamwork 8 0.5 Reject 
Mobile Computing 12 0.75  
Blockchain 10 0.625 Reject 
Big data 8 0.5 Reject 
ICT and poverty eradication 11 0.6875 Reject 
Natural language processing 11 0.6875 Reject 
Machine learning (supervised and Accept 
unsupervised) 14 0.875 
Socio-Economic Development 11 0.6875 Reject 
Data Analytics in Government 11 0.6875 Reject 
Sustainable digital transformation of different Accept 
economic sectors (agriculture, health, 
education; governance etc.) 12 0.75 
Learning analytics 9 0.5625 Reject 
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Using mobile and smartphones for all aspects Reject 
of business, health and education through 
cloud hosted services and big data 11 0.6875 
Enterprise informatics  15 0.9375 Accept 
Cyberpsychology 9 0.5625 Reject 
Data mining 7 0.4375 Reject 
Digital Business strategy 13 0.8125 Accept 
Data driven culture 11 0.6875 Reject 
BI  10 0.625 Reject 
Cryptocurrency 10 0.625 Reject 
Internet fraud 13 0.8125 Accept 
 
Source: Author’s Own Construct 
 
Table 4.10 above displays the I-CVI computations for the responses retrieved from round 2 of 
the Delphi study. The following responses met the pre-set consensus level of 70 percent; 
Robotics, Mobile Computing, Machine learning (supervised and unsupervised) Sustainable 
digital transformation of different economic sectors (agriculture, health, education; governance 
etc.), Enterprise informatics, Digital Business strategy and Internet fraud. 
 
4.4 Summary 
This chapter provided a presentation of findings from the data. Data concerning the Publishing 
Outlets, Research themes, Year of Publication, Research Methodology adopted in articles 
reviewed, Level of Analysis, Geographical Focus and Research Frameworks were present. 
Furthermore, the data from the round one and round two of the Delphi technique were presented 
  
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CHAPTER FIVE 
ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS 
5.0 Chapter Overview 
The purpose of study is to explore what influences the research topics, choice of use of theories 
and the research interests of African IS researchers. The previous chapter elicited the 
methodology for this study. It further presented about the scientific means used to select the 
respondents for the study, an overview of the Delphi Technique, panel selection and 
identification and the data collection rounds. This chapter discusses the data and findings of 
the study. The chapter presents the data for examination, analysis and discussion of the findings 
from the data collected through the Delphi rounds. The findings of this study are first presented 
under the sub questions for the study and are then discussed. 
 
5.1  Answering the Research Questions 
This subsection of this thesis seeks to find answers to the first set of research questions posed 
in (Section 1.4): 
What is the nature of IS research and identify an in-depth knowledge to why certain choices 
are made by IS researchers? 
a) What are the dominant themes in IS research in Africa? 
b) What explore technologies have been studied in IS research in Africa? 
c) What are the motivations that underpin choices of researchers? 
5.1.1  Dominant themes of African IS Research 
The nature of the IS research describes the dominant themes, years of publications, 
technologies researched, publishing outlets and the research methodologies used in 
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undertaking research in the IS field. From the findings, it is indicative that the dominant themes 
in African IS research are ‘support and implementation’ and ‘adoption and diffusion’.  This 
finding was mainly prevalent in the Southern region of Africa namely: South Africa, Namibia, 
Zimbabwe and Malawi and West African region of Africa namely: Ghana and Nigeria. These 
countries had high ranking representations in the ITU ICT development index 2017. Hence, it 
can be argued that most countries that had high ITU ICT Development index ranking had more 
‘support and implementation’ and ‘adoption and diffusion’ related research being carried out 
which represented about 70 percent of research articles used in the study. Given that, IS mostly 
requires support after they have been adopted, implemented and used in organizations or in the 
lives of people and institutions, it was not surprising that a number of the support and 
implementation studies had the greater article share and they recorded more studies than 
adoption and diffusion. This position was not very surprising as Boateng, Heeks, Molla and 
Hinson (2011) reported a similar finding that the support and implementation theme which 
mainly involved the strategy, consumer behaviour, public policy, service evaluation and the 
knowledgeable and learning procedures was a dominant theme in e commerce research. This 
position is further strengthened in a study conducted by Sittig and Singh (2015), as they 
highlighted the importance of support and implementation through measuring, monitoring and 
evaluating both intended and unintended cost of IS use. Subsequently, figure 5.1 further 
provides a graphical breakdown of countries that had research article contributing to the 
support and implementation theme. The individual countries that contribute to making support 
and implementation the most dominant themes are as follow; Cross country(‘studies conducted 
in more than one country’) (21.5 percent), Ghana (20 percent), Kenya (10.8 percent), Libya 
(1.5 percent), Malawi (1.5 percent), Mozambique (1.5 percent), Namibia (1.5 percent), 
Nigeria(4.6 percent), South Africa (24.6 percent), Tanzania (4.6 percent), Uganda (6.2 percent) 
and Zimbabwe (1.5 percent). . Furthermore, the mass representation of the support and 
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adoption articles confirms that less attention has been paid to other themes such as the potential 
and constraints, design and application and impact. 
 
Namiba
Zimbabwe Support and Implemtation
Uganda
Tanzania
South Africa
Nigeria
Mozambique
Malawi
libya
Kenya
Ghana
cross country
0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0
Support and Implemtation
 
Figure 5.1 Breakdown of support and implementation theme by country. 
South Africa
Rwanda Adoption and Diffusion
Nigeria
Mauritius
Malawi
Kenya
Ghana
Ethiopia
Cross country
cameroun
Burundi
0.0 5.0 10.0 15.0 20.0 25.0
Adoption and Diffusion
 
Figure 5.2. Breakdown of Adoption and Diffusion theme by country. 
From figure 5.2 above, the individual African countries that have contributed research articles 
to this study include: Burundi (1.6 percent), Cameroun (1.6 percent), Cross country (11.5), 
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Ethiopia (3.3 percent), Ghana (13.1 percent), Kenya (9.8), Malawi (3.3 percent), Mauritius (1.6 
percent), Nigeria (9.8 percent), Rwanda (3.3 percent) and South Africa (41 percent). 
The findings from Figure 5.1 and Figure 5.2 reveals that, South Africa was the country with 
the largest number of research article covering adoption and diffusion. Since it is the dominant 
country with most research articles in this study, it is not very surprising that they had most of 
the research articles under this review. 
5.1.2 Technologies have been Studied in IS Research in Africa 
Concerning the technologies that have been studied in IS in Africa, the respondents of the 
Delphi round 1 when asked to mention the top research areas they have studied in the last 5 
years revealed that they had researched cybercrime (Orji, 2019; Quarshie & Martin-Odoom, 
2012), mobile application development (Flora, 2018), information security and privacy 
(Yaokumah & Dawson, 2019), social media engagement (Bidwell, 2016), telework (Morrison, 
2017), ICT4D (Ojo, 2016), health informatics (Nkengasong, Djoudalbaye, & Maiyegun, 2017), 
ICT in agriculture (Tata & McNamara, 2016), ICT in health (Adeola & Evans, 2018), learner 
analytics (Lemmens & Henn, 2016), e-learning (Boateng et al., 2016), e-commerce (Boateng 
et al., 2011), nexuses between information technology and development outcomes (Aker & 
Mbiti, 2010), ICT in education (Oyelere, Suhonen, & Sutinen, 2016), enhancing learning 
(Mtebe, 2015), IS for disaster management (Raemaekers & Sunde, 2017), cloud computing 
(Senyo et al., 2018), big data analytics (Marfo, Boateng, & Effah, 2017), impact of ICT on 
reading culture and research in developing countries (Piper, Zuilkowski, Kwayumba, & 
Strigel, 2016), innovation diffusion (Acheampong et al., 2017), digital business strategy 
(Oppong, Singh, & Pathak, 2018), acceptance of e-learning systems and Management theory 
(Awidi & Cooper, 2015). 
Noting that the number of respondents to the Delphi round 1 were 16, it is inconclusive to 
suggest that a significant representation of all the topics that have been researched in Africa. 
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However, since the responses to the study emanated from experts geographically dispersed on 
the African continent, one can posit that, these are some of the top research areas that have 
been researched in Africa. 
 
5.1.3 Motivation for Research Choice of African Researchers 
This sub section presents the findings that hopefully provided a basis for a comparative 
consensus analysis, hence enabling the researcher to selectively identify the motivations that 
underpin the choices of African IS researchers across three African sub regions: The Southern, 
Eastern and Western Regions. The Western region of Africa was specifically included to 
include University of Ghana business school IS lecturers (UGBS lecturers) and the Year 2 PHD 
IS students of the University of Ghana. 
 
