Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

2012

Abstract

While it is widely accepted that the increasing interconnectedness of the world economy has been fueled by the innovative uses of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), little attention has been paid to the increasing inequalities within developed and developing countries. These inequalities manifest themselves in the form of communities in which incomes are considerably below the rest of the country and there is a rise in poverty. This paper investigates this trend by taking a community capital perspective to investigate how ICTs may or may not enable businesses to grow. As micro-enterprises are seen to contribute to the growth of their communities, they are the unit of analysis for this study. Following a grounded theory analysis of micro-enterprises in two communities, this paper builds a theory of how the use of ICTs by micro-enterprises can lead to community capital. The contribution of this paper is in discovering community capital outcomes for the ways in which ICT adoption by micro-enterprises can lead to development. This has implications for the ways in which ICT for development efforts can be sustained through the growth of micro-enterprises and their communities.

Comments

Published in Proceedings, SIG GlobDev 1st pre-ECIS Workshop, Barcelona, Spain, June 10, 2012.

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