African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and

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Deployment factors for mobile business

intelligence in developing countries small and
medium enterprises

Tope Samuel Adeyelure, Billy Mathias Kalema & Kelvin J. Bwalya

To cite this article: Tope Samuel Adeyelure, Billy Mathias Kalema & Kelvin J. Bwalya (2018)
Deployment factors for mobile business intelligence in developing countries small and
medium enterprises, African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development,
10:6, 715-723, DOI: 10.1080/20421338.2018.1491137

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/20421338.2018.1491137

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African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, 2018
Vol. 10, No. 6, 715–723, https://doi.org/10.1080/20421338.2018.1491137
© 2018 The Authors

Deployment factors for mobile business intelligence in developing countries small and medium
enterprises
1*
Tope Samuel Adeyelure , Billy Mathias Kalema1 and Kelvin J. Bwalya2
1
Department of Informatics, Tshwane University of Technology, South Africa
2
School of Consumer Intelligence and Information Systems, University of Johannesburg, South Africa
*Corresponding author email: adeyelurets@tut.ac.za

Data are more rapidly generated than they can be digested and consumed in real time due to the increased mobility and
automation of activities of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). These challenges could be avoided if SMEs in
developing countries deployed Mobile Business Intelligence (MBI) within their settings. Though the deployment of
MBI in SMEs in developed countries has been noticeable, its success in the developing countries is still far from reach.
Few to no studies have been conducted to investigate the direct and indirect factors influencing the deployment of MBI
within SMEs in developing countries. This study sought to investigate and determine factors that influence the
deployment of MBI in developing countries’ SMEs. Relevant literature was reviewed to determine factors that previous
researchers have identified as essential in MBI deployment. Textual analysis was used to verify each factor, remove
repetitions and determine the frequencies of their appearance in the literature. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was
then used as reduction method for the many factors that had been identified in the literature. This also helped in the
factor categorization. Lastly, a multi-criteria decision-making method of Advance Impact Analysis (ADVIAN®) was
carried out to determine the direct and indirect impacts that exist between the factors and the overall system of MBI
deployment. Based on the ADVIAN® results, impacting factors were classified into four categories namely: active (for
example, user privacy), reactive (for example, changing trends), critical (for example, top management support) and
inert (for example, technician’s location). The findings of this study are expected to be integrated into SMEs in
developing countries to prioritize those factors that need additional attention during the deployment of MBI.

Keywords: advance impact analysis, mobile business intelligence, principal component analysis, small and medium
enterprises, textual analysis

Introduction 2012; Krajewski, Ritzman, and Malhotra 2010). The

The proliferation of mobile devices has opened the flood-
gates for an ‘always-connected’ society. Business stake-
holders and customers are now demanding anywhere
and anytime access to information and the ways they
contact organizations they patronize have multiplied.
This is increasingly making business executives, man-
agers, field teams and off-site workers more innovative
and productive so as to attend to customers’ requests
and make meaningful decisions no matter where they
are. As a result, application software developers are now
coming up with several Mobile Business Intelligence
(MBI) applications for different businesses.
Many enterprises small and large are now acquiring
specific individual MBI applications and services to
provide adequate guidance for their decision-makers
(IBM Cognos 2012; Taleghani, Rad, and Rahmati 2012;
Vuori and Okkonen 2012). The significance of MBI on
the global market is relatively high as enterprises aim to
gather accurate and pertinent information about their
external environment so as to be competitive (Agrawal
2009; Fitzgerld 2010).
Big organizations realize the value of MBI’s ability to
give their employees access to decision-relevant data day
and night. However, small and medium enterprises
(SMEs) are still lagging behind. With the noticeable
increase in mobility of SMEs, and dynamism in information
gathering, the need for strategic information and importance
of MBI cannot be over-emphasized (Brockmann et al.
study of MBI in SMEs has not been well acknowledged
and documented as it has been in larger enterprises (Gha-
zanfari, Jafari, and Rouhani 2011). Although research on
MBI in SMEs has been undertaken in developed countries,
limited research has been conducted in developing world
contexts (Venter and Tustin 2009).
SMEs are widely acknowledged as the spine of all
countries’ economic growth and further act as suppliers
of goods and services to big enterprises and consequently
increasing job opportunities (Singh, Garg, and Deshmukh
2008). Abor and Quartey (2010) noted that performance of
SMEs is imperative for both social and economic
development of developing countries. Furthermore,
small businesses have been recognized as the engines
upon which the growth objectives of developing countries
can be attained (Floyd and McManus 2005). In many
developing countries, SMEs are potential sources of
income and employment.
This study sought to investigate and determine factors
that will inform the deployment of MBI in developing
countries’ SMEs. Both South Africa and Nigeria were
chosen as case studies for developing countries based on
logistical but not entirely scientific factors.
Study problem
The need for dynamic information gathering to enhance
strategic decision-making is paramount. However, enter-
prises need solid strategies and guidelines to manage

