ICT adoption

This study examines the joint effects of ICT diffusion (composed of access, usage and skills), and foreign direct investment (FDI) on inclusive growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The study draws on data from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, and the Global Consumption and Income Project for the period 1980–2019 for the analysis. The study provides evidence robust to several specifications from ordinary least squares and dynamic system GMM estimation techniques to show that: (1) FDI and ICT diffusion and corresponding components (ICT access, usage, skills) induce inclusive growth in SSA; (2) compared to its direct effect, FDI is remarkable in fostering shared growth in SSA in the presence of greater ICT diffusion, and (3) compared to ICT access and usage, ICT skills are more effective in driving inclusive growth in SSA. Overall FDI modulates ICT dynamics to engender positive synergy effects on inclusive growth. Policy recommendations are provided in line with the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Agreement and the projected rise in FDI in SSA from 2022.

This paper explores patterns of adoption and use of information and communications technology (ICT) by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in the southwest London and Thames Valley region of England. The paper presents preliminary results of a survey of around 400 SMEs drawn from four economically significant sectors in the region: food processing, transport and logistics, media and Internet services. The main objectives of the study were to explore ICT adoption and use patterns by SMEs, to identify factors enabling or inhibiting the successful adoption and use of ICT, and to explore the effectiveness of government policy mechanisms at national and regional levels. While our main result indicates a generally favourable attitude to ICT amongst the SMEs surveyed, it also suggests a failure to recognise ICT’s strategic potential. A surprising result was the overwhelming ignorance of regional, national and European Union wide policy initiatives to support SMEs. This strikes at the...

ICTs are frequently looked to as a missing link between traditional bureaucracy and the modernization of public administration and service delivery. Through the empirical research in the Thai public sector, we find that there is a fundamental gap between the design and normative goal of ICTs and their real world implementation. The structures of power are frequently retained or even reinforced by those who hold budgetary administrative, and authoritative roles and consequently get to make decisions about the development and use of ICTs to facilitate their administrative and managerial goals. While on a discursive level ICTs in Thailand have been projected to counter traditional practices and streamline governance as part of a broader administrative reform since the 2000s, we find that the practice is far different. Situating our work in the theoretical traditions of organization studies and computer supported collaborative work, we discuss how the Thai computerization projects add a valuable case to the vast literature on technology adoption. We also use the case to illustrate the value of this literature in growing work on governance and technology adoption within ICTD circles.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to evaluate information and communications technology (ICT) adoption and its impact on business changes and performance. Design/methodology/approach -This paper provides a model interconnecting ICT adoption, ICT-enabled business process re-engineering (BPR), and performance in terms of external and internal organizational motivations with a balanced scorecard approach. The framework is tested using survey data from a sample of 377 chief information officers and senior information system managers. Findings -The results indicate that environment capacity fit and a dynamic environment positively affect technology adoption, which in turn directly triggers business processes changes, organizational learning and growth, while indirectly affecting improvement of customer satisfaction and financial performance.

The paper is a literature review in nature with the aim of reviewing the current status of adoption and use of the eHealth and challenges of the eHealth system in Tanzania. A broad literature search was conducted to offers a narrative overview of an e-health system from wide ranges from international journals, conference reports, organizations" websites, and reports. The inclusion and exclusion process results in a total number of 67 articles (60%) were included for review. The review shows that there are countless initiatives and development has been taken in the adoption and use of e-health system as the way to improve the health sector across the country. This has demonstrated by a number of eHealth systems in the country such as health information systems, teleconsultations, e-learning platform, teleconferencing, m-health platform, electronic health record, and telehealth system. However, the review reveals that still there are a number of challenges facing the health sector including lack infrastructural, inadequate of ICT related knowledge and skills, governance structure, compliance with eHealth standards and systems interoperability. Further, the researcher suggests that there need to boot the process of development of national electronic health record system which leads to an integrated system of patient management nationwide , the formulation of E-legislation which permit the intercountry exchange of patients, data and inter-jurisdictional practice of medicine. Furthermore, the research proposes the e-Health readiness, awareness and assessment of the implemented system as a future research area.

Purpose-The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the need for managers of public universities to pay attention to performance management practices and information communication technology (ICT) adoption in order to achieve successful managed performance. Design/methodology/approach-Using a disproportionate stratified purposive approach, a sample of 900 employees was drawn from four public universities in Uganda. Findings-The results revealed that performance management practices that are vested in agency relations and goal setting with ICT adoption are necessary in the achievement of managed performance in public universities. Practical implications-Building a positive employer-employee relationship and involving employees in setting goals and targets is crucial for successful management of organisations. ICT adoption will further facilitate service quality, service delivery and cost reduction. Originality/value-This paper calls for a new approach to managing employees in public universities in developing countries and Uganda in particular.

