Search results for "ICT4D"
showing 7 items of 7 documents
Methodological Approach for Identifying Mechanisms in ICT4D: A Critical Realism Perspective
2017
Part 4: Social Mechanisms of ICT-Enabled Development; International audience; The ontological questions ‘What is ICT?’ and ‘What is development?’ are described and documented in literature. Similarly, methodological approaches for understanding how ICT leads to development or for measuring the impact of ICT are described. However, explaining ‘why’ ICT works or not in the contexts of developing countries needs further investigation. We propose a critical realism based methodological approach for answering the above mentioned ‘why’-question. The core of a critical realism based approach is to identify the underlying mechanism(s) that may explain a phenomenon of why ICT leads to development. W…
Capabilities and Affordances in the ICT4D Context
2019
Part 1: Pushing the Boundaries - New Research Methods, Theory and Philosophy in ICT4D; International audience; The paper examines two concepts that have been frequently used in Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICT4D) research, capabilities and affordance. We seek to delineate their similarities, their differences, and their accurate application in ICT4D. Both concepts connote a space of opportunities, both are relational between artefact and human agency when applied in ICT4D, and both entail potential rather than actualisation of possibilities. By comparing the two at some length, we hope to generate a more refined understanding of both capabilities and affordan…
A Framework to Explain the Relation Between ICT and Development: Combining Affordances and the Capability Approach
2019
Part 1: Pushing the Boundaries - New Research Methods, Theory and Philosophy in ICT4D; International audience; In this paper, we suggest a framework to better explain the relation between ICT and development. The framework combines two theories: The Capability Approach and Affordances. The capability approach defines development as freedom of choice; and the affordances explains the relational aspects of people and technology. These two theories complement each other by connecting the means (technology) to the ends (development). A case study of ICT and study-circle education in rural areas of Kenya is used to illustrate the framework. Using the framework, the study revealed how actualizati…
Organizational Ethics, Position and Their Relationship to Gender, Before and During Pandemic
2021
This research investigates the levels of organizational ethics (OETH) among knowledge workers (KW), using their work information and communication technologies (ICT) with their executive position (supervisor/subordinate), in regional enterprises in Poland before and during the COVID19 pandemic. We analyzed levels of OETH and its three dimensions as organizational optimism (ETO), corporate social responsibility (CSR), top management action (TMA). We conducted our study twice, using an online survey among 137 KW before and 127 KW during a pandemic, combining random and snowball sampling to select data. We used multivariate statistical methods such as analysis of variance and causal moderation…
Exploring the Link between ICT and Development in the Context of Developing Countries : A Literature Review
2014
Published version of an article in the journal: Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries. Also available from the publisher at: http://www.ejisdc.org/ojs2/index.php/ejisdc/article/view/1332. Open Access The article contributes to the ongoing discussion on relating information and communication technology (ICT) to development (D). The quest to relate ICT to D is a topic of open deliberation and critical scrutiny in ICT4D research communities. To enhance the understanding in this regard, we conducted a literature review. The review examines 80 articles to identify various development theories and the role of technologies in the development process. While scanning the …
Understanding ICT in ICT4D : An Affordance Perspective
2017
Understanding the role of ICT for development is at the core of ICT4D research. However, prevailing research in this field most often focuses on access or readiness of a technology, or on the outcomes of the technology use. Less attention has been paid to understand the mechanism of the technology use that leads to the outcomes. The question of why ICT in a development context sometimes work and sometimes does not work still remains a subject of enquiry. To enhance our understanding in this regard, we propose to use the concept of affordances to unfold the “black boxed” nature of ICT. We revisited a case from Kenya to illustrate the application of affordances in a ICT4D context. The finding…
A holistic perspective on the theoretical foundations for ICT4D research
2018
While many theories have guided research Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), we are yet to construct a clear and coherent narrative that would help us answer the question of how ICT fosters development in underdeveloped communities. In this paper, we argue that one of the main reasons for this is that our holistic understanding of ICT4D is seldom grounded in theories to understand the core areas that define the field, namely, ICT, Development, and, ‘4’ which are the transformative processes that link the two. Through a brief literature review, we list theories that have informed ICT4D research in each of these areas. We present examples of theories, namely, C…