Policy Issues of e-Commerce Technology Diffusion in Southeast Nigeria: The Case of Small Scale Agribusiness

The benefits brought about by the emergence of e-commerce, e-business and other Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) applications have not been fully explored in the developing economies of the world. The less developed economies are still struggling to catch up with ICT application as opposed to its heavy deployment in the developed economies. Empirical evidence suggests that ICTs and other related technologies are increasingly emerging in the communities of the developing economies such as Nigeria. Rural actors engaged in the Agricultural industries (Agribusiness) feel that the implementation of ICTs can influence the development of new business processes and the way existing processes are organised. In the Southeast of Nigeria, which is a typical example of a less developed community, the impact of e-business technologies has yet to be determined. This paper identifies two classical traditional agribusiness supply chains and hence reports on the impact of e-commerce technology diffusion along the equilibrium of the supply chains, focusing on the elimination of intermediary actors from the chain. It provides an assessment of the Governments’ policies and strategies on e-commerce adoption for the sustainability of small-scale agricultural businesses. The paper examines the politics surrounding ICT implementations by actors engaged in the agribusiness sector. This research has motivated The South East State Government, in collaboration with the Federal Government, to give closer attention to their earlier policy of making Nigeria an ICT-enabled country

Economics and the Survivor Peasant

Peasants are survivor actors: they allocate all their resources and deploy refined strategies for securing a smooth horizon of consumption. Their stylized behavior is irrational only if development is the goal the peasant should follow. Subsistence as expression for describing rural economies is inadequate, since it doesn't connote the risk of starvation or death that peasants face. The survivor actor poses descriptive demands and normative implications. At a descriptive level, peasant's risk behavior is not ruled by inner preferences only, but depends on his expectations for securing a smooth consumption during the crop cycle. The utility model is apt for describing the survivor actor. Yet the exponent that defines the curvature of the utility includes a component that captures the aversion to uncertainty and a component that grasps the expectations about the chances to secure the horizon of consumption. This component defines a function of risk behavior, a counterpart of the Arrows-Pratt function of risk aversion. A normative for the survivor actor has to consider what is feasible, not what is desirable; what could be, not what should be. --

The influence of organizational culture on the outcome of an IS implementation

A number of information system (IS) studies have adopted organizational culture (OC) theory to investigate IS implementations. The studies highlight that members will reach consensus or agreement in the use of an IS but also experience inevitable tensions and ambiguities in the use of the IS. However, literature related to IS implementation/OC has rarely examined the influence that the saliency of specific cultural practices may have on the success or failure of IS implementations. Using a case study approach, we adopted the “soft positivism” research philosophy to collect data, underpinned by Martin’s (1992) integration and differentiation perspectives of OC to study organizational implementation of an IS. These perspectives served as interpretive lenses through which to explain how members’ salient behaviors towards an IS evolved during the implementation process. Our study augments the IS implementation/OC literature by demonstrating how salient cultural practices influence the outcome of IS implementatio

“This is the way ‘I’ create my passwords ...":does the endowment effect deter people from changing the way they create their passwords?

The endowment effect is the term used to describe a phenomenon that manifests as a reluctance to relinquish owned artifacts, even when a viable or better substitute is offered. It has been confirmed by multiple studies when it comes to ownership of physical artifacts. If computer users also "own", and are attached to, their personal security routines, such feelings could conceivably activate the same endowment effect. This would, in turn, lead to their over-estimating the \value" of their existing routines, in terms of the protection they afford, and the risks they mitigate. They might well, as a consequence, not countenance any efforts to persuade them to adopt a more secure routine, because their comparison of pre-existing and proposed new routine is skewed by the activation of the endowment effect.In this paper, we report on an investigation into the possibility that the endowment effect activates when people adopt personal password creation routines. We did indeed find evidence that the endowment effect is likely to be triggered in this context. This constitutes one explanation for the failure of many security awareness drives to improve password strength. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research to confirm our findings, and to investigate the activation of the effect for other security routines

Cross-country differences in ICT adoption. A consequence of Culture?

The diffusion of information and communication technology (ICT) has witnessed a surge in the recent years; nevertheless, the rate of adoption across countries diverges considerably. This divergence is observed regardless of the income levels of countries. In this paper, we attempt to explain the differences in ICT adoption rates across countries using Hofstede?s cultural framework. The results suggest that national culture does influence the ICT adoption rate of a country. The results are robust even after controlling for levels of education and income.