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716 Adeyelure, Kalema and Bwalya
business information, employees and customer’s access on
mobile devices (Brockmann et al. 2012). Additionally,
Krajewski, Ritzman, and Malhotra (2010) noted that
even though the benefits of MBI are well documented,
limited literature has focused on deployment and optimal
utilization of MBI by SMEs. Ghazanfari, Jafari, and
Rouhani (2011) also alluded that the majority of MBI
studies are carried out in larger enterprises but few have
been conducted for SMEs. Bitterer and Sood (2011) and
Stodder (2012) highlighted the enormous challenges
SMEs face during MBI implementation as compared to
corporate enterprises.
Venter and Tustin (2009) emphasized that while
research on deployment of MBI in SMEs has been under-
taken in developed countries, it is still in its infancy in
developing countries. Hence, the factors needed for the suc-
cessful deployment of MBI in SMEs especially in develop-
ing countries need to be made clear. These factors with their
influence and leverage potential as well as their direct and
indirect impacts on the MBI deployment system need to
be determined. Fried and Linss (2009) observed that few
studies have succeeded in determining the direct and indir-
ect impact of factors, which adds to the implementation fail-
ures of many IT systems.
Hence, this study aims to identify factors that will
inform the deployment of MBI within SMEs in develop-
ing countries. In addition, the study also aims to determine
the direct and indirect impact of each identified factor
toward MBI deployment.
Study questions
(i) What are the contextual factors that are needed in the
deployment of MBI in SMEs?
(ii) What are the direct and indirect impacts of MBI
deployment factors?
Study objectives
(i) To identify the contextual factors that are needed in the
deployment of MBI in SMEs.
(ii) To determine the direct and indirect impacts of the
factors for MBI deployment.
Literature review
In developing countries, exclusively in Africa, small and
medium enterprises (SMEs) play a fundamental role in
developing the major sector of the economies. For
instance, ninety-six percent (96%) of South Africa
business is SMEs, compared with fifty-three percent
(53%) in the US and sixty-five percent (65%) in Europe
(Newberry 2010). However, quite a number of bottlenecks
truncate the ability of SMEs in developing countries to
attain their full potential (Abor and Quartey 2010).
According to Olawale and Garwe (2010), the following
are factors that hinder the progressive deployment of IT
in SMEs: management skills deficiency, access to
finance, networking and location, inadequate investment
in infrastructure, and regulations/policies. Furthermore,
according to Singh, Garg, and Deshmukh (2008), the fol-
lowing constraints may be exhibited by SMEs: insuffi-
ciency of capitals, the nonexistence of technical
proficiency, and incidence of knowledge loss. Several
studies (Chaudhuri, Dayal, and Narasayya 2011; Chiang,
Goes, and Stohr 2012; Brockmann et al. 2012) have high-
lighted the importance and challenges of BI in organiz-
ations. Brodzinski et al. (2013) in their study further
highlight the state of MBI and strategies that can be con-
sidered during implementation within organizations.
Chen, Chiang, and Storey (2012) concluded that due to
the increase in volume of data (big data) further research
should be conducted to enable seamless decision-making
platforms for business organizations in real time.
Mobile Business Intelligence has been very beneficial
to SMEs in developed countries; however, those in devel-
oping countries are struggling to successfully deploy it
(Glen 2011; Van-der-Meulen and Rivera 2014). Limited
research on MBI deployment has been conducted in devel-
oping countries contexts (Ghazanfari, Jafari, and Rouhani
2011; Zhaohao 2015).
Methodology
Content search was used to holistically establish the factors
related to MBI in general, using terms like MBI factors, BI
factors, critical success factors of MBI and BI, and so on.
Sixty-nine journal articles, 4 dissertations, and 15 confer-
ence papers were retrieved. Seventy factors were ident-
ified. However, several factors had been named in some
articles, yet they had similar meanings. This implied that
there were some repetitions that needed to be rectified.
Hence, textual analysis was used to verify the identified
factors, categorize them and eliminate the repeated
factors. The aim of textual analysis is to depict the sub-
stance, structure, and elements of the messages contained
in texts/writings. The vital procedures in textual analysis
incorporate: (1) selecting the sorts of writings to be exam-
ined, (2) gathering suitable texts and (3) figuring out which
specific method to utilize in analysing them. Textual analy-
sis consists of four major approaches: (a) Rhetorical Criti-
cism, (b) Content Analysis, (c) Interaction Analysis, and
(d) Performance Studies. After examining the four basic
approaches to textual analysis, the study chose to adopt
Content Analysis (CA). The approach was adopted to
rank the factors using the rates of their occurrence in the
reviewed literature. The qualitative approach includes
naming ideas, and characterizing and creating classes in
view of their properties and measurements.
Results
The summaries of content analysis and frequencies of the
identified factors for MBI deployment in SMEs are as
demonstrated in Table 1.
As illustrated in Table 1, 49 factors were identified.
However, the study saw the need to determine the rel-
evance of the factor in the context of SMEs in developing
countries. Hence, the study adopted Principal Component
Analysis (PCA) for this process.
The principal component analysis (PCA) method
PCA is an exploratory factor analysis method used for
reduction and categorization. The 49 factors from
content analysis were then used to design a questionnaire
to for PCA analysis. This questionnaire requested partici-
pants (experts) to rank the factors in the order of the impor-
tance by using a scale of 0–4. In the scale, 0 = Not
 African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development 717