Information and communication technology (ICT) adoption studies have identified ICT as a tool capable of spurring innovative business development in small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) if used wisely. Adopting the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model approach with adjustments by integrating two externally derived constructs (SME Managerial Creativity and SME Organisational Size as predictors), this study investigated factors that influence ICT usage among Malaysian agro-based SMEs. A pre-tested survey instrument consisting of 132 items was administered to 400 purposively selected workers from 43 agro-based SMEs that were randomly selected at Selangor. The study was aimed to identify the predominantly used ICTs by the agro-based SMEs in their businesses, to determine factors that influence ICT usage among the agro-based SMEs and to determine the relationship between the six predictors: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, SME organisational size and SME creativity and innovativeness and the dependent variable: ICT usage. Objective 4 was to determine the moderating effect of gender, age and experience on the relationship. Factor analysis was run to reduce the voluminous data; a new, robust model was designed using Structural Equation Modelling. The study concludes that integrating firm and management characteristic constructs into UTAUT model provides a scale capable explaining ICT usage behaviour of Malaysian agro-based SMEs better.

Information and communication technology (ICT) has been the main focus of the Botswana government to strengthen the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country. This paper investigates the effects of information and communication technology (ICT) within the small and medium enterprise environment (SME) of the Borolong area of Botswana. A quantitative research approach was followed, where sixty-seven (67) SMEs were surveyed. The study deals with accessibility of ICT tools, drivers of ICT adoption, barriers towards ICT adoption, effects of ICT adoption and lastly it looks at training and funding opportunities available in Botswana. ICT adoption by SME’s owners on production in Borolong area of Botswana is very slow and as such the research sought to investigate slow rate of ICT adoption. This research will help SMEs and other related stakeholders to work together and improve the rate of ICT adoption in the Borolong area of Botswana.

Technical pressures otherwise known as "technostress" because of the use of work-related information and communication technology (ICT) are increasingly causing stressful experience to journalists in the newsroom. Existing research has shown that journalists' attitudes and performance are adversely affected by technostress creators, and not much is understood about their effects on non-working lives especially in the Global South context. This study aimed to close this research void by examining the relationship between technostress creators and "work-life balance" with "job self-efficacy" as a mitigating factor. Employing a survey questionnaire, the data was collected from 300 full-time Nigerian and Vietnamese journalists. Key findings showed that (i) technostress creators were negatively associated with work-life balance; and (ii) the negative relationship was moderated by work self-efficiency. These findings enrich the technostress research by providing an insight into the influence of technostress creators on journalists' work-life balance and highlight how to cope with technostress situations.

The aim of the study is the evaluation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) adoption in Tanzania Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The paper also seeks to highlight the status, usage, benefits as well as the challenges influenced by the adoption ICT applications to support businesses. The study used a case study as a research design. The questionnaire was administered to 136 respondents selected from Dar es Salaam region for the study. Factor analysis (Descriptive statistics)employed to derive analysis of data using a Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS). The findings revealed that, ICT adoption and use has provided evidence that SMEs has successfully beneficial and improving the firms' operations by adding value to products and services, cutting costs and improving efficiency, providing better customer service and increase a SMEs competitive advantage. The study also shows that SMEs use computers for business transactions, accounting and marketing operations. Also SMEs use of the Internet (email) for communications, product and market and use of the website technology to offer information to customers. On other hand, lack of management support and perception of and attitude on ICT, support and commitment and ICT knowledge are the key basics challenges impeding ICT adoption and use in some of the SMEs.

This article describes how because of the rapid expansion of digital and online 'bizscapes,' and 'bizapps'resultinginsmallandmedium-scaleagribusinessesadoptingandusingonlineentrepreneurial technologyinnovations,informationandcommunicationtechnologyhasgreatpotentialtoenhancethe performanceandefficiencyofagribusinesses.Theurgetounderstandfactorsthataffectinformation technology innovations adoption and use by small and medium agribusinesses prompted this study, which involves the designing of a modified research model based on UTAUT perspective to determine the influence of cognitive, management characteristics and organizational structure factorsontechnologyadoption.Factoranalysisyieldedafitstructuralmodel,whichwasusedto testthehypotheses.Thearticlefoundperformanceexpectancy,SMEsmanagementcreativityand innovativeness and SMEs organizational size significantly influence technology innovations use. Thispaperconcludesthatperformanceexpectancy,managementcharacteristicsandorganizational sizeaffecttechnologyadoptionamongagribusinessescritically.