5.1.3.1 Motivations for selecting Research topics 
Table 5.1:Motivations for selecting Research topics 
Themes 
Region Impact of New Courses Academic Personal Technological 
Research on Research 
Studied Background Interest Trends 
Development Trends 
1. South 
         ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓  
Africa 
2. East        ✓
Africa 
3. West 
        ✓ ✓
Africa 
4. UGBS     
✓   
lecturers 
5. PHD    
✓  ✓  ✓  
Students 
 
Source: Author’s Own Construct  
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Table 5.1 above outlines the factors that influence research topics of African IS researchers in 
the various Africa sub regions.  
From the Delphi rounds, it appears that the ‘courses studied’ received a high level of agreement 
with a variable index of 0.88. Some researchers from Southern and Western Africa, who were 
two and three respectively, strongly recommended ‘courses studied’ as a motivating factor 
when it came to selecting a research topic. Thus, the ‘Courses studied’ was therefore accepted 
as a motivating factor for further testing. Godwin, Potvin, Hazari and Lock (2016) believed 
that some courses studied in previous academic institutions can influence an individual’s 
choice for studying a field of study like engineering. Nonetheless, there was scanty literature 
to further to support this claim. In this same regard, Altinay, Paraskevas, and Jang (2015) 
postulated that the most common source for a research topic generation is the researcher’s own 
course of study and the topics that are present in different lecture sessions. 
‘Academic Background’ which was only cited by IS researchers from Southern region of 
Africa in the first round of the Delphi study realized a variable index of 0.81 in the second 
round of Delphi interview and is therefore accepted as a motivating factor. This position is 
supported by Broström (2019) who identified that PHD students trained with funding for their 
PHD research can have their thesis topics as well as career destination altered by their funders 
to get what they want in terms of research content. 
‘Personal Interest’ and ‘Impact of Research on Development’, which were both mentioned by 
African IS researchers from the Southern and Western Africa respectively, realized a variable 
index of 0.75. This factor which did not receive a strong agreement as the previous two factors 
mentioned above was selected as a motivating factor since it met the acceptance level of 0.70. 
Furthermore, ‘Impact of Research on Development’ was the only factor mentioned by 
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researchers from Eastern Africa that was accepted as a factor that influences the choice of a 
research topic. 
‘New Research Trends’ from the environments were mentioned by 3 academics as an important 
factor to selecting a research topic in the first round of the Delphi interview. It realized a 
variable index of 0.88 in the Delphi study. Sehra, Brar, Kaur and Sehra (2017) argued that 
patterns and new trends identified through research can help in finding the potential research 
areas. Hence, the ‘new research trends’ was accepted as a necessary factor to selecting a 
research topic. 
‘Technological Trends’ received an enormous support by all the experts interviewed to give 
the factor a variable score of 1. This clearly indicated that the current ‘technological trends’ in 
the environment does influence researchers interviewed when it came to the selection of a 
research topic. 
 
5.1.3.2  Motivations that influence the choice of Theoretical Framework 
 
Table 5.2 elicits the responses on factors that influence the choice of theoretical framework for 
research of African IS researchers in the various sub regions of Africa.  
 
‘Research Questions and Objectives’ had a variable index of 0.94 and 0.75 receptively. These 
two factors were recommended by researchers from Southern Africa and Western Africa. Since 
both factors can be deduced from one another, it made sense that both factors attained the 
necessary levels of consensus. The main research question and any sub-questions of a study 
should represent notable aspects of the theoretical framework and articulate the theoretical 
framework in a manner by which it can be further explored by a research (Osanloo & Grant, 
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2016). Since the research objectives of the study are derived from the research questions, it is 
in the right to argue that both factors influence the theoretical framework used in a study  
‘Awareness of The Theoretical Framework’ was suggested by a research from Eastern African 
region and it attained a variable score of 0.88 which met the criteria set for consensus. Thus, a 
researcher’s awareness of the existence of a particular framework does determine whether it 
would be used or not. There was no significant literature to support this claim. 
 
‘Relevance of Framework to the Study’ received an overwhelming support with a variable 
index of 1 in the interviews. This factor was first suggested by respondents from all the three 
regions that were considered for the study in the first round of the Delphi interview. It was 
highly agreed upon by all the respondents in the second round of the interview with a variable 
index of 1. 
 
‘Fitness of the Theory’ which was suggested by UGBS lecturers from the West African region 
also attained a high level of acceptance and support with a variable index of 1. Hence, fitness 
of the theory was undoubtedly accepted. 
 
‘Experience and Knowledge of the researchers’ as mentioned by a researcher from the South 
African region was accepted as it attained a variable score of 0.75. 
Table 5.2: Motivations that influence the choice of Theoretical Framework 
Themes 
Relevance 
Awareness of Fitness 
Region Research Research 
of The Framework of The Experience 
Questions Objectives 
Theoretical to The Theory and 
Framework Study Knowledge 
1. South 
✓   ✓   ✓  ✓  
Africa 
2. East 
 ✓  ✓     
Africa 
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3. West 
✓      ✓  
Africa 
4. UGBS 
   ✓    
lecturers 
5. PHD 
✓   ✓    ✓  
Students 
 
Source: Author’s Own construct based on findings 
 
5.1.3.3  Motivational Factors that influence the choice of Research Methodology 
adopted in articles reviewed 
 
Table 5.3 elicits the responses of African IS researchers when interviewed by what influences 
their choice of research methodology used to conduct a research in the various sub regions of 
Africa.  
‘Researcher's Background of Study’ was described in both rounds of the Delphi interview as 
important by three researchers from the West African region in the first round and later attained 
a variable index of 0.81 in the second round of the study. 
‘Methods Used by Existing Researchers’ and ‘Level of Familiarity’, which can be explained 
as research methods that researchers are privy to, attained a variable score of 0.94. Both factors 
have been reported by a greater number of respondents from all the three regions, as important 
to the selection of a research methodology. Researchers from the South and West regions of 
Africa, both mentioned the ‘Methods Used by Existing Researchers’ as a factor they would 
identify with when choosing their research methodology whilst researchers from the West 
African region only mentioned the ‘level of familiarity’ as salient to consider when choosing 
the research methodology. 
‘Relevance to the Study’ also received a high level of agreement amongst the respondents 
during the Delphi interview process. This factor which attained a variable index of 0.81 was 
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strongly recommended and accepted by researchers from the Southern and Eastern regions of 
Africa.  
‘Personal Skills and Training’ which attained a variable index of 0.75 was identified by 
researchers from the South and West African regions. The factor was accepted since this factor 
met the required variable index level of 0.70 for acceptance. 
‘Type of Data to Be Gathered’ was mentioned by one PHD academic of the West African 
region as an important factor to the selection of a research methodology. This factor also 
attained one of the highest variable index levels within this category. 
Table 5.3: Motivational Factors that influence the choice of Research Methodology 
adopted in articles reviewed. 
Themes 
Methods 
Researcher's Relevance Personal Type of 
Country Used by Level of 
Background to the Skills and Data to Be 
Existing Familiarity 
of Study Study Training Gathered 
Research 
1. South 
 ✓  ✓   ✓  ✓  
Africa 
2. East 
  ✓     
Africa 
3. West 
 ✓   ✓    
Africa 
4. UGBS 
✓  ✓   ✓  ✓   
lecturers 
5. PHD 
✓  ✓   ✓  ✓  ✓  
Students 
 
Source: Author’s Own construct based on findings 
 
5.1.3.4 Motivations that influence the selection of a publishing outlet or journal 
 
Table 5.4 elicits the factors that have been mentioned by African IS researchers in the sub 
region as influential to the selection of a publishing outlet or journal. 
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‘Research Topic and Area’ as cited by two researchers from the West African region attained 
a variable index of 0.94 which was relatively high as compared to the ‘Tier of the Journal’ and 
the recommendation from other researchers. Thus, it was accepted as being influential to the 
selection of a publishing outlet or journal. 
‘Tier of the Journal’ which was also recommended by researchers from all the three regions 
that partook in the study attained a variable index of 0.75. as such, the ‘Tier of the Journal’ was 
deemed relevant in the selection of a journal outlet. 
‘Recommendation from Other Researchers’ as cited by 2 researchers from the West African 
region in the first round of the Delphi interview and late attained a relatively high level of 
consensus with a variable index number of 0.81 in the second round of interview. This then 
indicated that the factor recognized as important to the selection of a publishing outlet. 
Credible peer review journals aim to communicate high quality research articles (Bohannon, 
2013). ‘Credibility with Respect to Peer Review’ was mentioned by a researcher from the 
Eastern Region of Africa attained 0.93 which indicated an acceptance by a larger number of 
respondents. 
‘The level of visibility of a journal’, when poor, is identified as a serious challenge to scholarly 
publishing in Africa (Ezema, 2011). Where journals are not visible enough on research 
repositories, duplication of research articles could easily be done (Bello, 2008) by other 
researchers since the main research article remains unseen. A researcher from South African 
region cited this factor as important and in the second round of interviews, ‘the level of 
visibility of a journal ‘scored 0.81. Therefore, it is accepted as a factor that influences 
publishing outlet selection. 
The ‘Ranking of a Journal’ a researcher publishes in, is arguably important for the allocation 
of prestige, funds (Hall, 2011) and sometimes can be seen as an institutional requirement for 
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some researchers. This can be used to justify why three African IS Researchers from both 
Eastern and Western African regions cited the ‘journal ranking’ as an important factor to 
selecting a publishing outlet, and subsequently attaining a high level of agreement with a 
variable index of 0.94 amongst the other respondents. 
‘Where I Can Make More Impact’ involves the publishing outlet where the findings of 
researchers can be referenced in research articles to make impact in the environment. The 
variable index for factor that was proposed by 2 researchers, a UGBS lecturers and a PHD 
student was 0.81. Thus ‘Where I Can Make More Impact’ was selected. 
‘Suitability’ and ‘Supervisors' Recommendations’ both received high supports with variable 
index of 0.88 and 0.75 respectively. Both factors were also suggested by researchers from 
researchers from the South and West African regions. Both factors were later accepted as 
important to influencing the choice of a publishing outlet since the met the pre-set consensus 
level of 0.70 
‘Journal Specialization and Readership’ as identified by two researchers from the South and 
West African regions received an overwhelming support with a variable index score of 0.94. 
this undoubted confirmed that, the journal’s specialization did influence researcher’s decisions. 
Table 5.4: Motivations that influence the selection of a publishing outlet or journal. 
Themes 
Wher
Credibilit e I 
Researc Tier Journal 
Region Recommendati y with Level of Rankin Can Supervisors' h Topic of the Specializati
on from Other Respect Visibilit g of Make Suitability Recommendatio
and Journ on and 
Researchers to Peer y Journal More ns 
Area al Readership 
Review Impa
ct 
1. South  ✓  ✓   
 ✓    ✓   
Africa  
2. East     
 ✓   ✓   ✓  
Africa 
3. West     
✓  ✓  ✓     
Africa 
4. UGBS ✓     
lecturer      ✓  
s 
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5. PHD ✓  ✓  ✓  ✓  
Student ✓   ✓    ✓  
s 
 