Table 1: Summary of identified factors on MBI in SMEs.

Item Category Metric Frequency

1 Organizational factors Top management support 41
Management expectations 23
Organization success 12
Resource allocation 26
Financial resources 14
Work environment 37
Internal ethics/governance system 23
In-house IT infrastructure 12
Support team 11
Task champion 2
Systems development & life cycle support 7
Business continuity & disaster planning 9
Reliance 4
Extenuating security disbursements 6
Education and training of users 3
2 Security factor Information security policy 29
User privacy 36
Data privacy 27
Authentication of users 31
Security awareness 6
Security culture 6
Network security architecture 9
3 Environmental factors Government regulations 32
Loans and grants 16
Technical support 14
Network provider policies 19
Customer needs 17
Changing trends 8
Perceived barriers 22
Partnership/collaborative working opportunities 13
Wireless vulnerabilities 4
Environmental uncertainty 7
4 Compatibility Mobile platform 34
Graphical User Interface 24
User-friendly system 16
MBI functionality 44
5 Entrepreneur competences factors Information utilization 11
The flow of information 12
Dynamic 19
Adapting to environmental changes 14
Internal relationship 15
External relationship 11
Continuity 13
Skills transfer 9
6 Technological characteristics Graphical User Interface 25
Storage capacity 15
Maintenance procedure 19
7 Vendor factors Training session 14
Vendors/technicians location 17

