Information Systems to Support “Door-step Banking”: Enabling Scalability of Microfinance to Serve More of the Poor at the Bottom of the Pyramid

Microfinance provides financial services to the extremely poor who are not served by banks. At the heart of microfinance is microcredit which provides small loans to the unbanked poor to seed small local businesses. Microfinance may help alleviate poverty because access to finance has a positive impact on economic development. The unmet need of the poor for financial services spawned over 11,000 microfinance institutions (MFIs) by 2010, but 90 percent of these MFIs are small with fewer than 10,000 clients. This article presents three case examples of MFIs in India that deployed information systems (IS) to increase the scale of their operations. Each example illustrates how IS helped MFIs achieve financial sustainability through scaling despite the necessity of using “door-step banking” which requires the MFI’s agents to visit clients in remote areas. By presenting microfinance examples that impact the economic empowerment of the poor, this article addresses the dearth of research on the use of IS to effect social change at the bottom of the pyramid. The article’s subject matter also provides engaging material for IS coursework and teaching

Proposing “Mobile, Finance, and Information” Toolkit for Financial Inclusion of the Poor in Developing Countries

Since 2015, the Government of India has been designing policies for transforming the country with over 400 million unbanked adults into a cashless economy so that a majority of financial transactions can be carried over mobile devices, the most widely used information and communication technology in the country. However, over 200 million adults earning less than $2 a day have a low or little mobile, financial, or information literacy. This short paper reports a newly proposed interdisciplinary, six-step toolkit operationalized using a survey questionnaire, focus group prompts, and hands-on training for developing mobile, financial, and information literacy among the poor in developing countries like India. Implications for public libraries, governments, and the poor in developing countries and beyond are discussed at the end

Impact of Information Technology Deployment on Supply Chains at the Bottom of Pyramid: A Separations Lens Separations

There has been recent interest of corporations (e.g. producers, marketers and distributors) in Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) communities because of notions that - business enterprises can (profitably) provide price- and culture-sensitive products to them and economic benefits can accrue to BOP communities if business enterprises can source products from BOP producers. However, supply chains that connect into BOP communities are subject to several difficult conditions such as problems in building distribution channels into remote locations and lack of transportation and warehousing resources. Studies that examine supply chains in the context of under-developed populations do not provide theoretical understanding of particular conditions and problems in BOP supply chains. Similarly, while, the supply chain literature acknowledges the role of IT in supply chain integration and supplier development, it does not theoretically examine the potential role of IT in BOP supply chains. There is consequently, an absence of research frameworks for understanding specific characteristics of BOP supply chains. This research-in-progress paper reports on a larger study, the objective of which is to examine the following research question – How does the deployment of IT impact supply chains at the BOP. We adopt the idea of market and economic separations as our informing theoretical lens and address our question through two sub-questions – (1) What are the separations in supply chains at the BOP; and (2) How can IT reduce these separations? In this paper we report on the first part, that is, on theorization that characterizes different separations that exist in supply chains at the BOP. Our continuing research aims to develop case studies to address the second part, that is, to understand how IT can reduce them. If selected we hope to present some of our findings at the workshop. With this study we hope to develop a theoretical basis to examine distinguishing characteristics of supply chains at the BOP, thus contributing to our understanding of problems plaguing supply chains at the BOP. Second, we hope to analyze the role of IT in mitigating these problems

An Information Processing Perspective of Digital Social Innovation: Insights from China’s Taobao Villages

Digital social innovation describes new IT-enabled solutions that simultaneously meet a social need and enhance capacity to act. It is an emergent stream of social innovation research and a response to growing social, environmental and demographic challenges. Despite its importance, academic literature is still undeveloped, with ill-defined theoretical boundaries and no coherent knowledge. To address this gap, this study examines how information processing capabilities enable digital social innovation. We conduct an empirical case study on Qing Yan Liu, China’s leading Taobao e-commerce village, an emerging digital social innovation and economic phenomenon in China. From interview data collected from netrepreneurs, we construct a research model that posits information literacy, information immediacy and information liberty, as the required information processing capabilities to achieve digital social innovation. The model represents the first step to better understanding the interrelationships between digital social innovation, netrepreneurs, social enterprise and social entrepreneurship

Inequalities creating economic barriers to owning mobile phones in India: Factors responsible for the gender digital divide

In India, men own around 70% of mobile phones, creating a gender digital divide for the most widely owned information and communication technology (ICT) in the world. This study investigates the factors responsible for the inability of 245 female slum-dwellers in India earning less than $2 a day to own a mobile phone. Open, axial and selective coding of survey responses shows that socio-cultural, economic, demographic, psychological, communication-related, and health related inequalities in the lives of the respondents create eight economic barriers precluding respondents from owning some of the least expensive mobile phones worth$15 or so on installments of $1 a month