Source: Author’s Own construct based on findings 
 
5.1.3.5  Research areas being considered by African IS researchers over next 5 years 
 
Table 5.5 draws out the responses of experts concerning the top 2 research areas they are 
considering to research in the next 5 years. These responses further helped to understand what 
are the future direction of researchers. 
‘Information Security’ of organizations and ‘ICT4D’ were mentioned by two academicians as 
salient areas of research that should be considered for the next five years. Since organizations 
would be churning out large amounts of data from their activities, ‘information security’ was 
identified by West African IS researchers as an important research area to consider and hence, 
a variable index of .81 indicating acceptance of the ‘information security’ as a topic worth 
studying. ‘ICT4D’ was cited by IS researchers from the East African Region as an important 
area of research that they were considering to research in the next 5 years. This topic was 
accepted when it realized a variable score of 0.81 which indicated a fairly strong agreement 
amongst all the experts who responded to the interview. 
‘Health Informatics’ which was also cited by one IS researcher from the Eastern Region 
attained a variable index score of 0.75. The recommendation, though made by one researcher 
was agreed upon by other experts during the second round of the interview process. 
Amongst all the topics suggested by IS researchers from the South African region, ‘ICT In 
Education’ was the only research area that attained the necessary level of consensus with a 
variable index score of 0.75. 
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‘Social Media Analytics’ as suggested by a lecturer from West African region (UGBS 
lecturers) of the attained a variable index of .75 in the second round of the Delphi interview. 
There, social media analytic is accepted in this research as an area that would be relevant to 
study in the next 5 years. 
‘Sustainable Digital Transformation’ and ‘Digital Business Innovation’ attained a variable 
index of 0.75 and 0.81 respectively. Researchers from South Africa proposed both factors and 
the other IS experts garnered their support for them. 
Table 5.5:  Research areas being considered by African IS researchers over next 5 years 
Themes 
Social Sustainable Digital 
Region Informati Health ICT In Media Digital Business 
on ICT4 Informati Educati Analyti Transformati Innovati
Security D cs on  cs  on on   
1. South ✓  
   ✓   ✓  
Africa 
2. East  
 ✓  ✓     
Africa 
3. West  
✓       
Africa 
4. UGBS  
lecture     ✓   
rs 
5. PHD  
Stude ✓       
nts 
 
Source: Author’s Own construct based on findings 
 
5.1.3.6  Research areas considered to be under researched in Africa  
 
Table 5.6 elicits the responses of experts concerning the areas in ICT in the African context 
they consider under researched which researchers can take advantaged.  
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‘Artificial Intelligence’ (AI) which attained a high variable index of 0.88 was mentioned by 
researchers from all the various regions that partook in the research important but unresearched 
by African IS researchers. 
‘ICT4D’ which was mentioned by IS researchers from the East and West African regions of 
African as a necessary topic that has been under researched in Africa. Twelve African IS 
researchers registered their support for the fact that ‘ICT4D’ which has been a prevailing topic 
amongst most developing African countries has not received the necessary attention it should 
have and that reflected in a variable index of 0.75.  
‘Sharing Economy’ was also identified by one researcher in the first round of the Delphi 
interview from the West African region as understudied. The interview reported a variable 
index of 0.75 which indicated an acceptance of the fact that the ‘sharing economy’ has been 
understudied in the African regions represented by the various respondents.  
Table 5.6:  Research areas considered to be under researched in Africa 
Theme 
 
ICT usage in ICT4 Sharing 
Developing 
mobile and D Economy 
academic 
Region remote 
textbooks Culture 
AI Robotics healthcare 
to Teach and AI 
Natural delivery and 
ICT in 
language diagnosis of 
Africa 
processing diseases 
1. South   
✓       
Africa 
2. East Africa ✓       ✓   
3. West   
✓       
Africa 
4. UGBS   
✓       
lecturers 
5. PHD ✓  ✓  
      
Students 
 
Source: Author’s Own construct based on findings 
 
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5.1.4 Significant scholarly trends relating to issues, methodologies, topics considered 
as well as future research directions in the area 
5.1.4.1 Conceptual approaches help in understanding IS in Africa 
Regarding the conceptual underpinnings that help in understanding IS in Africa, it was evident 
in the findings that most studies had no theoretical underpinning. In that same regard, 
Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 
(UTAUT), Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) and Technology Organization Environment (TOE) 
were the most widely used conceptual models identified in this research. This is not surprising 
as these theories study the adoption of technology. 
 
5.1.4.2  Key research trends relating to issues, methodologies, issues addressed 
and future research directions in the area 
5.1.4.2.1  Year of Publication 
The findings of this study indicated that, research studies undertaken by African IS researchers 
conducted started gaining considerable numbers in 2011 and rose steadily over the years. It 
was evident that research works conducted in previous years; 2008, 2009 and 2010 realised 
low numbers in journals articles. It is in the right to predict that more studies will be conducted 
by African IS researchers in the coming years (Senyo et al., 2018). This position is further 
supported by the augmented global use of Information Communication technologies. However, 
more research is needed to create awareness of new and emerging IS.  
 
5.1.4.2.2 Research Methodology adopted in articles reviewed. 
Since the field of IS has been identified to be around for more than 5 decades (Willcocks & 
Whitley, 2009), much of the studies reviewed used well established research methodologies. It 
was observed that quantitative and qualitative methodologies together with other research 
methodologies were used in the studies reviewed. Out of 246 journal articles reviewed, 205 
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used either quantitative (90), qualitative (82) and mixed research methodologies (33). This 
observation points to the fact that, more quantitative studies have arguably been conducted in 
IS than other methodologies. Very few journal articles out of the total number articles reviewed 
in this study did not use methodologies. Unlike a study conducted by Senyo, Addae and 
Boateng (2018) on cloud computing that identified that most articles did not make use of 
research methodologies because they were technical in nature. Thus, it can be said that IS topics 
that are more technical were conducted devoid of using the traditional methodologies due to 
the reason that, the traditional procedure used to investigate the research problem were not 
enough to encapsulated technical variations of new and emerging. This insight gives room to 
future IS studies in terms of research methodology in order to add more rigour to their studies 
and also help understand why researchers use untraditional methodologies in their study. Thus, 
the Delphi study is necessary to throw more light on the motivations in using various research 
methodologies. 
 
