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This chapter outlines the circumstances in South Africa (SA) that led to the evolution of the profession of research management and administration (RMA) in the country. The public higher education (HE) sector has undergone significant change since 1994, and the RMA profession has struggled to keep abreast. However, through its national professional society, SARIMA, a concerted effort is being made to facilitate and advance the RMA pipeline.

SARIMA was instrumental in developing the Professional Competency Framework for SA and is now focussed on creating awareness and providing development opportunities for RMAs to meet the requirements.

RMA in SA is proliferating as the public HE sector expands in response to growing demands and deliberate interventions by the government.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation brings with it a set of challenges. In order to gain a better understanding of these and they can be mitigated during the implementation process, the purpose of this paper is to use Esteves and Bohórquez (2007) classification based on ERP lifecycle framework, and content analysis to review the literature on ERP implementation in a structured format with a focus on larger enterprises, and provide a platform for practitioners to plan implementation with minimum possibility of failure.

Esteves and Bohórquez (2007) classification based on the ERP lifecycle framework is used to develop and present a comprehensive structured review of the literature on ERP system implementation in large enterprises (LEs), with a particular focus on pre-implementation, implementation, and post-implementation.

Drawing from the literature, organisations can plan implementation based on the findings and strategies presented in the study. This can lead to a better understanding of implementation with minimal probability of failure. The authors find that top management support, good project management teams, and good communications are the top three most important critical successful factors during implementation. The authors also identify critical gaps in current research. Existing research focusses predominantly on the implementation phase, but research on pre- and post-implementation is lacking, and that no industry standard implementation methodology has been developed.

This review primarily focusses on the literature in the area of ERP implementation. ERP implementation planning involves access to effective implementation strategies. Despite the literature identifying a myriad of different ERP implementation models, no standard industry ERP implementation model has been developed. The findings for ERP implementation are repetitive, inconsistent, and lack empirical research, rendering these two of the most critical areas for future research, and collaboration between ERP practitioners, system developers, and researchers. Researchers, in turn, need to become more innovative in terms of their research techniques when examining ERP implementation.

This paper provides guidance to researchers and practitioners with an insight into published research work and their findings. It provides a better understanding of ERP implementation, which can be applied towards overcoming operational difficulties during the implementation process.

This study is innovated in its use of Esteves and Bohórquez (2007) classification based on the ERP lifecycle framework, and content analysis to present a comprehensive structured literature review of the ERP implementation literature with a specific focus on pre-implementation, implementation, and post-implementation in LEs between the period 1989 and 2014. The technique and time period used in this study differs from those of other studies on ERP implementation. The paper brings together theoretical and practical developments on ERP implementation under a single source, which should aid practitioners, researchers and ERP developers with future research and decision making.

The Violent Crime Linkage Analysis System (ViCLAS) is a computerised database which is used by law enforcement in several countries to find potential links between serial violent crimes. In 2012, Bennell, Snook, MacDonald, House and Taylor identified a number of assumptions that must be valid for these computerised systems to be effective.

This paper revisits and expands on these assumptions with specific reference to the use of ViCLAS, looking at research that has been conducted since this 2012 review and outlining where research is still outstanding.

The importance of evaluating ViCLAS is highlighted in this paper.

Particularly, the research agenda highlights how the practice of comparative case analysis when using ViCLAS could be improved.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first review of the research dedicated specifically to the evaluation of ViCLAS.

The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical framework and the preliminary results from a research programme on organisational project management. It aims at exploring how organisational project management can be conceptualised as a function within the organisation.

The methodological framework is based on a constructivist epistemology. This research programme contains two sequential phases based on a robust mixed method. The first phase of the qualitative approach, which is the focus of this paper, includes 20 interviews with executives and middle managers.

This approach is expected to be helpful in assessing the fit between organisational context, project management implementation and organisational strategy. The proposed theoretical framework draws from the exploration of organisational project management as a function. Preliminary results confirm that organisational project management can be best understood as a function within the organisation. Future research includes the second phase of this research programme based on a quantitative approach.

This research situates project management within the theoretical field of organisational design. It borrows from innovation literature the concept of function that serve as a foundation piece in the proposed framework, to integrate the various activities undertaken to manage multiple projects.

This research provides some evidence for the organisation design that serves articulating different activities undertaken for the management of multiple projects into a coherent function throughout the organisation.

This research explores what organisations really do when they face the challenges of managing multiple projects while at the same time pursuing their operations. Interviews with executives and middle managers clearly justify the identification of a function dedicated to the overall project management.