This chapter investigated factors that affect e-shopping acceptance among Nigerians. The extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) model was adopted with some adjustments. Since the study focused on investigating technology adoption in cognitive perceptions and service quality contexts, a review of relevant literature suggested incorporating three key constructs from the service quality (SERVQUAL) model, namely reliability, empathy, and responsiveness into the conceptual model of this chapter. A pre-tested and validated 40-item questionnaire was administered to 380 university undergraduate students in Nigeria. The reliability coefficient of the items ranged between .755 and .876. The chapter concludes cognitive perceptions of the use of technology to purchase products or services online and service quality perceptions critically influence e-shopping acceptance among Nigerians.

The study was aimed at investigating Factors influencing the adoption and usage of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Somalia. The study was based on the following objectives: (1) To discover what ICT exist in SMEs in Somalia, (2) To establish the levels of ICT usage in SMEs in the country (3) To determine main factors that influence or prevent adoption and usage of ICT’s among SMEs in Somalia. (4) To determine the strength of each factor in explaining the reasons for ICT adoption and usage among SMEs in Somalia. (5) To discover the Key ICT adoption attributes among SMEs in Somalia. (6) To establish the impact of ICT literacy on adoption and use of ICTs by SMEs in Somalia
The study used a case study method to collect both qualitative and quantitative data and the diffusion theory of innovation to achieve the objectives. Self administered questionnaires were used in collecting data for this study. It is cardinal that SMEs are encouraged to adopt and use ICTs in carrying out their businesses. The study clearly revealed that performance improvement, increased profitability and increased market share are some of the factors affecting the adoption and use of ICTs by SMEs in Somalia. The study found that at least anything part of ICTs was present in offices in 53%, like mobiles. The study therefore, recommends that awareness be increased on the importance of ICTs amongst SMEs. The acquisition of ICT equipment should be enhanced through encouraging cooperation amongst SMEs. Furthermore, company owners should be encouraged to train their employees in ICTs usage.

ICT has brought unprecedented changes and transformation to banks such as online banking, mobile banking, branch networking, automated teller machine (ATM)and Point of sale services. In Ethiopia, in particular to the government-owned Commercial Bank the lack of assistance of employee to its customers on ICT enabled-services and resistance within them hamper its slow adoption. Thus, the purpose of the study is to identify factor affecting customers and employees usage of ICT services in selected branches of commercial banks in Hossana town branches. The study employs descriptive research design and both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. Using structured questionnaires, observations and personal interview, the data were collected from 192samples which were selected by employing availability, convenient and purposive sampling techniques. In order to achieve the research objective descriptive and econometrics (ANOVA, pears correlation and multiple regression models) were employed for data Case Study Tirkaso and Cerna; ACRI, 5(2): 1-8, 2016; Article no. ACRI.27924 2 analysis. The result of multiple regression model revealed that gender and marital status had no influence on the use of ICT services; there was a positive relationship between the age, education level, occupation, security concern, system quality and experiences of the respondents with the use of ICT services. The study confirmed that lack of computer literate professionals, high cost of internet, power interruption, security risk, system quality risk, poor internet connectivity, lack of ICT skilled employees and customers are a major factors that affect Information and Communication Technology services in the banks. Thus, it has been recommended that Commercial Bank of Ethiopia should give additional emphasis to reliability, responsive and transaction efficiency to increase the awareness of customers and employees to use ICT services.

Global investment in ICT to improve teaching and learning in schools have been initiated by many governments. Despite all these investments on ICT infrastructure, equipments and professional development to improve education in many countries, ICT adoption and integration in teaching and learning have been limited. This article reviews personal, institutional and technological factors that encourage teachers' use of computer technology in teaching and learning processes. Also teacher-level, school-level and system-level factors that prevent teachers from ICT use are reviewed. These barriers include lack of teacher ICT skills; lack of teacher confidence; lack of pedagogical teacher training; l lack of suitable educational software; limited access to ICT; rigid structure of traditional education systems; restrictive curricula, etc. The article concluded that knowing the extent to which these barriers affect individuals and institutions may help in taking a decision on how to tackle them.

is study investigates and explores the adoption of information communication technology by the universities and the impact it makes on the university students' academic performance. e study also examines the moderators' effect of gender, GPA, and student majors on the relationship between ICT and academic achievement. By using a quantitative research approach and a sample size of 1000 students, data were collected about the ICT adoption in universities and the relative performance of students belonging to four Saudi universities. Structure equation modelling was chosen to determine the validity of the research model. e Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS), specially used for structural equation modelling and path analysis, was used as the research tool. e findings reveal that there exists a relationship between ICT adoption and academic performance in a conservative environment. An additional finding also stated that ICT adoption resulted in the improvement of the performanc...