important, 1 = Less important, 2 = Not sure, 3 = Important
and 4 = Very important. Questionnaires were sent to
experts to determine the relevance of the factors in the
context of SMEs in developing countries. PCA was used
to analyze the transcribed questionnaires completed by
experts within the research context/domain. Using PCA,
the 49 factors obtained through textual analysis were
reduced to 38 factors. The outcomes are as shown in
Table 2 which indicates that 38 factors loaded with eigen-
value >1 were acceptable.
The advanced impact analysis (ADVIAN®) method
The ADVIAN® method is multi-criteria classification
method used in determining the direct and indirect
impacts based on system thinking. Experts were contacted
to carry out pairwise computation which was used in
designing a 38 × 38 ADVIAN® matrix used for
ADVIAN® analysis. Both active and passive sums were
used in the ADVIAN® method in addition to the consider-
ation of indirect impacts.
Active sum shows the intensity at which a given factor
acts upon the system. Passive sum shows the intensity at
which a respective factor is affected by the system. Indir-
ect Active sum = 2nd ni * 3rd ni order (active coordinates)
(iii) (using matrix product rule)
Indirect Passive sum = 2nd nj * 3rd nj order (passive
coordinates) (using matrix product rule)
Outcome
The study was able to source for seven experienced indi-
viduals to assist with the bi-coordinate comparison
718 Adeyelure, Kalema and Bwalya

Table 2: Reliability statistics.

Total Variance Explained

Initial Eigenvaluea
Component Uni-TVE % of Variance Cumulative %
Raw 1 6.025 74.675 54.553
2 8.543 78.786 80.729
3 5.979 68.642 85.012
4 1.444 56.653 88.438
5 1.368 56.553 91.609
6 1.765 57.007 94.275
7 1.764 56.963 95.955
8 1.096 51.073 97.220
9 2.854 61.965 98.207
10 6.934 69.675 99.054
11 7.230 70.753 99.619
12 3.445 62.766 99.901
13 1.004 50.863 100.000
14 9.757 79.653 100.000
15 1.864 51.765 100.000
16 1.963 58.876 100.000
17 2.863 63.766 100.000
18 1.747 51.532 100.000
19 1.754 51.763 100.000
20 1.064 50.753 100.000
21 1.538 51.653 100.000
22 1.775 50.565 100.000
23 1.684 50.673 100.000
24 1.863 51.866 100.000
25 1.858 50.993 100.000
26 7.865 70.532 100.000
27 3.766 63.863 100.000
28 1.854 50.757 100.000
29 1.235 51.755 100.000
30 1.074 50.428 100.000
31 1.476 50.648 100.000
32 1.754 51.675 100.000
33 1.644 51.238 100.000
34 8.643 78.787 100.000
35 1.763 50.575 100.000
36 1.880 52.578 100.000
37 4.763 65.869 100.000
38 4.974 68.758 100.000
Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.
a
When analyzing a covariance matrix, the initial eigenvalues are cogent across the raw and rescaled solution.

