ABSTRACT Developing economies provide basic food commodities to the economically backward sections of the society at subsidized prices to reduce food insecurity. The main objective of these programs is to insulate the poor from the impact of rising prices of food commodities and maintain the minimum nutritional status of the population. However, there are financial mismanagement and issues associated with the current working of these schemes that attributed to the illicit diversion of the commodities, urban bias, serious wastage of food and inefficient supervision during the distribution process. Thus, the policy implementation fails to reach its intended beneficiaries. We used principles of Value-Focused Thinking (VFT) to understand this problem at the grass root level by consulting the various stakeholders involved in the food subsidy value-chain. Based on these findings from VFT, we propose a Blockchain-based system demonstrated through a prototype to provide a robust solution for the aforementioned research context.

ABSTRACT In this paper, I aim to explore in what ways a digital identity system affects the relationship between state and citizen. Invoking ‘seeing the state’ as an analytical lens and adopting ‘anthropology of state’ as a methodological approach, I explore the changing state–citizen relationship through citizens’ everyday encounters with the state and through quotidian practices of the state mediated through material and social practices around Aadhaar, the foundational digital ID system in India. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork on welfare disbursement in Jharkhand, I argue, when citizens interact with the state through the workings of Aadhaar, they see the state to be increasingly distant, opaque and seamful. My overall objective is to show how the discursive practices through which the state appear in its citizens’ perception changes through the mediation of a foundational digital identity system.

ABSTRACTMobile payment services hold the potential for financial inclusion in developing economies. Low-income countries are characterized by distinctive conditions like price sensitivity, low digital penetration, high risk of failure, and competitive emerging markets, which further influence mobile payment usage. We develop a research model to identify the contextual facilitators (like price benefit, network externalities, trust, and habit) and barriers (like risk, lack of facilitating conditions, and operational constraints) driving mobile payment usage intention. We test the model using data from 298 survey respondents from India who had adopted and were currently using mobile payment services. The factors that facilitate or constrain users’ intention to continue using mobile payments are essential in understanding the technology’s sustenance and its future in enabling financial inclusion.

ABSTRACTMicro-firms are important for creating jobs and income in developing economies, but these firms face significant constraints, some of which could be ameliorated through ICT. However, it remains unclear which specific ICT uses are intensively employed by different entrepreneurial micro-firms. Notwithstanding external constraints, we examined differences in ICT use by comparably sized micro-firms operating in the same environment that exhibit different entrepreneurial attributes (proactiveness, innovativeness, risk-taking, and growth orientation). Using data from Zambian micro-firms, our findings demonstrate that the four entrepreneurial attributes have a positive yet different influence on three individual categories of ICT use: information and network access; online transaction and interaction; and in-house operations. Indirectly, we pinpoint which ICT applications will likely benefit entrepreneurial firms. Our findings could help researchers and policy-makers to target specific categories of ICT use that drive firm growth and nurture the desirable business behavioral orientations for deploying technology in business.

ABSTRACTInformation communication technology (ICT) is driving modern employment creation with networking sites enabling people to interact through innovation. However, ICT uptake and implementation differ due to moderating factors such as entrepreneur innovativeness, which enhances how technology innovation impacts organizational performance. This study examines the association between technology innovation and firm performance in Kenya by considering the impact of entrepreneur innovativeness on this association. A sample of 240 enterprises and structural equation modeling were used in the analysis. The findings indicate that technology innovation influences firm performance positively. The study recommends that entrepreneurs should develop innovative strategies to actualize firm performance. Government policy should aim at improving ICT infrastructure; promoting small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs’) technological externalities within the industry, and establishing ICT resource centers to support SME performance. The study’s findings enrich existing theories and contribute to business management practices in both developed and developing countries.