How can I encourage multi-stakeholder narrative and reflection on the use of ICT in Teacher Professional Development programmes in Rwanda?

This is an action research enquiry into how I can improve my practice to encourage multi-stakeholder narrative and reflection on the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Teacher Professional Development (TPD) programmes in Rwanda. I examine the complexity of the ICT-TPD landscape in the Africa Region. I describe two action research cycles in which I attempt to encourage reflection on ICT in professional development in Rwanda. In each cycle I explore the potential of an Activity Theory lens for probing the issues and examining the perspectives of the stakeholder community of teachers, teacher educators, curriculum developers and researchers affiliated to national ICT in TPD programmes and initiatives. I integrate a “Most Significant Change” narrative technique to engage participants in telling stories of significant change in their practice with technology integration. Through the rigour of the action research living theory approach I come to a number of conclusions about my own values and how I actually live my values in practice as I engage with partners in discourse and reflection for mutual learning on the issues of ICT integration in Teacher Professional Development

e-Agriculture revisited: A systematic Literature Review of Theories, Concept, practices, methods, and future trends.

Agriculture is one of the dominant fields that shape the socioeconomic development of any country. Technological advancements and innovations served as tools to share knowledge and practices of agricultural activities and make better lives for farmers, traders, policy makers, and the overall society. It is evident that Knowledge has become a very important factor in production, food security, education, poverty alleviation, and other millennium development goals. This paper, points out the a gap on how the existing body of knowledge about e-agriculture is built in terms of research policies, theorization, methodological tools, success/failure, and future trends. Aiming to fill this gap, our paper offers a systematic review of the e-agriculture literature based on Heeks (2006) that help understanding the linkages between the needs assessment, adoption of ICT in agricultural value chains, outreach/limitations of ICT in agricultural, diffusion of e-agricultural applications, and the impact of these technological innovations on the society

Economic development as design: Insight and guidance through the PSI framework

Economic development is aimed at improving the lives of people in the developing world, and needs to be carried out with design at its heart, but this has often not been the case. This paper first reviews dominant approaches to economic development including the use of subsidies or the creation of markets and demand and the testing of initiatives using randomized control trials. It then introduces ‘development engineering’ as a representative engineering design approach to engineering and technology in development before presenting the view that successful development needs to involve continual learning through innovation in context. The PSI (problem social institutional) framework is presented as a basis for guiding such development as a design activity, and its application is illustrated using examples from India of the unsuccessful introduction of new cooking stoves and then both successful and unsuccessful approaches to rural electrification. A 2-level approach to PSI is taken, in which the lower level represents daily operation of communities and the 2nd level represents the development project including addressing misalignments between the different PSI spaces and levels

Beyond fatalism: An empirical exploration of self-efficacy and aspirations failure in Ethiopia

Fatalism is considered pervasive, especially in many poor communities. In this paper, we explore whether fatalistic beliefs have implications for the attitudes and behavior of poor rural households toward investment in the future. To explore the idea of fatalism, we draw inspiration from theories in psychology focusing on the role of locus of control and self-efficacy and also from the theoretical framework of aspiration failure as developed in recent economic literature. Using survey data from rural Ethiopia, we find evidence of fatalistic beliefs among a substantial group of rural households, as well as indicators consistent with narrow aspirations gap and low self-efficacy. We also find that such beliefs consistently correlate with lower demand for credit, in terms of loan size, repayment horizon, and productive purposes.aspirations, aspirations failure, aspirations gap, aspirations window, fatalism, self-efficacy,

Was the Wealth of Nations Determined in 1000 B.C.?

We assemble a dataset on technology adoption in 1000 BC, 0 AD, and 1500 AD for the predecessors to today's nation states. We find that this very old history of technology adoption is surprisingly significant for today's national development outcomes. Our strong and robust results are for 1500 AD determining per capita income today. We find technological persistence across long epochs: from 1000 BC to 0 AD, from 0 AD to 1500 AD, and from 1500 AD to the present. Although the data allow only some suggestive tests of rival hypotheses to explain long?run technological persistence, we find the evidence to be most consistent with a model of endogenous technology adoption where the cost of adopting new technologies declines sufficiently with the current level of adoption. The evidence is less consistent with a dominant role for population as predicted by the semi?endogenous growth models or for country-level factors like culture, genes or institutions.Technology adoption, technology history, economic development.