5.1.4.2.3 Level of Analysis 
Individual, organizational, national and the global perspectives were the main categorizations 
considered for the African IS. Evidence from the study points to the fact that majority of studies 
in the IS field were in the ‘micro category’ in nature. In spite of this, a significant number of 
studies were conducted at the institutional level (meso category), which were driving towards 
the adoption, diffusion and implementation of IS technologies (Darko & Chan, 2018; Oliveira, 
Thomas, & Espadanal, 2014). The review conducted indicates that, studies conducted at the 
national level in Africa were very few and this gives credence to the fact that African IS 
researchers needs to tackle issues in IS from the national level. That notwithstanding, I believe 
that extra research focus on individual and organizational levels will be relevant at informing 
happenings on the ground as far as IS is concerned. 
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5.1.4.2.4 Geographical Focus 
This section defines the outcome of the categorization of literature according to their 
geographical focus. In this regard, we classified IS literature under the respective African 
countries and the ‘cross-country’ perspective. The outcome suggested that most of the studies 
conducted were focused on individual African countries. Such studies particularly used data 
source from the individual African countries and not discuss the issues of IS in a global 
perspective. This finding corroborates with the finding under the level of analysis that IS 
articles published between the period under review had specific geographical focus in that they 
seek to provide localized understanding of IS. Furthermore, the findings also pointed to the fact 
that studies in IS by African researchers nosedived in the various African countries. Thus, there 
were significant number of papers published with respect to South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, 
Nigeria, Uganda and Tanzania. As evident, most studies in IS by Africa researchers are country 
focused, it has become imperative therefore to conduct studies with data sources from cross 
country perspective. This will help in unveiling IS activities of Africa to the global community 
on the perspectives of IS activities peculiar to the African continent.  
Table 5.7 Analysis of Country representations from the ITU ICT Development Index 
2017 
ITU ICT 
Top 20 African Ranking Number of 
Development African Countries Represent 
Counties from from Research 
Index from the Findings 
ITU Ranking Findings Articles 
Ranking 
1 Mauritius 1 South Africa (*) 68 
2 Seychelles 2 Ghana (*) 32 
3 South Africa 3 Cross country (**) 29 
4 Cape Verde 4 Kenya (*) 19 
5 Botswana 5 Nigeria (*) 11 
6 Gabon 6 Tanzania (**) 7 
7 Ghana 7 Uganda (*) 7 
8 Namibia 8 Malawi (**) 3 
9 Côte d'Ivoire 9 Botswana (*) 3 
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S. Tomé & 
10 10 Zimbabwe 
(*) 3 
Principe 
11 Lesotho 11 Ethiopia (**) 2 
12 Zimbabwe 12 Mozambique (*) 2 
13 Kenya 13 Namibia (*) 2 
14 Senegal 14 Mauritius (*) 2 
15 Nigeria 15 Rwanda (**) 2 
16 Gambia 16 Libya (**) 1 
17 Zambia 17 Burundi (**)  1 
18 Cameroon 18 Mali (**) 1 
19 Mozambique 19 Congo (**) 1 
20 Uganda 20 Sierra Leone (*)  1 
  21 Egypt 
(*) 1 
  22 Cameroon 
(*) 1 
  23 Senegal 
(*) 1 
  24 Burkina Faso 
(**) 1 
 25 Morocco (*) 1 
 
The table above identifies the top 20 African countries from the ITU ICT development Index 
2017 ranking. Countries with single Asterix (*) in the table are the African countries that are 
listed in the top 20 ITU index countries. Whilst countries with a double Asterix (**) even 
though listed as part of the findings in this study were not amongst top 20 countries ranked in 
the ITU ICT development index. 
Twelve (12) countries from the ITU index ranking were represented with research articles 
whilst eight (8) countries from the ITU index ranking were not represented in the findings as 
indicated in the table above.  
Only two countries, South Africa (68) and Ghana (32), that were ranked high in the ITU index 
have more research works being carried where countries. Mauritius (2), Botswana (3) and 
Namibia (2) who had high rankings in the ITU index had low research being carried out in their 
respective countries. On the other hand, countries with low ranking like Uganda and Kenya 
who had 7 and 17 respectively, indicated more research works than some of the top ranked 
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countries like Seychelles and Cape Verde who had no research articles discovered in the 
findings.  
 
Thus, it can be said that, countries ranked in the 10 top of the ITU index which were captured 
in the study: Mauritius (2), South Africa (68), Botswana (3), Ghana (32), Namibia (2) had more 
research being carried out (107 research articles) as compared to the countries that ranked low 
in the top 20 ITU index ranking, Zimbabwe (3), Kenya (19), Senegal (1), Nigeria (11), 
Cameroon (1), Mozambique (2) and Uganda (7) who attained only 95 research articles. 
5.1.4.2.5 Publication Outlet 
As clearly seen from the findings of the study, IS literature cuts across most disciplines thereby 
attracting interest from eight-one different journals from various disciplines in the systematic 
literature review conducted. The researcher believes that these numbers will rise in the near 
future with calls for IS related papers in the Journal of IS and African Journal of IS (Conrad & 
Sydow, 2016). Further a plausible reason for this development could be as a result of the nature 
with which IS has been studied over a period of time. That is, IS has been studied socially as 
more focus has been placed on adoption and implementation of IS technologies. 
 
A perilous look at the table of publication unsurprisingly revealed that the AJIS recorded the 
highest number of studies. This finding was not surprising as the AJIS is mostly dedicated 
research work undertaken by African researchers. Moreover, one of the key criteria for the 
literature review search was that the articles should be authored by African researchers. Since 
most of the articles assessed in the searching period concerned South Africa, it was not 
surprising that the South African Journal of information Management was a part of the journal 
that had most African articles being published in.  
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5.2 Summary  
The Chapter provided a thorough discussion on the analysis and findings from the data. The 
analysis and discussion were to answer the research questions posed at the beginning of the 
study. The analysis section provided findings on the nature of IS research in Africa and identify 
an in-depth knowledge to why certain choices are made by IS researchers. This research 
question is further broken into the following: a) What are the dominant themes in IS research 
in Africa? b) What technologies have been studied in IS research in Africa? c) What are the 
motivations that underpin choices of researchers? 
The findings established that the main research themes of studies undertaken by African IS 
researchers have been predominantly ‘support and implementation’ as well as the ‘adoption 
and diffusion’. Concerning IS topics that have received much attention over the last 5 years by 
African IS researchers, ‘cybercrime’, ‘mobile application development’, ‘information security 
and privacy’, ‘social media engagement’, amongst others were identified 
Furthermore, the motivations that influence the selection of a publishing outlet or journal by 
an African IS researcher, the Research Topic and Area, Tier of the Journal, Recommendation 
from Other Researchers, Credibility with Respect to Peer Review, Level of Visibility, Ranking 
of Journal, Where I Can Make More Impact, Suitability, Journal Specialization and Readership 
and Supervisors' Recommendations were the factors that the IS experts who partook in the 
studies agreed upon. The major motivations for studying certain research areas were 
determined as the ‘courses studied’, ‘the academic background of the researcher’, ‘personal 
interest’, ‘impact of research on development’, ‘new research trends’ as well as the 
‘technological trends in the environment’. 
  
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CHAPTER SIX 
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 
6.0 Chapter Overview 
The previous chapters presented the introduction to the study, review of literature, the 
methodology of the study, findings, analysis and discussion of the findings. This closing 
chapter focuses on presenting a summary of the key findings of the study, discussion on the 
contribution to research, policy and practice. It additionally presents the limitations of the study 
and recommendations for future research 
 
6.1 Summary of the Research Process 
This study conducted a systematic literature review of articles published by African IS 
researchers. It further investigated the motivations that underpin the various choices African 
IS researchers make when undertaking a research. 
In coda to this research, the following objectives were formulated: 
1. To explore the nature of IS research and identify an in-depth knowledge to why 
certain choices are made by IS researchers: 
a) To explore the dominant themes in IS research in Africa. 
b) To explore technologies that have been studied in IS research in Africa.  
c) To understand the motivations that underpin choices of researchers? 
2. To identify the significant scholarly trends relating to research issues, methodologies, 
topics considered as well as future research directions in the area 
In addressing these objectives, a systematic literature review was conducted to help understand 
the current trends of research articles published by African IS researchers. A Delphi Technique 
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was adopted to help understand the motivations of African IS researchers. The Delphi 
technique was chosen for the reason that, Delphi studies provide expert judgement on matters 
of high uncertainty that general populations might not have knowledge about (Wang, Gao, & 
Guo, 2012). Again, the choice of a Delphi technique was as a result of its ability to inherently 
provide richer data because of their multiple iterations and their response revision due to 
feedback (Okoli & Pawlowski, 2004). This made the Delphi technique the best fit for studying 
the motivations that influenced the choices of African IS researchers in their studies. 
 
After an extensive systematic review of literature, experts with multiple publications were 
shortlisted and invited to partake in the Delphi study. A 2 round Delphi approach was adopted 
in this study as an appropriate method to elicit expert opinions (Raley, Ragona, Sijtsema, 
Fischer, & Frewer, 2016). Ensuing the data collection method, was the presentation of findings 
which was then scrutinised and discussed in chapter five in relation to the research questions. 
The analysis in chapter five unearthed a number of research findings. These findings are 
mapped to each research question and the respective contribution to research and practice in 
the section that follows. 
6.1.1 What is the nature of IS research and identify an in-depth knowledge to why 
certain choices are made by IS researchers? 
6.1.1.1 Dominant Themes in IS research in Africa 
After the rigorous analysis of the systematic literature review data, 3 findings were revealed. 
The foremost finding indicates that, Support and Implementation is the most dominant theme 
amongst African IS researchers over the last 10 years. This was not very shocking as IS mostly 
require support after they have been adopted, implemented and used in organizations or in the 
lives of people and institutions, it was not surprising that number of the support and 
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implementation studies had the greater article share and they recorded more studies than 
adoption and diffusion. 
Another interesting finding was that, Adoption and diffusion theme was also largely used by 
most African IS researchers but not as much as the Support and Implementation. Thus, the 
mass representation of the support and adoption articles confirms that less attention has been 
paid to other themes such as the potential and constraints, design and application and impact.  
 