The paper is a literature review in nature with the aim of reviewing the current status of adoption and use of the eHealth and challenges of the eHealth system in Tanzania. A broad literature search was conducted to offers a narrative overview of an e-health system from wide ranges from international journals, conference reports, organizations" websites, and reports. The inclusion and exclusion process results in a total number of 67 articles (60%) were included for review. The review shows that there are countless initiatives and development has been taken in the adoption and use of e-health system as the way to improve the health sector across the country. This has demonstrated by a number of eHealth systems in the country such as health information systems, teleconsultations, e-learning platform, teleconferencing, m-health platform, electronic health record, and telehealth system. However, the review reveals that still there are a number of challenges facing the health sector including lack infrastructural, inadequate of ICT related knowledge and skills, governance structure, compliance with eHealth standards and systems interoperability. Further, the researcher suggests that there need to boot the process of development of national electronic health record system which leads to an integrated system of patient management nationwide , the formulation of E-legislation which permit the intercountry exchange of patients, data and inter-jurisdictional practice of medicine. Furthermore, the research proposes the e-Health readiness, awareness and assessment of the implemented system as a future research area.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate longitudinal patterns of ICT and non-ICT products' adoption over life cycles. Design/methodology/approach – The Bass diffusion model is used to discern distinctive changes in users' adoption behavior due to the innovation and the imitation effects. Findings – The innovation effect is more influential for innovators and opinion leaders than it is for all adopters. However, it diminishes as time passes. Conversely, the imitation effect becomes a more powerful factor for the early majority, late majority and laggards. The imitation effect in the ICT industry is greater than that in the non-ICT industry, revealing the high network effect in ICT diffusion. Research limitations/implications – Mobile phones are not the representative of all ICTs as the automobiles also do not represent all utility products. More ICT and conventional products need to be included and compared for greater generalization of the results from different countries. Practical implications – By identifying the strong innovation effect of a new product at the early stage of its adoption, and the social network effect in the acceleration of the adoption speed through massive numbers of imitating consumers, this research reveals the ever shrinking product life cycle and therefore the importance of continuous disruptive innovation as a competitive strategy for organizations. Originality/value – The paper provides new theoretical insights into the technology adoption research by using a mathematical modeling methodology using real data. The study provides new insights into the strategic implications of innovation and imitation effects for technology service providers.

Because of the rapid expansion of digital and online 'bizscapes,' and 'bizapps' resulting in small and medium-scale agribusinesses adopting and using online entrepreneurial technology innovations, information and communication technology has great potential to enhance the performance and efficiency of agribusinesses. The urge to understand factors that affect information technology innovations adoption and use by small and medium agribusinesses prompted this study, which involves the designing of a modified research model based on UTAUT perspective to determine the influence of cognitive, management characteristics and organizational structure factors on technology adoption. Factor analysis yielded a fit structural model, which was used to test the hypotheses. The study found performance expectancy, SMEs management creativity and innovativeness and SMEs organizational size significantly influence technology innovations use. This paper concludes that performance expec...

A less than expected rate of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) adoption by farmers and extension is a major concern of all agricultural sectors. Although the economic benefit of successful ICT adoption is recognized there remains a considerable variation in adoption rates between countries, branches of agricultural production, perception of benefits, national ICT infrastructures for rural areas, inter-regional digital divides, costs and ICT policies. A concerted effort to evaluate ICT adoption constraints following a six-year series of studies was focused towards a symposium and questionnaire held and carried out at the June 2001 EFITA (European Federation for Information Technology in Agriculture) conference in Montpellier. It is summarized here. Their immediate benefit was designed to serve "ICT in agriculture" professionals as a tool to calibrate their experience, evaluate their observations and fine-tune their future activities and decisions. The summary results are descriptive and do not represent "farmer's opinions". They do however reflect a very wide range of opinions suggested by professionals dealing with farmers, from many countries and extension. The replies from the Montpellier symposium and questionnaire were essentially EU biased. This paper broadens the scope of replies. All of the results including the EFITA conference results, additional farmers' opinions and comments will continue to be evaluated continuously and will include additional studies based on the Bonn and Montpellier questionnaire methodology.

The literature has consistently demonstrated that consumers' perception of online stores' service quality is influenced by several factors such as technology use skills, knowledge, income, gender, age, and marital status. This study seeks to determine the differences of perceived service quality (PSQ) in online shopping based on consumers' six demographic factors: age, gender, monthly income (MI), occupation, educational qualification (EQ) and marital status (MS) within four dimensions: access, reliability, ease of use and attentiveness (EoU&A), and Security and Credibility (S&C) adopted from SERVIQUAL scale with modifications. Using snowball method and an online questionnaire, 400 participants comprising students, public servants and private organisations' employees drawn from three Nigerian cities: Abuja, Kano, and Lagos were surveyed. The hypotheses were tested using the scale. Factor analysis yielded the above-mentioned dimensions. Kruskal-Wallis (H test), Mann-Whitney test and Post Hoc test were used to determine the difference of PSQ in online shopping based on the six demographic factors involving each of those dimensions. The results indicate a significant difference of PSQ in age, educational qualification and occupation consistently exists within S&C dimension and variously within the rest of the dimensions. However, no significant difference of PSQ in MI was found in all the four dimensions. Furthermore, gender and MS indicate a significant difference

