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Purpose: While artificial intelligence (AI) has shown its promise in assisting human decision, there exist barriers to adopting AI for decision-making. This study aims to identify barriers in the adoption of AI for automated organisational decision-making. AI plays a key role, not only by automating routine tasks but also by moving into the realm of automating decisions traditionally made by knowledge or skilled workers. The study, therefore, selected respondents who experienced the adoption of AI for decision-making. Design/methodology/approach: The study applied an interpretive paradigm and conducted exploratory research through qualitative interviews with 13 senior managers in South Africa from organisations involved in AI adoption to identify potential barriers to using AI in automated decision-making processes. A thematic analysis was conducted, and AI coding of transcripts was conducted and compared to the manual thematic coding of transcripts with insights into computer vs human-generated coding. A conceptual framework was created based on the findings. Findings: Barriers to AI adoption in decision-making include human social dynamics, restrictive regulations, creative work environments, lack of trust and transparency, dynamic business environments, loss of power and control, as well as ethical considerations. Originality/value: The study uniquely applied the adaptive structuration theory (AST) model to AI decision-making adoption, illustrated the dimensions relevant to AI implementations and made recommendations to overcome barriers to AI adoption. The AST offered a deeper understanding of the dynamic interaction between technological and social dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In recent years, South Africa has continued to experience a high rate of young people who are not in employment, education, or training (NEET). The emergence of the concept 'NEET' affords researchers an opportunity to more closely examine the life situations and experiences of this population sub-group. The purpose of this paper is thus to further explore the life situations and lived experiences of people in South Africa who are NEET. Structuration theory is adopted to better understand how social structures play a role in the lives of people who are NEET. Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 24 NEET people over a period of two months in South Africa. This paper presents a section of the findings from a broader study that used self-administered interviews to collect data in three metropolitan municipalities of Gauteng Province, the economic heartland of South Africa. Findings: The findings indicate that poverty remains an obstacle for many young people in furthering their studies or developing their ideas into businesses. Also evident is that there are NEETs who are taking action to disconnect from the NEET sub-group by means of seeking work, funding, or volunteering for initiatives, among other activities. Lack of financial support affects most NEETs perpetuating their vulnerability and their efforts to detach themselves from their NEET status. It is evident that most NEETs who took part in this study are still seeking opportunities to become economically active, regardless of their current financial situations. Originality/value: There remains a lack of adequate exploration and understanding of the experiences and life situations of people who are NEET. The relevance of this study is in its contribution towards extending the applicability of structuration theory to understanding the life situations of people who are NEET in South Africa. This study contributes to the literature by providing the experiences and life situations of people who are NEET in a country with already high levels of inequalities. It is hoped that this study may provide the basis for developing more specific policy solutions able to address the NEET issues in South Africa and in society more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of South Africa, what we do know is that huge amount of healthcare data does exist and that they are consciously and unconsciously scattered in bits and pieces across facilities within the country. This has directly or indirectly resulted to underutilisation of data, which affects service delivery to the community. For example, many patients have been wrongly diagnosed, and some others have been given wrong medications due to duplication of prescriptions, which were influenced by lack of real-time information. Consequently, there have been loss and damages to lives, contributing to the mortality rate in the country. This study was undertaken on the premise of these challenges, to develop a conceptual framework that can guide how data could be managed towards improved services within the South African healthcare facilities. The interpretive approach was employed. Qualitative data were gathered from existing works. Structuration theory was applied as a lens to guide the analysis of the data. From the findings, a framework was developed, primarily to guide and advance the waysin which data are stored, retrieved, managed, and used for healthcare improved services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current South African society, characterised by typical neo-liberal market-driven priorities also forced upon the education sector, the search for quality education needs careful consideration. This search has taken a prominent focus in robust academic, public, political, and school governance debates in South Africa for the past 2 decades. Officials of the Department of Basic Education (DBE) admit that, despite noteworthy efforts, it fails in providing quality education for all learners. Key stakeholders in education neglect their professional duties. This paper investigates factors related to (dominating) structure and (a lack of) agency that might be deterrents to attainment of quality education. Bureaucratic and labour structures often deny professional educators their agency. The central question is what the nature of the impact, if any, of the conflicting powers of structure and agency is on quality public education. It was found that the conflict between structure and agency often have a negative effect on the delivery of quality education but that the advantages of both structure and agency, once reconciled, might lead to the improvement of the delivery of quality education in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into