Today's organisations still face the duality of organising for both innovation and projects through organic structures while at the same time maintaining stability within their hierarchical structures. Issues, tensions and conflicts arise at the interfaces between these two/competing modes of organising. The purpose of this paper is to explore what really happens at the interfaces between the structures and governance modes that result from the prevalence of project‐oriented organisations. The theoretical framework is based upon the actor‐network theory (ANT) in order to capture networks construction around project management offices (PMO) deliverables that cross multiple organisational boundaries.

This research is of explorative nature. Even though the number of cases is limited to two, a strong research design was obtained through maximizing together their homogeneity and heterogeneity. Data were primarily collected from semi‐directed interviews with 29 individuals. Data analysis were done within a grounded theory approach. This study focus on one particular PMO deliverable: the project status report. The itinerary of the project status report was followed within each organisation.

What this study shows is the complexity of the translation process followed by a project status report. It highlighted specifically the existence of multiple arenas for negotiation. Interfaces can then be seen as translation centers where multiple perspectives on the project are discussed. Issues, tensions and conflicts are to be resolved when converging towards an irreversible unique point of control. Translations are not free. They incurred significant transaction costs which are invisible to the management team.

While many other perspectives would permit a better understanding of what happens at the interface between hierarchy and projects, this research focused on networks constructlon within the ANT framework. This research is exploratory and as such there are certain inherent limitations. First, it was limited to two case studies only. Second, only one deliverable was scrutinised through ANT. Further research should also be undertaken to link project monitoring and control functions to project governance.

Practical implications relate to the capability of anticipating the consequences of organising within dual structures. This research leads to three major conclusions: PMO is part of the power system and politics; there are costs to hyper‐control; and interfaces could be seen as learning opportunities.

This originality of this paper is twofold: the research subject and the theoretical framework. First, the research subject looked at politics and power systems within the organisational project management. While previous researches have identified issues, tensions and conflicts surrounding the management of multiple projects, none has clearly focused on this subject. Second, this research adopted asocial approach based on an ANT framework. This approach focuses on the networks construction where issues, tensions and conflicts can be observed while they unfold.

Cyber-enabled crimes are on the increase, and law enforcement has had to expand many of their detecting activities into the digital domain. As such, the field of digital forensics has become far more sophisticated over the years and is now able to uncover even more evidence that can be used to support prosecution of cyber criminals in a court of law. Governments, too, have embraced the ability to track suspicious individuals in the online world. Forensics investigators are driven to gather data exhaustively, being under pressure to provide law enforcement with sufficient evidence to secure a conviction.

Yet, there are concerns about the ethics and justice of untrammeled investigations on a number of levels. On an organizational level, unconstrained investigations could interfere with, and damage, the organization's right to control the disclosure of their intellectual capital. On an individual level, those being investigated could easily have their legal privacy rights violated by forensics investigations. On a societal level, there might be a sense of injustice at the perceived inequality of current practice in this domain.

This paper argues the need for a practical, ethically grounded approach to digital forensic investigations, one that acknowledges and respects the privacy rights of individuals and the intellectual capital disclosure rights of organizations, as well as acknowledging the needs of law enforcement. The paper derives a set of ethical guidelines, and then maps these onto a forensics investigation framework. The framework to expert review in two stages is subjected, refining the framework after each stage. The paper concludes by proposing the refined ethically grounded digital forensics investigation framework. The treatise is primarily UK based, but the concepts presented here have international relevance and applicability.

In this paper, the lens of justice theory is used to explore the tension that exists between the needs of digital forensic investigations into cybercrimes on the one hand, and, on the other, individuals' rights to privacy and organizations' rights to control intellectual capital disclosure.

The investigation revealed a potential inequality between the practices of digital forensics investigators and the rights of other stakeholders. That being so, the need for a more ethically informed approach to digital forensics investigations, as a remedy, is highlighted and a framework proposed to provide this.

The proposed ethically informed framework for guiding digital forensics investigations suggests a way of re-establishing the equality of the stakeholders in this arena, and ensuring that the potential for a sense of injustice is reduced.

Justice theory is used to highlight the difficulties in squaring the circle between the rights and expectations of all stakeholders in the digital forensics arena. The outcome is the forensics investigation guideline, PRECEpt: Privacy-Respecting EthiCal framEwork, which provides the basis for a re-aligning of the balance between the requirements and expectations of digital forensic investigators on the one hand, and individual and organizational expectations and rights, on the other.