process. The ADVIAN® matrix in Figure 1 was devel-
oped using a Microsoft Office tool (Ms Excel 2010)
and the resulting data was computed into MATLAB to
determine the various existing relationships. Figure 1
shows just a sectional part of the 38 × 38 ADVIAN®
matrix.
Table 3 shows the summary of the active outcome
extracted from the ADVIAN® matrix in Figure 1. From
Table 2, the sum of the values in the rows is the active
sum (AS). This signifies the sum of all impact strengths
of a given factor on all other factors. The indirect sum
as indicated in Table 3 is the influence of an impact
factor on another even if there is no direct impact within
the active outputs. The higher the outcome under the
direct and indirect sum, the greater the impact on MBI
deployment. For example, management expectation has
a greater active impact both directly and indirectly com-
pared to resource allocation.
Table 4 shows the summary of the passive outcome
extracted from the ADVIAN® matrix. The outcome in
Table 4 demonstrates the reflexive effect of the factors
on the system. The direct and the indirect sum adhere to
the same principles discussed earlier.
Figure 2 shows the characteristics of the system, using
an influence-dependency graph. The graph was constructed
using the values derived from the ADVIAN® matrix. This
is the measure of impact on the identified factors exerted
on the system as a whole. Two indexes were derived
from Tables 3 and 4 in order achieve the following:
(i) The influence index that characterizes the measures of
the intensity with which a given factor acts upon the
system. In ADVIAN® this was denoted as the direct
Active Sum (AS).
(ii) The dependency index illustrates the measures of the
intensity at which respective factor is affected by the
system. This was denoted as the Passive Sum (PS)
in the ADVIAN®.
From these two indices, a two-axis graph shown in
Figure 2 was plotted with four co-ordinates, namely:
active, critical, inert and reactive.
 African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development 719

Figure 1: ADVIAN® Matrix for MBI factors.

Table 3: Summary of the active ADVIAN® matrix.

Activity
MBI deployment factors Direct sum 2. Order 3. Order Indirect sum
1 Top management support 70 2728 10,9503 11,2301
2 Management expectation 57 2200 88,084 90,341
3 Organization success 46 1862 74,392 76,300
4 Resource allocation 54 2117 85,290 87,461
5 Financial resources 48 1919 77,375 79,342
6 Work environment 45 1785 71,639 73,469
7 Internal ethics/governance system 46 1703 69,001 70,750
8 In-house IT infrastructure 43 1754 70,836 72,633
9 Support team 34 1386 56,174 57,594
10 Information security policy 39 1609 64,628 66,276
11 User privacy 32 1324 53,057 54,413
12 Data privacy 45 1905 76,001 77,951
13 Authentication of users 43 1779 71,360 73,182
14 Government regulations 57 2181 87,906 90,144
15 Loans and grants 29 1128 45,523 46,680
16 Technical support 33 1358 54,151 55,542
17 Network provider polices 19 680 27,518 28,217
18 Customer needs 57 2281 91,483 93,821
19 Changing trends 32 1318 52,717 54,067
20 Perceived barriers 30 1206 48,784 50,020
21 Partnership/collaborative working opportunities 35 1381 55,501 56,917
22 Mobile platform 27 1159 46,271 47,457
23 Graphical User Interface 26 1078 43,756 44,860
24 User-friendly system 34 1428 57,309 58,771
25 MBI functionality 44 1762 70,777 72,583
26 Information utilization 49 2028 81,212 83,289
27 Flow of information 35 1440 58,036 59,511
28 Dynamic 34 1362 54,868 56,264
29 Adapting 32 1302 52,210 53,544
30 Internal relationship 28 1154 46,302 47,484
31 External relationship 42 1797 71,491 73,330
32 Continuity 41 1676 67,136 68,853
33 Skills transfer 26 1117 44,905 46,048
34 Storage capacity 18 742 30,270 31,030
35 Maintenance procedure 43 1725 69,329 71,097
36 Training session 50 1972 79,370 81,392
37 Vendor 45 1711 69,214 70,970
38 Technicians location 29 1176 47,138 48,343

Active coordinates, Y-axis: 1500–3000, X-axis: 20 and reactive coordinates, Y-axis: 0–1500, X-axis
0–20; Critical coordinates, Y-axis: 1500–3000, X-axis: 20–40. Table 4 gives the summary of where each
20–40; Inert coordinates, Y-axis: 0–1500, X-axis: 0– factor falls in the system characteristics coordinate
720 Adeyelure, Kalema and Bwalya

Table 4: Summary of the passive ADVIAN® matrix.