This chapter investigated factors that affect e-shopping acceptance among Nigerians. The extended Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) model was adopted with some adjustments. Since the study focused on investigating technology adoption in cognitive perceptions and service quality contexts, a review of relevant literature suggested incorporating three key constructs from the Service Quality (SERVQUAL) model, namely reliability, empathy and responsiveness into the conceptual model of this study. A pre-tested and validated 40-item questionnaire was administered to 380 university undergraduate students in Nigeria. The reliability coefficient of the items ranged between .755 and .876. The chapter concludes cognitive perceptions of the use of technology to purchase products or services online and service quality perceptions critically influence e-shopping acceptance among Nigerians.

Weight of traditional jacquard machine is reduced by modifying its components dimension and size. Pneumatic and
electric lifting mechanism adopted on jacquard machine handloom and its productivity was studied and compared
with traditional jacquard machine. Its productivity and earnings are discussed in this paper to enhance the livelihood
of handloom weavers.

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have mainly been discussed concerning their implementation. A theory-driven, quantitative approach to ERP adoption is rare, especially for Midsized Enterprises (MEs). This paper aims to fill this gap by identifying factors in the areas of technology, organisation and environment, generally known to be part of such managerial decision-making. Nine hypotheses have been derived from literature and tested among Dutch MEs in the electrical, engineering and metal industries. The results of our empirical study show that ERP adoption by MEs is most significantly explained by competitive pressure and the compatibility of the software configuration with the firm's business processes.

This paper seeks to provide further understanding of issues
surrounding public university students’ cognitive belief about the
effort an individual needs to expend when using an information and
communication technology (ICT) system to perform a given task
related to academic learning. The unified theory of acceptance and use
of technology (UTAUT) perspective was adopted to determine the
strength of effort expectancy (the belief that technology use is easy and
effort-free) and the moderating influence of experience on ICT use in
academic environment. A pre-tested was administered to 400
respondents drawn from public university undergraduate students at
University of Maiduguri and University of Ibadan in Nigeria. The
universities were selected using simple random sampling while the
participants were selected using purposive sampling. The Cronbach
alpha of the scale was .85. Statistical Package for Social Sciences
(SPSS) version 22 software was used to analyse the data. The results
indicate that effort expectancy significantly predict ICT use and that
low experience significantly moderates the relationship between effort
expectancy and ICT use. This paper concludes that most students of
Nigerian public universities possess basic ICT use skills and believe
that a lot of effort is required to use ICT for learning purposes. Hence,
this paper recommend that practical-centric e-learning courses should
be included in public universities’ academic curriculum.

Originality/value -Despite the fact that much has been written about the dissemination of ICT, there is still a shortage of research in the field of small 3PLs with little empirical investigation into the usage of ICT by small 3PLs. This paper provides a contribution to the filling this void and suggests some possible research directions.

Agriculture has undergone significant changes since the industrial revolution. The industrial age and the market economy have moulded agriculture in their image just as much as the characteristics and tools of the information age have recently been transforming its previous operation. Information and communication technology (ICT) take-up in agriculture remains low, and the reasons behind this barely changed in the last 20-30 years. Information technologies are regarded as mediating channels and a vehicle for new services. It is important to research the various aspects of adoption of new information technology, and also not only the use, but the "effective use" of it (Gurstein, 2003). Information-intensive agriculture is fundamentally determined by information, knowledge and the decision-making farmers, in effect the human factor; therefore, studies aimed at the improvement of the situation of agriculture with ICT tools must be centred on the human element.

Domestic and international tourism in New Zealand has grown significantly in the past decade and shows every sign of continuing to do so. A vital component of the tourism industry is the accommodation sector. Over 3000 accommodation enterprises employ more than 20,000 New Zealanders on a full time equivalent (FTE) basis and bring important economic benefits to both rural and urban settings. The accommodation sector is characterised by considerable uptake of new information and communication technologies (ICT) in areas such as bookings, property management and back-office functions. This report aims to create a better understanding of how ICT adoption is influencing the demand for, and use of, labour in this important sector, and how enterprise owners and managers feel about the training issues that stem from influences. Our research is based on: (i) a review of global and local research in tourism, ICT and labour use; (ii) in-depth interviews with 160 small accommodation providers conducted between 1998-2004; (iii) in-depth interviews with 6 large hotels in the Auckland region; and (iv) a nation-wide survey of accommodation providers (468 responses). Our findings reveal that ICT adoption is having important impacts on labour use and demand in both small and large enterprises, but that we need to view these as part of a broader evolution in the competitive context within which the sector operates. We conclude with the presentation of our major findings and some thoughts on approaches that may enhance the ability of the accommodation sector to cope with the complex interactions between ICT adoption and labour use.

