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Nowadays, 31% of the population worldwide still classified as Underbanked. These do not have access to mainstream financial services or institutions, and this is a problem that especially haunts the emerging markets. As the mobile phone penetration rate is tremendous, financial companies are investing in the development of mobile banking solutions to solve this issue. M-Pesa is one of those solutions that currently is being developed and deployed in several of these markets as in Tanzania, Mozambique, Democratic Republic of the Congo and others. The appearing of solutions like M-Pesa allowed its users to have an online bank account and perform operations as deposit, transfer or withdraw money. Despite the innovation and these solutions give them the possibility of pay taxes, bills or services, they continue excluded from the online shopping world. This exclusion happens because payment gateways are not prepared to support users that do not use the traditional banking systems. Online Payments platform aims to allow M-Pesa users to shop online. This platform is an online payment gateway that recurring to a third-party payment processor allows M-Pesa users to purchase on online stores. Is part of the prototype a web platform, that is composed by the following portals: i) merchant; ii) developer; iii) checkout; iv) documentation and v) demo and the Android M-Pesa application that was used to add support to new features for the Online Payments platform. This platform is a proof of concept developed during an internship at WIT Software, that is the company responsible for the development process of the M-Pesa mobile applications. Finally, as far as the final phase of the project is concerned, have been obtained proof of concept thought which can see that it is possible to implement it.

Background: Organizations allocate substantial resources to Information Technology (IT) to ensure its long-term success. Hence, effective IT Governance (ITG) is crucial for business/IT alignment. However, factors like employee behavior and Organizational Culture (OC) play vital roles in applying ITG but remain underexplored. Objectives: This study aims to bridge this gap by examining the relationship between ITG and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). Additionally, it investigates the moderating effect of different cultures in the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI) on the ITG-OCB relationship. Methods/Analysis: A survey was conducted involving 513 employees from over 150 companies worldwide. The data were analyzed using partial least-squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Findings: This study confirms that institutionalizing ITG enhances OCB. Furthermore, a moderating effect was observed in most relationships, highlighting the influence of different OC types. Market and hierarchy cultures exhibited the most significant moderating effect. Novelty: This research contributes to the understanding of ITG's impact on employee behavior, extending the investigation to new dimensions of OCB and confirming the moderating role of OC. The practical implications of this study enable organizations to foster a culture that promotes ITG and cultivates employees' OCB, leading to improved business-IT alignment, enhanced IT-enabled value, and, ultimately, enhanced organizational effectiveness. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2023-07-05-010 Full Text: PDF

Abstract

Background and purpose: This research aims to investigate which benefits one may expect using Maturity Models in Configuration Management (CM) domain. CM is a support process that helps organizations have better management of their infrastructure. Its importance, in the Information Technology (IT) domain, has increased in recent years, despite this process not being technologically new, and the fact that many organizations implement this process in a haphazard way, which results in it not producing the benefits that it should produce. With the intention of assessing and improving the organizations' IT processes practices and capabilities, MMs have been developed and implemented. However, the application of MM in the CM domain is yet to be explored.

Design/Methodology/Approach: Two Systematic Literature Reviews (SLRs) and a Critical Analysis were performed. In sum, 80 scientific articles of the most rated conferences and scientific journals were analyzed and conclusions were drawn.

Results: This research concludes that despite the CM process being badly implemented, using a MM this process could decrease operational costs and increase the quality management of the infrastructure.

Conclusion: However, no MM has been developed so far for the CM process practices. This MM would be a viable support tool for the IT organizations providers since this would help organizations have a mature CM process and better control of their IT infrastructure. Therefore, the existence of a MM for the CM domain would be a welcome advancement that should be developed in the future.

Purpose
Robotic process automation (RPA) seeks to automate business processes, using software robots that interact with systems through their user interface, improving efficiency and reducing costs. However, some critical steps, such as identifying processes suitable for RPA automation, can have a tremendous impact in organizations if a wrong process is selected. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to provide an approach for analyzing RPA development in business organizations.


Design/methodology/approach
This research presents a cohesive literature review about RPA, in order to identify RPA main concepts, which should be reported and considered in all RPA case studies. A model connecting the main elicited RPA concepts is presented as well as its evaluation and applicability grounded of past RPA case study (CS) analysis, using design science research.


Findings
The results from this research show that most of the RPA main concepts gathered in the literature review are not reported in the selected RPA CSs.


Originality/value
As RPA is a recent topic, literature lacks a synthetization of RPA main topics. This research aims to fill the gap on that, by identifying and synthesize the main topics related to RPA and proposing a model that connects the main RPA concepts, which can be used by researchers as a schema for conducting and writing RPA case studies.

Nearly forty years have passed since the term Organizational Citizenship Behavior appeared. Despite a current consensus among scholars about the citizenship gestures as prosocial acts of employees that benefit the organization, it does not apply commonly to the exponential growth of all OCB-related concepts. The concept's expansion has confused the researchers and practitioners, mainly when choosing the most appropriate instruments (constructs) and dimensions to use in their area of interest and context. A systematic literature review was conducted and 420 articles were analyzed. Results point that the trends on OCB-like behaviors goes higher, with an average annual growth rate of new studies of 3.13%. United States (39%) and China (25%) lead but some "under-studied" contexts like Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Oceania start being studied towards OCB. New trends appear in the spectrum of the many different domains and disciplines related to OCB, while leadership and task performance remain the most studied domains and disciplines. In future studies, researchers must freely choose the OCB dimensions and constructs they want to use or adapt to meet their needs and research needs since there is no written rule about their use, only the care to be taken with the context and discipline studying.

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Three-dimensional (3D) cell culture models have been proposed as alternatives for initial drug screening to increase drug development efficiency. In addition to their ability to reproduce key aspects of the tumor architecture and microenvironment, 3D cell culture models may help decrease the use of laboratory animals in drug testing, in accordance with the 3R principles (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement). This review aims to help researchers making a transition from two-dimensional (2D) to 3D cell culture models for drug screening, by discussing the impact of 3D models on cancer research, their advantages, limitations, and compatibility with high-throughput screenings. It also outlines the relevance of available readouts provided by such models as well as the importance of incorporating key microenvironmental cues towards improving the predictive value of drug efficacy and safety. ABSTRACT: Today, innovative three-dimensional (3D) cell culture models have been proposed as viable and biomimetic alternatives for initial drug screening, allowing the improvement of the efficiency of drug development. These models are gaining popularity, given their ability to reproduce key aspects of the tumor microenvironment, concerning the 3D tumor architecture as well as the interactions of tumor cells with the extracellular matrix and surrounding non-tumor cells. The development of accurate 3D models may become beneficial to decrease the use of laboratory animals in scientific research, in accordance with the European Union's regulation on the 3R rule (Replacement, Reduction, Refinement). This review focuses on the impact of 3D cell culture models on cancer research, discussing their advantages, limitations, and compatibility with high-throughput screenings and automated systems. An insight is also given on the adequacy of the available readouts for the interpretation of the data obtained from the 3D cell culture models. Importantly, we also emphasize the need for the incorporation of additional and ...