how teachers became cocreators by merging their existing knowledge of their subject, context, and new knowledge of using mobile tablets towards enhancing their teaching practices. This was achieved in a specific area in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa over a period of 3 years. The intentional situating of teachers as cocreators was implementation through a teacher professional development (TPD) course. The course consisted of 10 modules presented and completed over a 1‐year period. The TPD course was developed as an artefact using Design Science as a methodology with 3 iterations of implementation to refine it. The development of the course and its iterative implementation and refinement was grounded in the Living Lab open innovation approach with elements of gamification (coopetition), and various stakeholders were incorporated. Structuration theory was applied to indicate the "duality of structure" where structure and agency are related and dependent on each other and agents' actions produce, reproduce, and develop social structures. Technology endowments were integrated as part of the gamification and were dependent on predefined cocreation events. Each event was linked to a badge, and teachers had to provide practice‐based evidence of how new knowledge, proficiencies, and skills gained during the TPD sessions was adapted to their own subject and context knowledge and practically implemented in their classrooms. This presents an innovative way to introduce and use tablets in teaching and learning (structure) as teachers (agents) are acknowledged as domain and subject experts, and through exposure to technology and pedagogical strategies in using the technology (resources), they become cocreators of their own new enhanced classroom practice (social structures) and adopted the technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to discuss the structuration theory of Anthony Giddens with regard to its applicability to translation studies. Key concepts of Giddens’ sociological theory as agent, agency, structure, system and structuration will be explored in terms of their applicability to translation. In this article, structuration theory will be examined on the basis of the author's observation of news production at the South African Broadcasting Corporation. It is argued that Giddens’ structuration theory helps us see the complexity of the interaction between translation structure and translators as agents. It also helps us problematise the vision of translation and brings it back to its real-life practice when, in the newsroom, it functions not as a hermetically insulated activity, but in cooperation with editing, among other things. The role of translation in the developing context of South Africa is shown in terms of Giddens’ notions of ‘time’ and ‘space’ with the emphasis on how translation, from the viewpoint of these notions, contributes to the process of globalisation and South Africa finding its place in the world-wide space and time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The internet is a useful web-based multimedia platform for accessing and disseminating information unconstrained by time, distance, and place. To the health care sector's benefit, the advent and proliferation of mobile devices have provided an opportunity for interventions that combine asynchronous technology-aided health services to improve the lives of the less privileged and marginalized people and their communities, particularly in developing societies., Objective: This study aimed to report on the perspectives of the different stakeholders involved in the study and to review an existing government mobile health (mHealth) program. It forms part of a study to design a re-engineered strategy based on the best demonstrated practices (considerations and methods) and learned experiences from the perspectives of multiple stakeholders within the digital health innovation ecosystem in South Africa., Methods: This study used an ethnographic approach involving document review, stakeholder mapping, semistructured individual interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observations to explore, describe, and analyze the perspectives of its heterogeneous participant categories representing purposively sampled but different constituencies., Results: Overall, 80 participants were involved in the study, in addition to the 6 meetings the researcher attended with members of a government-appointed task team. In addition, 46 archived records and reports were consulted and reviewed as part of gathering data relating to the government's MomConnect project. Among the consulted stakeholders, there was general consensus that the existing government-sponsored MomConnect program should be implemented beyond mere piloting, to as best as possible capacity within the available resources and time. It was further intimated that the scalability and sustainability of mHealth services as part of an innovative digital health ecosystem was hamstrung by challenges that included stakeholder mismanagement, impact assessment inadequacies, management of data, lack of effective leadership and political support, inappropriate technology choices, eHealth and mHealth funding, integration of mHealth to existing health programs in tandem with Goal 3 of the Sustainable Development Goals, integration of lessons learned from other mHealth initiatives to avoid resource wastage and duplication of efforts, proactive evaluation of both mHealth and eHealth strategies, and change management and developing human resources for eHealth., Conclusions: This study has only laid a foundation for the re-engineering of mHealth services within the digital health innovation ecosystem. This study articulated the need for stakeholder collaboration, such as continuous engagement among academics, technologists, and mHealth fieldwork professionals. Such compelling collaboration is accentuated more by the South African realities of the best practices in the fieldwork, which may not necessarily be documented in peer-reviewed or systematic research documents from which South African professionals, research experts, and practitioners could learn. Further research is needed for the retrospective analysis of mHealth initiatives and forecasting of the sustainability of current and future mHealth initiatives in South Africa., (©Idon-Nkhenso Sibuyi, Retha de la Harpe, Peter Nyasulu. Originally published in JMIR mHealth and uHealth (https://mhealth.jmir.org), 16.06.2022.)