Purpose – Information and communication technologies (ICTs) open new opportunities for micro-enterprises to improve their businesses. However, challenges to using ICTs impede these businesses from growing into drivers for development. This paper seeks to investigate the adoption of ICTs in 11 micro-enterprises in an underserved community of Omaha, Nebraska. Design/methodology/approach – Following an action research study, this research provides insight into the key challenges and opportunities facing micro-enterprises in their use of ICTs to create value for their businesses. Findings – The process of “IT therapy” provides individualized technology-related assistance, with an emphasis on relationship-building, customized training, context sensitivity, and solutions that target strongly-perceived needs of the businesses studied. Originality/value – The paper's contribution is in the methodology for facilitating the adoption of ICTs in micro-enterprises.

Assessment of the eEurope 2005 Action Plan Benchmarking Index “E-Business Readiness Composite Indicator” using data collected by National Statistical Institutes and harmonised by Eurostat, using surveys “ICT usage of enterprises”, with reference years 2003 and 2004. This report contains data from 26 countries as collected in 2004 and as reported by Eurostat in June 2005. Performed analyses include obustness analysis, uncertainty and sensitivity analysis for two categories of ICT (Adoption and Use), univariate analysis of basic indicators; principal component analysis and finally assessment of resulted country rankings and methodological notes.

Global investment in ICT to improve teaching and learning in schools have been initiated by many governments. Despite all these investments on ICT infrastructure, equipments and professional development to improve education in many countries, ICT adoption and integration in teaching and learning have been limited. This article reviews personal, institutional and technological factors that encourage teachers’ use of computer technology in teaching and learning processes. Also teacher-level, school-level and system-level factors that prevent teachers from ICT use are reviewed. These barriers include lack of teacher ICT skills; lack of teacher confidence; lack of pedagogical teacher training; l lack of suitable educational software; limited access to ICT; rigid structure of traditional education systems; restrictive curricula, etc. The article concluded that knowing the extent to which these barriers affect individuals and institutions may help in taking a decision on how to tackle them.

Information and communication technology (ICT) has been identified as a means that has great potential to spur innovative development in small and medium-scale enterprises (SME). This study adopted the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model perspective to investigate factors affecting ICT usage by agro-based SMEs in Selangor. This study aimed to achieve four specific objectives as follows: to identify the ICTs predominantly used by the agro-based SMEs in their businesses; to determine the factors that affect ICT usage among the agro-based SMEs;  to determine the relationship between performance expectancy (PE), effort expectancy (EE), social influence (SI), facilitating conditions (FC), SME organisational size (SOS) and managerial creativity and innovativeness (MC&I) and ICT usage (IU); and to determine the moderating effect of gender, age and experience on the relationship between PE, EE, SI, FC, SOS and MC&I and IU. The UTAUT model was adopted with some modifications by integrating two externally derived constructs, SME managerial creativity and SME organisational size as predictors. Furthermore, the behavioural intention dimension, which is also theorized to predict direct ICT usage, was dropped because many past studies have supported the claim that when behaviour becomes routine, it translates to habit, which is tantamount to automaticity. The moderation influence of only gender, age and experience was investigated as voluntariness of use was also dropped for convenience reasons. A questionnaire containing 132 items was administered to 400 workers (including managers). The workers were selected using purposive sampling from 43 agro-based SMEs in Selangor. After data collection, 395 completed questionnaires were retrieved successfully. The data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22 and Structural Equation Model -Analysis of Moment Structure (SEM-AMOS) statistical software. The descriptive data and multiple regression analyses were performed using SPSS while factor analysis was performed using SEM-AMOS. SEM-AMOS was mainly used to test the hypotheses and determine the statistical fitness, or statistical strength of the new research model (also known as the structural model of this study), which was designed using SEM-AMOS to measure the research data adequately. To determine the statistical significance of each of the six predictors and their respective measurement items in the conceptual framework, principle component analysis (PCA) was run. At PCA, the social influence (SI) construct loaded with very weak items, which indicates that the construct was statistically non-significant, and if it was retained it would affect the statistical significance of the conceptual framework negatively, hence it was eliminated from the research framework as recommended in statistics rules. Thus, only five valid constructs remain in the conceptual framework of this study, namely performance expectancy, (PE), effort expectancy (EE), facilitating conditions (FC), managerial creativity and innovativeness (MC&I), SME organisational size (SOS) and ICT usage (IU). Furthermore, to confirm the statistical significance of each of the five remaining predictors with their respective measurement items, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was run. CFA reduced the number of measurement items in each of the constructs to only three except for the ICT usage construct, which was reduced to nine items. All the measurement items in the entire research scale recorded very high internal consistency reliability (Cronbach alpha) coefficient, ranging from 0.951 to 0.842, with a good overall model fit index (RMSEA) value = .79, indicating that the structural model was sufficiently fit to measure the data and yield valid results. The study found that performance expectancy, SME organisational size and SME managerial creativity and innovativeness significantly predicted ICT usage. In addition, age, gender and experience moderated the relationships at various levels of significance. Importantly, however, performance expectancy was moderated by experience, which implies that agro-based SMEs that are run by employees and managers with prior ICT usage experience stand better chances of deriving many benefits from using ICT in their businesses. The structural (measurement) model predicted 31% (R2 0.31) of the variances associated with ICT usage. Therefore, the study concludes as follows. (1) That the anticipation of ICT usage benefits, enterprise organisational size and characteristics of enterprise managers, moderated by the workers’ demographic characteristics and ICT usage experience are the critical factors that affect the usage of ICT by agro-based SMEs in Selangor; (2) gender, age and experience of the workers (as well as those of the managers) can influence ICT usage by agro-based SMEs in Selangor; and that (3) female employees using ICTs are more likely to perform work better and yield higher gains than their male counterparts may be able to do. Therefore, this study suggests that a paradigm shift from a male-dominated industrial ICT usage bias towards a female-dominated one may be imminent, at least in the Selangor context.