Passive
MBI deployment factors Direct sum 2. Order 3. Order Indirect Sum
1 Top management support 56 2215 88,918 91,189
2 Management expectation 57 2245 90,290 92,592
3 Organization success 53 2095 84,212 86,360
4 Resource allocation 48 1913 76,863 78,824
5 Financial resources 44 1745 70,248 72,037
6 Work environment 40 1645 66,048 67,733
7 Internal ethics/governance system 39 1575 63,298 64,912
8 In-house IT infrastructure 44 1775 71,307 73,126
9 Support team 51 2012 81,143 83,206
10 Information security policy 38 1502 60,438 61,978
11 User privacy 44 1778 71,262 73,084
12 Data privacy 39 1517 61,138 62,694
13 Authentication of users 36 1452 58,462 59,950
14 Government regulations 33 1391 55,766 57,190
15 Loans and grants 41 1653 66,504 68,198
16 Technical support 39 1561 62,947 64,547
17 Network provider polices 32 1311 52,558 53,901
18 Customer needs 43 1716 68,964 70,723
19 Changing trends 42 1735 69,507 71,284
20 Perceived barriers 38 1525 61,419 62,982
21 Partnership/collaborative working opportunities 35 1393 56,208 57,636
22 Mobile platform 44 1776 71,296 73,116
23 Graphical User Interface 42 1689 67,887 69,618
24 User-friendly system 33 1329 53,155 54,517
25 MBI functionality 42 1625 65,451 67,118
26 Information utilization 34 1399 56,064 57,497
27 Flow of information 36 1453 58,265 59,754
28 Dynamic 40 1641 65,877 67,558
29 Adapting 36 1504 60,289 61,829
30 Internal relationship 31 1226 49,536 50,793
31 External relationship 27 1153 46,336 47,516
32 Continuity 33 1319 52,928 54,280
33 Skills transfer 41 1608 64,575 66,224
34 Storage capacity 32 1318 53,002 54,352
35 Maintenance procedure 36 1404 56,576 58,016
36 Training session 41 1668 66,878 68,587
37 Vendor 28 1159 46,478 47,665
38 Technicians location 29 1208 48,424 49,661

Figure 2: Characteristics of the system.

 African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development 721

Figure 3: Indirect factors’ influence on the system.

which was established on the influence-dependency = sin(R)/R’. Expanding on Schlange and Jüttner (1997)
graph in Figure 2. and Wolff, Gaffron, and Flämig (2010), categorization of
factors’ impact on a system are shown in Table 5 and cor-
(i) Active factors: factors in the system have minimal
responding to the output generated from the mesh graph in
effect on the factors located in the coordinates com-
Figure 3 below.
pared to the impact the factors in the coordinate
Table 6 below was developed from the outcome of the
exert on one another (Schlange and Jüttner 1997;
mesh graph in Figure 3, showing the summary of where
Wolff, Gaffron, and Flämig 2010). The quotient of
the factors in this coordinate is above 1. Table 5: Positions of factors on the coordinates.
(ii) Critical factors: other factors are strongly impacted by
critical factors which also have an impact on them- Active factors Critical factors
selves. They are similarly impacted by other factors Management expectation Top management support
in the system. The region for critical factors is User privacy Organization success
Resource allocation Information security
located where the coordinate is ‘(AS × PS) > (n– policy
1)2’, where n represents the number of analyzed Authentication of users Financial resources
factors (n = 38). Vendor Information utilization
(iii) Inert factors: the factors’ characteristics are directly Loans and grants in-house IT infrastructure
opposite to critical factors. They have little or no Technical support Data privacy
Maintenance procedure Customer needs
influence on the system dynamics. The region is Government regulations
located where the coordinate is ‘(AS × PS) < (n– Partnership/collaborative working
1)2.’ Inert factors may serve as feeble indicators of opportunities
the influence on the deployment of MBI by SMEs, Mobile platform
which is subject to their level of inactiveness. Reactive factors Inert factors
(iv) Reactive factors: these factors behave directly oppo-
Changing trends Storage capacity
site to active factors. Generally, reactive factors are Adapting Network provider policies
used as indicators, because their influence on the MBI functionality Technicians location
remaining factors in the system is insignificant Work environment Internal relationship
when likened to the impact other factors impact on Support team Dynamic
them (Schlange and Jüttner 1997; Wolff, Gaffron, Perceived barriers Continuity
Graphical User Interface User-friendly system
and Flämig 2010). Inequality quotient (AS/PS) < 1 The flow of information
is used as a determinant for reactive factors. Training session
internal ethics/governance system
Figure 3 shows the indirect impact of each factor on External relationship
the system as a whole, using ‘R = sqrt(X 2 + Y 2) + eps; Z Skills transfer
722 Adeyelure, Kalema and Bwalya