Can you help me scale? A Systematic Analysis of Scaling Capabilities of Conversational Agents for Digital Services

Today’s servitized and digitalized society has significant implications for the economical system as value creation increasingly shifts towards digital services. Driven by different factors, service providers have been enabled to scale up their businesses. One of these factors is artificial intelligence, which enabled many novel technological artifacts like conversational agents (CA). These human-like AI-driven artifacts open new possibilities and channels for service providers to create value, or to scale up their business even further. However, while we witness the results of that everyday, what do we really know about scalability of services and the role of CAs therein? Therefore, we conduct an analysis of service research and popular CAs to determine the status quo and highlight opportunities for scaling services with CAs. We contribute to theory by clarifying the meaning of scalability in combination with CAs and support practitioners by providing an overview about how companies successfully scale their CAs

Addressing data collection challenges in ICT for development projects

This paper equips researchers for addressing a wide range of data collection challenges experienced when interacting with marginalized communities as part of ICT4D projects in developing countries. This secondary research categorizes data collection challenges reported in multiple disciplines, and summarizes the guidance from the past literature to deal with the challenges. The open, axial, and selective coding of data collection challenges reported by the past literature suggests that it is necessary to manage scope, time, cost, quality, human resources, communication, and risks for addressing the data collection challenges. This paper illustrates the ways to manage these seven dimensions using (a) the success stories of data collection in the past, (b) the lessons learned by researchers during data collection as documented by the past literature, and (c) the advice they offer for collection data from marginalized communities in developing countries

Public e-service framework towards sustainable service delivery

E-service enables citizens to interact and receive services from most government agencies which are convenient, dependable, and less costly. To promote efficient and effective service delivery, the Malaysian government is targeting zero face-to-face service delivery with 90% of all government services to be available online by 2015. It is reported recently, that at least half of the Malaysian public sector’s 1,500 websites of e-service applications could not be sustained and will be shut down by 2016. Due to high investment allocated by the government, it is important to ensure that the public e-service is sustained and continues to evolve. Limited research has been done on how to sustain the e-service or provide effective methods to aid implementer to reach this goal. This research developed a framework to sustain the government’s public e-service delivery in Malaysia. This study employed qualitative method approach within an interpretive paradigm. A case study was conducted at the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia to explore the public eservice sustainability criteria as it is perceived as a role model of a successful eservice provider. Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) was adopted as a conceptual lens to gain deeper insights into the data collection and analysis. Qualitative data collected through interviews, observations and document analysis were analysed verbatim using thematic analysis. Two regulators, three implementers, two e-service providers, nine users and one representative from a non-profit organization were interviewed to get a better understanding of the public e-service sustainability. The technological, institutional, and environmental dimensions with seventeen elements that emerged from the case study are: information confidentiality; software quality; ubiquitous services; personalization; integrated services; IT governance; business process improvement; legislative issues; benchmarking; top management support; awareness; trust; community empowerment; user expectation and satisfaction management; government; as well as political influence. Based on the findings, a Public e-Service (PeS) Framework consisting of cultural and logic-based streams which influence each other was developed. In addition, several recommended actions on how to use the framework as a means of assessing their current public eservice or as a guide for future public e-service initiative were proposed to assist government agencies

Design for Empowerment: Empowering Sri Lankan Farmers through Mobile-based Information System

We developed a mobile-based information system (MBIS) to empower users to improve their livelihood activities. To do so, we first developed an empowerment framework (since one does not exist) as a basis to develop the MBIS. In particular, we conducted this research to solve an agriculture over-production problem in Sri Lanka where farmers remain trapped in a poverty cycle. They cannot make informed decisions due to lack of access to timely, context-based actionable information to achieve a good revenue. We had to generate some essential information such as current production level in real-time by capturing farmers’ decisions such as what and how much to grow. For this purpose, we needed to empower farmers to actively engage them in informed decision-making process through the MBIS. In evaluating the impact of the MBIS, we found a statistically significant positive change in farmers’ empowerment levels based on measuring self-efficacy, sense of control, and motivation before and after they used the application. Commercial organizations have since adopted this mobile-based system in India and Sri Lanka to solve agricultural problems, in universities Africa to mitigate hidden hunger, and the Corporative Research Center in Australia to develop digital health applications to manage chronic diseases, which indicates the approach’s wide adoptability