Lastly, South Africa was the country with the largest number of research article covering 
adoption and diffusion. Since it is the dominant country with most research articles retrieved 
from the choice databases in this study, it is not very surprising that they had most of the 
research articles under review. 
 
6.1.1.2 Technologies studied in IS Research in Africa 
The second research objective of the study required the analysis of the first round of the Delphi 
technique to unearth the answers to this question. 
The results from analysing the responses indicated that, the following topics have been research 
by some African IS researchers: cybercrime, mobile application development, information 
security and privacy, social media engagement, telework, ICT4D, health informatics, ICT in 
agriculture, ICT in health, learner analytics, e-learning, e-commerce, nexuses between 
information technology and development outcomes, ICT in education, technology, enhancing 
learning, IS for disaster management, cloud computing, big data analytics, impact of ICT on 
reading culture and research in developing countries, innovation diffusion, information 
security, e-learning, digital business strategy, acceptance of e-learning systems and 
Management theory. 
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6.1.1.3 Motivations for Research Choice of African Researchers 
Concerning the motivations that underpin the selection of research topics, the research findings 
identified ‘courses studied’, ‘academic background’, ‘personal interest’, ‘impact of research on 
development’, ‘new research trends’ and ‘technological trends’ were the factors identified as 
important. 
‘Research questions’, ‘awareness of the theoretical framework’, ‘relevance of framework to 
the study’, ‘fitness of the theory’, ‘experience and knowledge’ and ‘research objectives’ were 
identified in the findings as important motivations to the selection of a theoretical frameworks 
for a research. 
Furthermore, the findings indicated that the motivations that underpin the choice of a research 
methodology include: ‘researcher's background of study’, ‘methods used by existing 
researchers’, ‘relevance to the study’, ‘level of familiarity’, ‘personal skills and training’ and 
‘type of data to be gathered’. 
With regards to factors that influence the selection of a publishing outlet, the findings revealed 
that: ‘research topic and area’, ‘tier of the journal’, ‘recommendation from other researchers’, 
‘credibility with respect to peer review’, ‘level of visibility’, ‘ranking of journal’, ‘where i can 
make more impact’, ‘suitability institutional environment’, ’journal specialization and 
readership’ and ‘supervisors' recommendations’ were identified to be important. 
The findings identified ‘information security’, ‘ICT4D’, ‘health informatics’, ‘ICT in 
education’, ‘social media analytics’, ‘sustainable digital transformation’ and ‘digital business 
innovation’ as the future research areas they were considering. 
It was also identified in the findings that, the under researched areas in IS included: ‘AI’, 
‘robotics’, ‘natural language processing’, ‘developing academic textbooks to teach ICT in 
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Africa’, ‘culture and AI’, ‘ICT usage in mobile and remote healthcare delivery and diagnosis 
of diseases’, ‘ICT4D’ and ‘sharing economy’ 
Lastly, the findings indicated that some research areas that would be relevant to Africa in the 
next 5 years include: ‘machine learning (supervised and unsupervised)’, ‘sustainable digital 
transformation of different economic sectors’, ‘enterprise informatics’, ‘digital business 
strategy’ and ‘internet fraud’ 
 
6.1.3 Significant scholarly trends relating to research issues, methodologies, conceptual 
approaches, topics considered as well as future research directions in the area 
The second main research objective demanded the significant scholarly trends relating to 
research issues, methodologies, conceptual approaches, topics considered as well as future 
research directions in the area. 
With regards to the research trends, the findings of this study revealed that, journal articles of 
African IS researchers started gaining considerable numbers in academic journals in 2011 and 
continued to rise steadily over the years till date. This finding suggests that, the number of IS 
researchers in Africa has increased and perhaps the longstanding researchers over the years 
have increased the number of their publications. 
The findings further indicated that, much of the studies reviewed used well established research 
methodologies, that is the quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, nonetheless, 
there has been more use of quantitative methods than qualitative methods.  
Furthermore, evidence from the study points to the fact that majority of studies in the IS field 
were in the ‘micro category’ in nature. In spite of this, a significant number of studies were 
conducted at the institutional level (meso category), which were driving towards the adoption, 
diffusion and implementation of IS technologies. The review conducted further indicated that, 
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studies conducted at the national level in Africa were very few and this credence to the fact 
that African IS researchers needs to tackle issues in IS from the national level. 
Additionally, the findings revealed that most of the studies conducted nosedived into individual 
African countries with South Africa having the most published IS journal articles. IS literature 
in this study cuts across most disciplines thereby attracting interest from eight-one different 
journals from various disciplines in the systematic literature review conducted. A further 
plausible reason for this development could be as a result of the nature with which IS has been 
studied over a period of time. That is, IS has been studied socially as more focus has been 
placed on adoption and implementation of IS technologies. In this same regard, countries 
ranked in the 10 top of the ITU index which were captured in the study: Mauritius, South 
Africa, Botswana, Ghana and Namibia had more research being carried out as compared to the 
countries that ranked low in the top 20 ITU index ranking: Zimbabwe, Kenya, Senegal, Nigeria, 
Cameroon, Mozambique and Uganda who attained only 95 research articles. 
Concerning conceptual approaches that have been used to help understand IS in Africa, it was 
evident that although most studies from the findings have been undertaken devoid of 
conceptual underpinnings, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Unified Theory of 
Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) and Technology 
Organization Environment (TOE) were the most widely used conceptual models identified in 
this research. Since most of the conceptual approaches identified are generally used for 
studying the support, implementation, adoption and diffusion of technologies or diverse 
phenomena, it supports the assertion that support and implementation as well as adoption and 
diffusion themes have been widely studied.
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6.2 Mapping out Research Objectives with Research Findings and Contributions 
 
Research Purpose: The study will explore the dominant themes and theories in IS in Africa. Furthermore, the study will seek to provide a 
categorization of the contemporary theoretical frameworks and themes, research methodologies, current research trends of IS researchers in 
Africa and provide knowledge gaps for the future research. 
 
Contributions, 
Extant 
Research Objectives Sub Objective Research Findings Implications and 
Literature 
Recommendations 
1. To explore the nature a) To explore the 1. The foremost finding indicates that, Sittig and The study provides a 
of IS research and dominant Support and Implementation is the Singh (2015) breakdown of the various 
identify an in-depth themes in IS most dominant theme amongst identified the themes researched in 
knowledge to why research in African IS researchers over the last 10 importance of African IS research and 
certain choices are Africa years.  support and outlines why ‘support 
made by IS implementation and implementation’ as 
 
researchers in an well as ‘adoption and 
2. Adoption and diffusion theme was the organization. diffusion’ emerged as the 
second theme that was largely used most researched themes 
by most African IS researchers. Thus, in the various African 
the mass representation of the support countries 
and adoption articles confirms that 
 
less attention has been paid to other 
themes such as the potential and This study brings to bear 
constraints, design and application the need for IS 
and impact.  researchers to extend 
their studies to cover less 
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Research Purpose: The study will explore the dominant themes and theories in IS in Africa. Furthermore, the study will seek to provide a 
categorization of the contemporary theoretical frameworks and themes, research methodologies, current research trends of IS researchers in 
Africa and provide knowledge gaps for the future research. 
 
Contributions, 
Extant 
Research Objectives Sub Objective Research Findings Implications and 
Literature 
Recommendations 
 researched themes like 
Impact and ‘potentials 
 
and constraints’ of IS 
3. South Africa was the country with the since there were limited 
largest number of research article papers covering these 
covering adoption and diffusion. themes in the study. 
Since it is the dominant country with 
 
most research articles retrieved from 
the choice databases in this study. Research on the less 
dominant themes were 
 
mostly few in literature 
in the last 10 years. Thus, 
further examination of 
these themes must be 
critically considered to 
promote IS research in 
Africa. 
 
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Research Purpose: The study will explore the dominant themes and theories in IS in Africa. Furthermore, the study will seek to provide a 
categorization of the contemporary theoretical frameworks and themes, research methodologies, current research trends of IS researchers in 
Africa and provide knowledge gaps for the future research. 
 
Contributions, 
Extant 
Research Objectives Sub Objective Research Findings Implications and 
Literature 
Recommendations 
 b) To explore 4. The results from analyzing the Adera, Waema Noting that the number 
technologies responses indicated that, the and May of respondents to the 
have been following topics and technologies (2014) Delphi interview were 
studied in IS have been research by some African 16, it is inconclusive to 
Boateng and 
research in IS researchers: suggest that a significant 
Jonathan ( n.d.) 
Africa cybercrime, mobile application representation of all the 
Krauss and 
development, information security topics that have been 
Turpin (2010) 
and privacy, social media researched in Africa are 
engagement, telework, ICT4D, health Quarshie and listed. However, since 
informatics, ICT in agriculture, ICT Martin-Odoom the responses to the study 
in health, learner analytics, e-learning, (2012) emanated from responses 
e-commerce, nexuses between of experts geographically 
information technology and dispersed on the African 
development outcomes, ICT in continent, one can posit 
education, technology, enhancing that, these are some of 
learning, IS for disaster management, the top research areas 
cloud computing, big data analytics, have researched in 
impact of ICT on reading culture and Africa. 
research in developing countries, 
Future research should 
innovation diffusion, information 
delve deeper to identify 
security, e-learning, digital business 
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Research Purpose: The study will explore the dominant themes and theories in IS in Africa. Furthermore, the study will seek to provide a 
categorization of the contemporary theoretical frameworks and themes, research methodologies, current research trends of IS researchers in 
Africa and provide knowledge gaps for the future research. 
 