Chinese SMEs have played an important role in stimulating economic growth, increasing employment, expanding exports and promoting science and technology innovations. In 2005 there were more than 10 million SMEs registered in the Industry and Commerce Department, accounting for 99 per cent of all registered corporations (UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific; China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, 2006). Further development of the Chinese as well as of all modern economies is dependent on the speed and effectiveness of the implementation of ICT based solutions in businesses. While large companies have been quick to adopt ICT solutions and technologies, small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) have had more serious problems with the requirements and challenges of e-business. A number of ICT, e-commerce adoption methodologies have been suggested through literature most of this research, has however, focused on developed countries where the structure of the economy is common. There are only few studies that shed some light on prescribing strategies of ICT adoption for SMEs in developing countries, especially Chine. Furthermore, despite the enormous attention given to encourage SMEs to adopt ICT there has been little systematic research into the factors influencing, enabling and inhibiting the adoption of ICT within SMEs. In this article, author developed a model of ICT adoption of Chinese SMEs, founded on premises that the adoption and the use of ICT represent the fundamental source of competitiveness and the basis for firms' survival in the world market. By applying the Qualitative-Comparative Analysis (QCA) method and Boolean algebra, author proposed a model of necessary and sufficient factors for ICT adoption by SMEs in Chine.

Women constitute half of the world's human capital and yet have lower wages than men, with a 22% pay gap. Nigeria is not an exception with 43% agricultural women labour force. Evidence has also shown that resources in women's hand, when empowered by ICT, result in household expenditure that benefits the entire family, and especially children. Despite these important virtues in women, poor adoption of ICT has undermined their chances to various productive resources and information. Sustainable economic development in Nigeria at all levels depends on women's full adoption of ICT to leverage their empowerment for increased national productivity and development. This study highlights the strategy to leverage women productive resources and economic empowerment through ICT usage. In this study, the authors explored a narrative review of prior research that focused on the theoretical foundations on vast works of literature that revealed significant information on strategies for sustainable women resources through ICT adoption. The authors also conjointly extracted peer-reviewed articles among the last five years from electronic databases, engaging some keywords like "women in ICT", "leveraging women resources via ICT", "female gender productivity and trends for ICT", etc. Results show that women in ICT may (a) advance women's well-being for sustainable goals. (b) tackle the gender deficit in access to national resources in public and private governance. (c) result in positive social change that may positively close the gap in gender discrepancy in access to productive resources.

This article presents a study on the adoption and usage of new media among a representative sample of Flemish youngsters. Some major findings include the dominant role of computers and Internet in the media behavior of these youngsters, challenging traditional media such as TV and radio. However, the supposed popularity of mobile applications and gaming among youngsters was not universally present in our sample, which led us to look for different profiles within the data. Based on the adoption of new media technology and devices, the studied sample could be divided into four distinct profiles by means of a latent class analysis.

This paper investigates the influence of the adoption and use of information and communication technology (ICT) on organizational learning (OL). The focus is on knowledge, creation, as an articulated construct for the OL concept, and the SECI (Socialization, Externalization, Combination and Internalization) model is used as a reference for knowledge, creation. ICT use is seen here as consisting of three different orientations: informative, communicative and workflow. The results, based on a sample of around 300 Spanish small-and, medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), indicate that ICT has a significant positive influence on the, four processes for creating knowledge. ICT oriented to communication and workflow is found, to produce a significant positive impact on knowledge creation processes, except for, socialization process, while ICT use for information does not influence any of the processes for, creating knowledge and OL.