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this research is to investigate the similarities and differences in Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) of male and female information technology (IT) professionals in Poland and Germany, which represent a transition economy and a developed economy, respectively. We examined two dimensions of OCB: individually-oriented (OCBI) and organizationally-oriented (OCBO). We conducted an online survey among 282 Polish respondents and 80 German respondents, using a combination of random and snowball sampling. We observed both similarities and differences between Polish and German IT professionals. Overall, female subordinates evaluated their supervisors’ OCB more positively than did male subordinates. In contrast, female supervisors evaluated their subordinates’ OCB less positively than did male supervisors. Also, it was evident that in Germany employees value OCB more than those in Poland. In conclusion, our findings contribute to the stream of existing research on the relationship between gender, country and OCB in transition and developed economies in Europe.

ABSTRACTWhile 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, Capability Approach, Affordances, and Actor-Network Theory together with Social Capital and illustrate how we have used them in our research. Building on this holistic perspective on theoretical foundation, we propose five agendas for ICT4D research.

ABSTRACTKnowledge sharing can be hindered by barriers that prevent the free flow of information, especially across organizational and other boundaries. Therefore information produced at one location might not be available to entities elsewhere even if there are benefits to sharing this information. This can often lead to 'reinventing the wheel' and wasted investments in duplicating resources and ultimately will lead to the development of knowledge silos. Information technologies can be used to address this problem as they provide opportunities to lower the barriers to knowledge sharing and increase collaboration. This need for knowledge sharing and collaborative technologies can be important for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) within particular regions that are exposed to similar environmental and economic issues that can hinder their development. Although each SIDS may have Knowledge Resources that it uses to address its own issues, there would be benefits to collaborating and sharing these resources to collectively tackle these regional issues. Even when there is a willingness to share and collaborate and entities have been established to foster this collaboration, there is a void in the availability of tools and technologies needed to support collaboration and sharing of resources. This paper describes the research that has been done to help fill this void by designing and developing a technological solution, a Knowledge Broker, for the identification and sharing of Knowledge Resources that may be spread across various locations (e.g. countries). The Design Science Research methodology was used to develop the Knowledge Broker architecture, which provides a single point of access to the knowledge resources within a particular domain. A critical component of this Knowledge Broker is a common, online interactive vocabulary of the domain of interest which provides the terms which are used to describe and search for the knowledge resources available. The Knowledge Broker was evaluated using informed arguments and an illustrative scenario in the Comprehensive Disaster Management domain in the Caribbean region. The initial evaluations that have been reported in this paper indicates that the Knowledge Broker has the potential to increase the efficiency of solving regional issues through the sharing of knowledge resources.

ABSTRACTThis study analyzed how information and communication technology (ICT) influences international trade volume, and it undertook a comparative analysis of BRICS countries using panel data from the 2000 to 2016 period. The findings showed that (1) the effect of ICT was more positive on exports than imports, (2) the higher the ICT levels in the value chain were, the less effective they simultaneously were on both exports and imports, (3) the effect of ICT levels on trade increased over time, and (4) ICT improvement levels have more positive effects on trade in labor-intensive countries than on resources-intensives BRICS countries. To improve their export volume, BRICS countries would benefit from increasing their use of fixed-broadband and the internet.

ABSTRACTThe growing spread of mobile phones and internet has some practitioners and scholars arguing about the possible irrelevance of community technology centers (CTCs) serving low-income communities. However, although mobile internet is making great strides, it does not yet substitute for public access; in actuality, mobile phones and computers at CTCs complement each other in providing those who face digital inequalities with a broader sociotechnical experience. In order to explore this problem, this paper explores this experience by investigating how favela residents appropriate mobile phones, posing the question, “how do marginalized populations perceive CTCs in the mobile internet era?” To address this question, I draw on a 10-month ethnography in the favelas of Vitória, Brazil which examines slum residents’ uses of information and communication technologies (ICTs) such as computers and smartphones. Through this research, I demonstrate how marginalized people take advantage of smartphones and computers in a complementary way, using these ICTs to best meet their needs as they experience daily life in a relatively severe environment.