Contributions, 
Extant 
Research Objectives Sub Objective Research Findings Implications and 
Literature 
Recommendations 
strategy, acceptance of e-learning the gaps identified in 
systems and Management theory. these topics and provide 
a classification taxonomy 
of them. 
 c) To understand 5. Concerning the motivations that Altinay et al. This research is arguably 
the motivations underpin the selection of research (2015) one of the first to 
that underpin topics, the research findings identified inculcate a Delphi 
Godwin et al. 
choices of ‘courses studied’, ‘academic technique to assess 
(2016) 
researchers? background’, ‘personal interest’, expert views on various 
‘impact of research on development’, Sehra et al. factors that influence the 
‘new research trends’ and (2017) choices of African IS 
‘technological trends’ were the researchers from three 
Bello (2008)  
factors identified as important. African sub regions, 
6. ‘Research questions’, ‘awareness of Bohannon thereby, providing an in-
the theoretical framework’, ‘relevance (2013)  depth knowledge to why 
of framework to the study’, ‘fitness of certain decisions are 
the theory’, ‘experience and Ezema (2011) made in research. 
knowledge’ and ‘research objectives’ Osanloo and  
were identified in the findings as Grant (2016) 
important motivations to the selection 
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Research Purpose: The study will explore the dominant themes and theories in IS in Africa. Furthermore, the study will seek to provide a 
categorization of the contemporary theoretical frameworks and themes, research methodologies, current research trends of IS researchers in 
Africa and provide knowledge gaps for the future research. 
 
Contributions, 
Extant 
Research Objectives Sub Objective Research Findings Implications and 
Literature 
Recommendations 
of a theoretical frameworks for a The study offers 
research. independent research 
7. Furthermore, the findings indicated motivations on various 
that, the motivations that underpin the research areas within a 
choice of a research methodology broader IS field. 
include: ‘researcher's background of 
 
study’, ‘methods used by existing 
researchers’, ‘relevance to the study’,  
‘level of familiarity’, ‘personal skills 
and training’ and ‘type of data to be 
gathered’. 
8. With regards to factors that influence 
the selection of a publishing outlet, 
the findings revealed that ‘research 
topic and area’, ‘tier of the journal’, 
‘recommendation from other 
researchers’, ‘credibility with respect 
to peer review’, ‘level of visibility’, 
‘ranking of journal’, ‘where i can 
make more impact’, ‘suitability 
institutional environment’, ’journal 
94 
 
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Research Purpose: The study will explore the dominant themes and theories in IS in Africa. Furthermore, the study will seek to provide a 
categorization of the contemporary theoretical frameworks and themes, research methodologies, current research trends of IS researchers in 
Africa and provide knowledge gaps for the future research. 
 
Contributions, 
Extant 
Research Objectives Sub Objective Research Findings Implications and 
Literature 
Recommendations 
specialization and readership’ and 
‘supervisors' recommendations’ were 
identified to be important. 
9. The findings identified ‘information 
security’, ‘ICT4D’, ‘health 
informatics’, ‘ICT in education’, 
‘social media analytics’, ‘sustainable 
digital transformation’ and ‘digital 
business innovation’ as the future 
research areas they were considering. 
10. It was also identified in the findings 
that, the under researched areas 
included: ‘AI’, ‘robotics’, ‘natural 
language processing’, ‘developing 
academic textbooks to teach ICT in 
Africa’, ‘culture and AI’, ‘ICT usage 
in mobile and remote healthcare 
delivery and diagnosis of diseases’, 
‘ICT4D’ and ‘sharing economy’ 
11. Lastly, the findings indicated that 
some research areas that would be 
95 
 
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Research Purpose: The study will explore the dominant themes and theories in IS in Africa. Furthermore, the study will seek to provide a 
categorization of the contemporary theoretical frameworks and themes, research methodologies, current research trends of IS researchers in 
Africa and provide knowledge gaps for the future research. 
 
Contributions, 
Extant 
Research Objectives Sub Objective Research Findings Implications and 
Literature 
Recommendations 
relevant to Africa in the next 5 years 
include: ‘machine learning 
(supervised and unsupervised)’, 
‘sustainable digital transformation of 
different economic sectors’, 
‘enterprise informatics’, ‘digital 
business strategy’ and ‘internet fraud’ 
2. To identify the  12. The second main research objective  This study provides a 
significant scholarly demanded the significant scholarly taxonomy that organizes 
trends relating to trends relating to research ISues, research topics, methods, 
research issues, methodologies, conceptual models, and research 
methodologies, approaches, topics considered as well approaches, and it 
conceptual as future research directions in the identifies varied trends in 
approaches, topics area. the IS field. 
considered as well as 13. With regards to the research trends, 
 
future research the findings of this study revealed 
directions in the area. that, journal articles of African IS By providing the patterns 
researchers started gaining and trends for the topics 
considerable numbers in academic and research methods, 
journals in 2011 and continued to rise this study acts as a guide 
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Research Purpose: The study will explore the dominant themes and theories in IS in Africa. Furthermore, the study will seek to provide a 
categorization of the contemporary theoretical frameworks and themes, research methodologies, current research trends of IS researchers in 
Africa and provide knowledge gaps for the future research. 
 
Contributions, 
Extant 
Research Objectives Sub Objective Research Findings Implications and 
Literature 
Recommendations 
steadily over the years till date. This for researchers in 
finding suggests that, the number of selecting relevant topics 
IS researchers in Africa has increased and methods. 
and perhaps the longstanding 
 
researchers over the years have 
increased the number of their This study provides the 
publications. topics and methods that 
14. The findings further indicated that, are appealing to African 
much of the studies reviewed used IS researchers, and it 
well established research further provides a good 
methodologies, that is the quantitative guide for authors 
and qualitative research considering a proper 
methodologies, nonetheless, there has avenue for publishing 
been more use of quantitative their work. Additionally, 
methods than qualitative methods.  based on prior history of 
 publications in journals, 
15. Furthermore, evidence from the study thesis supervisors, 
points to the fact that majority of lecturers, editors and 
studies in the IS field were in the reviewers can mentor 
‘micro category’ in nature. In spite of potential authors and 
this, a significant number of studies point them in fruitful 
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Research Purpose: The study will explore the dominant themes and theories in IS in Africa. Furthermore, the study will seek to provide a 
categorization of the contemporary theoretical frameworks and themes, research methodologies, current research trends of IS researchers in 
Africa and provide knowledge gaps for the future research. 
 
Contributions, 
Extant 
Research Objectives Sub Objective Research Findings Implications and 
Literature 
Recommendations 
were conducted at the institutional direction for inquiry 
level (meso category), which were based on topics and 
driving towards the adoption, methodologies. 
diffusion and implementation of IS 
 
technologies. The review conducted 
further indicated that, studies 
conducted at the national level in 
Africa were very few and this 
credence to the fact that African IS 
researchers need to holistically 
approach research issues in IS from 
the national level. 
 
16. Additionally, the findings revealed 
that most of the studies conducted 
nosedived into individual African 
countries with South Africa having 
the most published IS journal articles. 
IS literature cuts across most 
disciplines thereby attracting interest 
98 
 
University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh
 
Research Purpose: The study will explore the dominant themes and theories in IS in Africa. Furthermore, the study will seek to provide a 
categorization of the contemporary theoretical frameworks and themes, research methodologies, current research trends of IS researchers in 
Africa and provide knowledge gaps for the future research. 
 
Contributions, 
Extant 
Research Objectives Sub Objective Research Findings Implications and 
Literature 
Recommendations 
from eight-one different journals from 
various disciplines in the systematic 
literature review conducted. A further 
a plausible reason for this 
development could be as a result of 
the nature with which IS has been 
studied over a period of time. That is, 
IS has been studied socially as more 
focus has been placed on adoption 
and implementation of IS 
technologies. 
17. Concerning conceptual approaches 
that have been used to help 
understand IS in Africa, it was 
evident that although most studies 
from the findings have been 
undertaken devoid of conceptual 
underpinnings, the Technology 
Acceptance Model (TAM), Unified 
Theory of Acceptance and Use of 
Technology (UTAUT), Diffusion of 
99 
 
University of Ghana http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh
 
Research Purpose: The study will explore the dominant themes and theories in IS in Africa. Furthermore, the study will seek to provide a 
categorization of the contemporary theoretical frameworks and themes, research methodologies, current research trends of IS researchers in 
Africa and provide knowledge gaps for the future research. 
 