Table 6: Positions of factors on the coordinates.

Active factors Critical factors

Top management support Organization success
financial resources Information utilization
Perceived barriers Work environment
External relationship Support team
Internal ethics/governance system MBI functionality
Resource allocation Network provider policies
Partnership/collaborative working opportunities Vendor
Mobile platform Management expectation
Reactive factors Inert factors

Adapting the flow of information Storage capacity

Skills transfer Internal relationship
Technical support Dynamic
Authentication of users Continuity
In-house IT infrastructure Maintenance procedure
Information security policy Loans and grants
Customer needs Government regulations
User-friendly system Data privacy
Technicians location Changing trends
Graphical User Interface Training session
User privacy

each factor falls in the system characteristics coordinate
which was established from the indirect influence- depen-
dency graph in Figure 3.
Discussion of results
Leveraging on the results, informed decisions can be made
by SMEs during the deployment of MBI. The study ident-
ified 38 contextual factors that are tailored to the domain in
view. Hence, covering the gap of enterprises adopting gen-
eralized factors that may not fit into their domain and sub-
sequently result in failure in MBI deployment.
Furthermore, the study determined the direct and indirect
impact of the contextualized factors. This will assist
SMEs during the planning process to prioritize based on
the impact of each corresponding factors. The factors
were categorized into four (4) distinct units, namely:
active, critical, reactive and inert factors. For instance,
SMEs should be more mindful of critical factors because
they strongly impact other factors as well as themselves.
Hence, factors in this category will greatly influence the
deployment process of MBI. For example, top manage-
ment support, organization success, and financial
resources should be on the priority list during MBI deploy-
ment. Active factors have minimal effect on other factors
compared to critical factors. Factors identified under inert
and reactive factors have little or no influence. However,
the factors can be used as an indicator during MBI deploy-
ment. It should be noted that the critical factors high-
lighted in the results demonstrate to the decision-makers
in SMEs that these factors if ignored might bring about
severe repercussion since they possess high influence on
the system together with high driving forces.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the two study questions were answered.
Addressing the first question, related literatures on MBI
and BI were reviewed. Several scientific methods (textual
analysis and principal component analysis) were adopted
to determine contextual factors for MBI deployment
within SMEs. So as to have in-depth knowledge of the
interaction/relationship of each factor to one another as
established in question two, the study applied ADVIAN®
method for the description of the mutual relationship of
each factor. Making use of a scale with four levels of inten-
sities (0, denoting ‘no impact’; 1, denoting ‘weak impact’;
2, denoting ‘medium impact’; 3, denoting ‘strong impact’)
to represent the impacts, an influence-dependency graph
was plotted to help group the identified factors into four
basic categories, namely: active factors, reactive factors,
critical factors and inert factors. Hence, this study has
been able to provide explicit insight into the relationships
that exist between contextualized MBI deployment
factors for SMEs in developing countries.
However, the study was unable to further analyze the
identified factors so as to develop a deployment model
that can be easily used by SMEs in developing countries
to deploy MBI. Hence, the study recommends that a
deployment framework should be developed and validated
using the identified factors.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the
authors.
ORCID
Tope Samuel Adeyelure http://orcid.org/0000-0002-
6138-4285
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