An Investigation into the ICT Vendor – Value Added Reseller Partnership Satisfaction in South Africa

Abstract

The study was conducted to explore the perceived factors that contribute to relationship satisfaction between Vendors and Value-added Resellers (VARs) within Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) downstream Supply Chain Management (SCM) in South Africa (SA). The study highlights the challenges faced in these critical dyads by exploring the relationship satisfaction in an under-researched industry and country context. The study was qualitative and relevant experts from both ICT Vendors and VARs were interviewed. An initial set of findings derived from using the Interaction Approach (IA) as theoretical lens, was published in Hassa and Tanner (2016). This current paper presents an additional set of findings relating to critical factors found to be antecedent and consequent of perceived relationship satisfaction. In particular, this paper specifically discusses factors relating to Commitment, Communication, Trust, Loyalty, Profitability and Value. This inquiry contributes to depicting a more holistic picture of the landscape around perceived relationship satisfaction between Vendors and VARs within the ICT industry in South Africa. The results from these findings could promote transparent cooperation and collaboration between ICT industry partners and stakeholders (customers, government, etc.) and support an increase in ICT diffusion and adoption in South Africa and Africa.

Adversarial factors in multi-stakeholders’ engagement of global-IT projects

“…The conflicting priorities and interests of multi-stakeholders in projects will reveal multiple viewpoints, that can raise confusion because of the mix of questions and related values that can agree or disagree in the mind of the stakeholders (Ramasesh and Browning, 2014). Dissatisfaction is an unpleasant psychological metric registered or exchanged through the minds of engaged stakeholders (Hassa and Tanner, 2017) that can occur from various sources broadly related to an ethical or social way of interactions (Lee, 2009; Morley et al , 2015), organizational issues (Duclos, 2016) or project performance (Rose and Schlichter, 2013; Damian and Zowghi, 2003). The perception of these psychological metrics of dissatisfaction can be conflicting (Fiedler, 2010) depending on the mental model of the engaged stakeholders (Hassa and Tanner, 2017).…”

“…Dissatisfaction is an unpleasant psychological metric registered or exchanged through the minds of engaged stakeholders (Hassa and Tanner, 2017) that can occur from various sources broadly related to an ethical or social way of interactions (Lee, 2009; Morley et al , 2015), organizational issues (Duclos, 2016) or project performance (Rose and Schlichter, 2013; Damian and Zowghi, 2003). The perception of these psychological metrics of dissatisfaction can be conflicting (Fiedler, 2010) depending on the mental model of the engaged stakeholders (Hassa and Tanner, 2017). Adverse situation of ambiguity emerges from the conflicting thought process that can bring up inexactness within the mind of stakeholders (PMI, 2014; Miller and Oliver, 2015), and resentment is an unpleasant bitter feeling that can exacerbate in the minds of stakeholders (Alami, 2016) that can be because of the lack of fairness in their non-involvement (Hertel et al , 2005).…”

“…Dissatisfaction is an unpleasant situation that gets measured and communicated from the sensitive benchmark of expected or estimated values (Pitangueira et al , 2017). Mental model of the engaged stakeholders perceiving dissatisfaction can vary depending on to whom and how the measure of dissatisfaction is being communicated (Hassa and Tanner, 2017).…”

“…The engaged multi-stakeholders encounter with numerous adversarial or unpleasant difficulties in global ICT projects (Lückmann and Färber, 2016; Alami et al , 2008). Difficulties in engagement can adversely affect stakeholder relationships (Hassa and Tanner, 2017), mental health concerns of stakeholders (Pinto et al , 2014) and eventually project failures (Hughes et al , 2017). Adverse situations can broadly manifest in the way stakeholders, such as partners, team developer, project managers think, act or feel (Missonier and Loufrani-Fedida, 2014) and can instigate difficulties across different aspects of stakeholder engagement.…”

Influence of information and communication technologies on customer satisfaction and increase in the number of customers

“…One of the main purposes of information systems is to promote highly efficient business processes (Grant and Yeo, 2019). Therefore, the use of technology allows the optimal use of resources and the efficient use of time (Hassa and Tanner, 2017). ICT in the business sector indicate that the current challenge is to ensure that the possibilities that ICT put at our disposal contribute to an improvement in the quality of life and well-being of people, as well as the optimization of the cost/benefit ratio, at the same time that they favor their development and growth (Gaspar et al , 2019).…”