Contributions, 
Extant 
Research Objectives Sub Objective Research Findings Implications and 
Literature 
Recommendations 
Innovation (DOI) and Technology 
Organization Environment (TOE) 
were the most widely used conceptual 
models identified in this research.  
18. Since most of the conceptual 
approaches identified are generally 
used for studying the support, 
implementation, adoption and 
diffusion of technologies or diverse 
phenomena, it supports the assertion 
that support and implementation as 
well as adoption and diffusion themes 
have been widely studied. 
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6.3 Implications for Research 
This study makes a key contribution to the body of IS knowledge and research by combining 
a rigorous systematic literature review as well as a Delphi technique in the same study. Thus, 
providing a foundation for researchers to explore the use of systematic literature review and 
Delphi technique. 
With regards to research, the study contributes to the existing body of knowledge on the 
motivations that underpin the choices of African IS researchers by offering expert consensus 
through the use of a Delphi Technique. This understanding, particularly from a Delphi based 
perspective, was in some measure silent in literature. This study can possibly be identified as 
one of the first to use a Delphi technique to establish the above understanding amongst African 
IS researchers.  
 
Nevertheless, the findings tend to be relevant in varying African countries as the respondents 
for the study were geographically dispersed. Again, the study uses the Delphi technique to 
understand both the current opinions as well as the future directions of African IS researchers. 
For instance, the experts were able to agree on certain areas that they think would be relevant 
to the African continent in the next five years. 
 
6.4 Implications for Policy Makers 
In relation to policy, it still remains true that having an enabling environment in the form of 
good educational infrastructure, the right government policies, support and programs will foster 
high standard research works conducted by African IS researchers. Detailed educational 
policies and reforms will provide the necessary comprehensive guideline and approach to help 
boost the quality of research undertaken by IS researchers in general. Also, consensus was 
developed on the background of the researcher, courses studied by the researcher and the 
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technological trends. This provides the necessary basis to assert that policy makers must be 
ready to adjust the curriculum of universities and other higher learning institutions to provide 
sources of information that can stir up the interest of young researchers in emerging topics of 
research that have the potential to be relevant to the African continent and the world at large. 
 
6.5 Implications for Practice 
The study contributes to practice by drawing the attention of African IS researchers and 
academicians to the current research trends, specific factors that influence the choices of 
African IS researchers, as well as future directions in topics for researchers. Thus, new 
researchers who are venturing into IS research have a basic understanding of the nature of 
African IS research, a knowledge that was arguably not available to African IS research. Hence, 
valuable insights that would help new IS researchers develop their skills in research have been 
highlighted. 
Again, IS researchers who want to widen their scope of research whilst improving upon their 
research skills can discern critically from the findings of this study and conduct research that 
pertain to some of the topics identified as relevant to the African region in the coming years.  
 
6.6 Limitations and Future Research Directions   
All research studies are bound to experience a number of limitations (Salamzadeh & 
Kawamorita Kesim, 2017; Velte & Stawinoga, 2017) and this study is no different from such 
studies. The primary limitation to the study was the fact that, the email survey sent to the 
participant retrieved very low response rate. Non-response became a major limitation to the 
Delphi email survey even though quite a lot of participants were contacted for this study, but 
only a few participants respondent to the survey. This was mainly due to the fact that the 
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participant were experts in their various institutions of work and made less time to answer to 
email surveys. 
 
The second limitation is that the time allocation to the study limited the researcher from 
conducting more Delphi rounds to help scrutinize the relevant factors that were agreed upon 
by the participants. When contacting potential participants, the researcher electronically mailed 
the Delphi round I instrument to the participants which included an introduction of the 
researcher and a description of the study. Interested participants pointed out their intent to 
participate by replying and submitting the completed Delphi I instrument via email. Even 
though this action was proposed to streamline the panel construction and successive data 
collection, it actually presented some problems with the preliminary data collection.  
The amount of time spent to create the initial responses was longer than anticipated by the 
researcher. Therefore, initial respondents who submitted Delphi round I responses early in the 
process were required to wait until the initial responses were fully retrieved and analysed before 
receiving the second round of Delphi questionnaire. 
 
Also, access to some database was limited hence the researcher could access some relevant 
articles from the databases. Thus, the researcher was left to using articles from databases that 
were readily available.  
 
Reader convenience had to be considered as against the issue of data collection surfaced in 
Delphi round 2. Since the researcher focused on collecting the required rather than reader’s 
convenience, the Delphi round 2 data collection instrument was extremely lengthy. The 
researcher believed that, the lengthy nature of Delphi round 2 was intimidating to the 
respondents and that they may have felt it too lengthy to continue with participation.  
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Lastly, the respondents in this study are not representative of the general population of African 
IS researchers. In order to attain the purpose of the study, the construction of an expert panel 
is central to the success of the Delphi methodology. The experts who partook in this study are 
regarded as experts and are highly regarded in their field but they are not geographically 
representative of the entire number of African IS researchers. 
 
Future research and other IS development initiatives should replicate this study to consider 
comparing the trends of IS in the western economies with that of countries in the African 
diaspora to provide a better taxonomy of the IS field. A study that explicitly focuses on 
exploring these comparisons will help to better provide an understanding of the growth and 
survival of information communication technologies over time. 
 
This study is not in any way exhaustive of the number of journal articles authored by African 
IS researchers but rather these findings provide a definition to IS research in Africa which is 
rapidly expanding. Much more effort is required in practice, industry and future research to 
identify more IS related articles, journals and databases to widen the scope of findings of this 
study. 
   
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APPENDIX A  Publication Outlet Distribution 
Publishing Outlet (journal) 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 20 Tota Percent
08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 ls  age  
AJIS 1 3 1 6 7 11 8 16 11 15 19 98 48.8 
     
BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 1 2 3 1 1 1 9 4.5 
         
South African Journal of information Management 1 5 6 3.0 
       
Information Technology for Development 2 2 1 1 6 3.0 
      
Information development  1 1 1 1 1 5 2.5 
       
International Journal of Medical Informatics 1 1 1 1 4 2.0 
        
International Journal of Information Management 1 2 1 4 2.0 
        
Telematics and informatics  2 1 1 4 2.0 
        
Emerald 1 2 1 4 2.0 
        
Plos one 1 1 2 4 2.0 
         
Telecommunications policy 2 1 3 1.5 
        
Health information management journal 1 1 1 3 1.5 
        
Future generation computer systems 1 1 1 3 1.5 
          
SA journal of human resource management 3 3 1.5 
         
Wiley online library 1 2 3 1.5 
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International journal of information security science 3 3 1.5 
        
The Electronic Journal on IS in Developing Countries 1 1 1 3 1.5 
        
ResearchGate 1 1 1 3 1.5 
          
Electronic Commerce Research and Applications 2 2 1.0 
          
BMC medical education 2 2 1.0 
         
BMC health services research 1 1 2 1.0 
         
Libri 1 1 2 1.0 
          
JMIR medical informatics 2 2 1.0 
         
Government information Quarterly 1 1 2 1.0 
          
International Journal of Educational Sciences 2 2 1.0 
          
Oxford university press 2 2 1.0 
         
Procedia Social and Human Behaviour 1 1 2 1.0 
          
Health policy and Technology 2 2 1.0 
         
Journal of Enterprise Information Management 1 1 2 1.0 
         
Global health action 1 1 2 1.0 
          
Journal of Biomedical informatics 1 1 0.5 
          
Journal of the American medical informatics association 1 1 0.5 
          
Methods of information in medicine 1 1 0.5 
          
South African Journal of Science 1 1 0.5 
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Research in comparative and international education 1 1 0.5 
          
African journal of business management 1 1 0.5 
          
Financial innovation 1 1 0.5 
          
The International Journal of Information and Learning 1 1 0.5 
Technology 
          
ASLIB Journal of Information Management 1 1 0.5 
          
JMIR Mhealth and Uhealth 1 1 0.5 
          
Journal of Medical Internet Research  1 1 0.5 
          
Electronic journal of e-learning  1 1 0.5 
          
Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic 1 1 0.5 
Commerce 
          
Strategic change-briefings in entrepreneurial finance 1 1 0.5 
          
Journal of Information Technology Education 1 1 0.5 
          
African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and 1 1 0.5 
Development 
          
Library management  1 1 0.5 
          
Education and training 1 1 0.5 
          
IS and e-business management 1 1 0.5 
          
International journal of project management 1 1 0.5 
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International review of research in open and distributed 1 1 0.5 
learning 
          
Library hi tech 1 1 0.5 
          
BMC Medical and Decision Making  1 1 0.5 
          
Journal of Science & Technology Policy Management 1 1 0.5 
          
Public administration and development 1 1 0.5 
          
Information, communication & Society 1 1 0.5 
          
Journal of health Communication 1 1 0.5 
          
Journal of knowledge management 1 1 0.5 
          
International federation of library Associations and 1 1 0.5 
Institutions 
          
Journal of Librarianship and information science 1 1 0.5 
          
Global Media and Communication 1 1 0.5 
          
E-Learning and Digital Media 1 1 0.5 
          
Computers and Education 1 1 0.5 
          
Procedia computer science 1 1 0.5 
          
World development 1 1 0.5 
          
Journal of IT and Economic Development 1 1 0.5 
          
Journal of Infection in developing countries 1 1 0.5 
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South African Journal of Industrial Engineering 1 1 0.5 
          