This chapter proposes a modified conceptual framework for investigating the influence of cognitive, management characteristics and organizational size factors on information and communication technology (ICT) adoption by agribusinesses. Agro-based small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) often deal in commodities that have shorter shelf life. Given that, researchers often face challenges determining the appropriate conceptual framework to adopt, which yields results that proffer both practical and theoretical solutions to business problems, hence, it is imperative for agri-preneurs to harness technology for maximum profit and food security. The unified theory of use and acceptance of technology (UTAUT) model, which has four key predictors, was adopted with the integration of two external variables: SME Managerial Characteristics and SME Organizational Size. Factor analysis shows that five out of the six predictors loaded strongly. The study concludes that researchers in technology ...

This chapter investigates factors that affect e-shopping acceptance among Nigerians. The extended unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT2) model was adopted with some adjustment. Since the study focused on investigating technology adoption in cognitiv perceptions and service quality contexts, a review of relevant literature suggested incorporating three key constructs from the service quality (SERVQUAL) model, namely reliability, empahy and responsiveness into the conceptal model of this chapter. A pre-tested and validated 40-item questionnaire was administered to 380 undergraduate students in Nigeria. The reiability coefficients of the items ranged between .755 and .876. This chapter concludes cognitive perceptions of the use of technology to purchase products or services online and service quality perceptions critically influence e-shopping aceptance among Nigerians.

It is a truism that the information and communication technologies (ICT) have changed the way people engage in all aspects of their lives, including how the judiciary functions. The ICT applications adopted by the courts are varied including access to legal materials, high technology information and evidence display systems, electronic filing, foreign language translation, multimedia court records, information and evidence retrieval, audio conferencing, video conferencing and the public's access to court information via the worldwide web. Drawn from an ongoing research, this paper aims to highlight that the growing adoption of ICT by the courts in many jurisdictions in fact raises several issues of security risks. This paper begins by illustrating the concept of courtroom technology and the current technical applications available in the Malaysian courts. The examination of the emergence of non-legal risks closely connected to security and the legal risk raised by courtroom technology is mediated through the understanding of several basic security control requirements involving authentication, non-repudiation, confidentiality, data integrity and privacy encroachment. The paper contends that despite the common notion that law will always lag behind technology, the courts would need to understand these legal and non-legal security risks and manage them in the most efficient and effective manner if judicial business were to be continually advanced by the ICT.

Valley region of England. The paper presents preliminary results of a survey of around 400 SMEs drawn from four economically significant sectors in the region: food processing, transport and logistics, media and Internet services. The main objectives of the study were to explore ICT adoption and use patterns by SMEs, to identify factors enabling or inhibiting the successful adoption and use of ICT, and to explore the effectiveness of government policy mechanisms at national and regional levels. While our main result indicates a generally favourable attitude to ICT amongst the SMEs surveyed, it also suggests a failure to recognise ICT's strategic potential. A surprising result was the overwhelming ignorance of regional, national and European Union wide policy initiatives to support SMEs. This strikes at the very heart of regional, national and European policy that have identified SMEs as requiring specific support mechanisms. Our findings from one of the UK's most productive regions therefore have important implications for policy aimed at ICT adoption and use by SMEs.

This paper examines challenges facing SMEs in emerging ICT adoption from
diverse actors’ perspective using data driven thematic analysis approach -similar
approach to grounded theory. This study deployed both unstructured and semistructured
interviews with the total of 26 interviewees drawn purposefully from
Crunch online database in Luton. Data collected from the interviews were analysed to
understand both the challenges faced by SMEs and actors that pose such challenges
during ICT adoption. The study developed a framework that revealed certain actors
that took part in emerging ICT adoption the challenges they pose that impede SMEs
from adopting emerging ICT successfully. The finding revealed that Poor knowledge
of ICT, and Time are challenges linked to SME managers. Limited ICT support, lack
of specialised skills, limited funding, and general support are linked to the
government. Dependent and untrustworthy are associated with IT consultants while
global solution is linked to IT experts. Commercial interest is linked to IT vendors.
The implication is that while some challenges encountered by SMEs originate from
them, majority are caused by diverse entities which has constantly limit the extent
SMEs embrace new technology.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to investigate the innovative characteristics, benefits, and barriers influencing internet-based information and communications technology (ICT) adoption among the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach -A questionnaire-based survey was used to collect data from 406 managers or owners of SMEs in the southern region of Malaysia. Findings -The results suggest that internet-based ICT adoption provides a low cost yet effective communication tool for customers. However, security continues to be a major barrier. Finding on cost as a barrier is mixed. The inferential statistics reveal that relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, observability, and security are significant factors influencing internet-based ICT adoption.