Upjournals.co.za 1 1 0.5 
          
Information knowledge systems management 1 1 0.5 
          
Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal) 1 1 0.5 
          
Journal of the Association for IS 1 1 0.5 
          
Weekly Epidemiological record 1 1 0.5 
          
Panafrican Medical Journal 1 1 0.5 
          
The electronic journal IS evaluation 1 1 0.5 
          
African evaluation journal 1 1 0.5 
          
Journal of IS Education 1 1 0.5 
          
Accounting and Management IS 1 1 0.5 
          
Journal of Educational Technology Systems 1 1 0.5 
          
Journal of Systems and Information Technology 1 1 0.5 
          
Banks and Bank Systems 1 1 0.5 
          
International Conference on Informatics and Semiotics in 1 1 0.5 
Organisations 
          
Journal of Information Technology Impact 1 1 0.5 
 
 
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APPENDIX B: Delphi Round One Questionnaire 
 
UNIVERSITY OF GHANA BUSINESS SCHOOL 
DEPARTMENT OF OPERATIONS AND MANAGEMENT INFORMATION 
SYSTEMS. 
 
MOTIVATIONS THAT UNDERPIN STUDIES UNDERTAKEN BY AFRICAN IS 
RESEARCHERS 
Dear Respondent, 
Thank you for agreeing to partake in a survey exercise for this research project. Your 
participation will be completely confidential and you will remain completely anonymous 
throughout this process. The data gathered within this survey will not be not be subject to any 
public disclosure and is for use only as part of a MPhil research project. 
The MPhil project aims to explore what influences the research topics, choice of use of theories 
and the research interests of African IS researchers. 
The following survey is stage 1 of a Delphi questionnaire. This is designed to obtain your 
personal opinion relating to a key ISue. 
The Delphi process involves questioning you on three separate occasions: 
• Round 1: Some general open-ended questions will be submitted to you requiring your 
response. These are below for you to reply to now. 
At a later date: 
• Round 2: Your answers (and those from the other panellists) from round 1 will be 
summarized and formulated into a series of more specific questions that you will be asked 
to respond to. 
• Round 3: Round 2’s questions will be submitted to you again but this time you will also 
be able to see the average reply of the other panellists and you will then be asked if you 
would like to adjust your answer from the second round or not. 
The identity of all panellists will remain confidential at all times 
 
The 5 questions listed below are designed to seek your personal opinion. Please reply to each 
one but please do not feel limited in the length or style of your answers. 
A reply to these by email is fine. 
1. What influences your choice of area of research? 
2. What influences your choice of theoretical frameworks for research? 
3. What influences your choice of research methodology used to conduct a 
research? 
4. What influences the choice of publishing outlet researchers choose? 
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Future research directions 
5. What are the top 2 research areas you have undertaken in the past 5 years? 
6. What are the top 2 research areas you are considering to research in the next 5 
years? 
7.  Are there any areas in ICT in the African context you consider under researched 
which researchers can take advantaged? 
8. In your opinion, which IS would prove ICT areas of research that would be very 
relevant to Africa in the next 5 years? 
 
Thank you, 
Desmond Ateh Larkai. 
  
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APPENDIX C: Delphi Round Two Questionnaire 
DELPHI ROUND II 
 
ROUND 2 OF THE MOTIVATIONS THAT UNDERPIN STUDIES UNDERTAKEN 
BY AFRICAN IS RESEARCHERS 
Below are answers from you (and those from the other panelists) from round 1 have been 
summarized and formulated into a series of more specific answers, which you are asked to 
respond to Agree, Disagree or remain Neutral. 
 
The 7 questions listed below are designed to seek your personal opinion. 
Please SELECT, for each answer, the box that you think influence each criteria. 
Part A: Current Research perceptions 
Below are responses for questions posed to the panellists about the factors that affect the current 
choices of IS researchers.  
Kindly indicate Agree, Neutral or Disagree in the spaces provided below the table. 
1. Which of the following below is more likely to influence the area of research of an 
African IS researcher? 
 
Agree Neutral Disagree 
Courses studied    
Academic background    
Personal interest    
Current social issues     
Impact of research on development    
Ability to impact development    
Supervisor's preference    
Research problems    
New trends    
Industry problems    
Institutional research environment     
Technological trends    
Scholarly relevance    
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Policy relevance    
Challenges in current environment    
Scalability of the research to other contexts    
Call for papers    
Global trends    
 
2. Which of these do you think is more likely to influence the choice of theoretical frameworks 
used by African IS researchers for research? 
 
Agree Neutral Disagree 
Research questions    
Awareness of the theoretical framework    
Relevance of framework to the study    
Research problem identified    
Desired outcome of the study    
Type and context of the research.    
Personal research orientation    
Research paradigm     
Ability to contribute to the theory    
Fitness of the theory    
Experience and knowledge     
Research objectives    
Application of the theory in extant literature    
Relevant factors to be studied    
Applicability of the theory to the context    
Ability to make modifications to the theory    
 
3. Which of these below do you think is more likely to influence the choice of research 
methodology used by an African IS researcher to conduct a research? 
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 Agree Neutral Disagree 
Research questions    
Awareness of the theoretical framework    
Relevance of framework to the study    
Research problem identified    
Desired outcome of the study    
Type and context of the research.    
Personal research orientation    
Research paradigm     
Ability to contribute to the theory    
Fitness of the theory    
Experience and knowledge     
Research objectives    
Application of the theory in extant literature    
Relevant factors to be studied    
Applicability of the theory to the context    
Ability to make modifications to the theory    
Type of data required for meaningful and relevant results.    
Type of data to be gathered    
Theoretical framework used    
Stated purpose of the study    
 
4. Which of these do you think is more likely to influence the choice of publishing outlet 
of researchers?  
 Agree Neutral Disagree 
research topic and area     
tier of the journal    
impact score    
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recommendation from other researchers    
scopus index    
accredited by the ministry of higher education for subsidy    
purposes 
Credibility with respect to peer review    
level of visibility     
ranking of journal      
potential of being published very fast    
where I can make more impact    
academic status    
career trajectory     
quality of manuscripts    
co-authors    
suitability    
institutional environment     
The area of specialisation of the journal and its readership    
Supervisors' recommendations    
The list of approved publishing outlets in my department    
level of acceptability    
 
5. Which of the following are the top research areas you are considering to research in the 
next 5 years?  
 Agree Neutral  Disagree 
Artificial intelligence     
Church IS adoption     
Information Security    
Ethical Computing    
ICT4D    
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Health Informatics    
blockchain    
ICT in Health    
ICT in Education     
Business intelligence     
Social media analytics     
Pre cognitive systems    
Sustainable digital transformation    
Digital business innovation      
Machine Learning    
ICT in education    
Educational quality assurance    
Adoption of medical decision support systems in developing    
countries 
Extension of mobile virtual network operations into the    
delivery of competitive mobile provision in developing 
countries 
enterprise informatics    
Cyber psychology    
 Digital business strategy    
Internet of things    
Cryptocurrency     
the sharing economy    
 
6. Which of the following areas in ICT in the African context do you consider under 
researched which researchers can take advantaged? 
 Agree Neutral Disagree 
AI    
Robotics    
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IT investment    
Blockchain    
Big data    
ICT and the SDG's    
Natural language processing    
Machine learning (supervised and unsupervised)    
Developing academic textbooks to Teach ICT in Africa    
Culture and AI    
Digital agriculture    
socio-political impact of emerging technologies (in some    
countries social media is destroying the socio-political 
fabric) 
learning analytics     
educational quality assurance    
Mobile banking adoption    
Development of smartphone apps to support sustainable    
farming and advertising of farm produce through apps to 
larger markets 
ICT usage in mobile and remote healthcare delivery and    
diagnosis of diseases 
Cyber Psychology    
Privacy of data    
Cryptocurrency    
ICT4D    
sharing economy    
 
7. In your opinion, which ICT areas of research below would be very relevant to Africa 
in the next 5 years? 
AI Agree Neutral Disagree 
Robotics    
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Outsourcing IT Capabilities    
ICT for Development    
Distributed Teamwork    
Mobile Computing    
Blockchain    
big data    
ICT and poverty eradication    
Natural language processing    
Machine learning (supervised and unsupervised)    
Socio-Economic Development    
Data Analytics in Government    
Sustainable digital transformation of different economic    
sectors (agriculture, health, education; governance etc.) 
learning analytics    
Using mobile and smartphones for all aspects of business,    
health and education through cloud hosted services and big 
data 
enterprise informatics     
cyberpsychology    
Data mining    
Digital Business strategy    
Data driven culture    
Business Intelligence     
Cryptocurrency    
Internet fraud    
 
 
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