The influence of indigenous African culture on SME adoption of digital government services in Zambia

Many low-income countries desire to implement and adopt digital government as a springboard for economic and social development but face many challenges. The United Nations identifies that Africa has especially lagged consistently in digital government development and adoption. Most scholars largely attribute the challenges to infrastructure and skills, and often rhetorically cite culture as playing a strong role. This study specifically examined the role of indigenous African culture (‘spirituality’, ‘communalism’ and ‘respect for authority and elders’) and internet access on the adoption of digital government services (e-filing and e-payment of taxes) by Small and Micro Enterprises (SMEs) in Zambia, with the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technologies (UTAUT) as the underpinning theoretical lens. Data analysis was done using Structural Equation Modelling with principal attention given to the moderating and mediating influence of indigenous African culture. The influence of internet access on the intention to adopt digital government was also examined. The findings from the cross sectional study of 401 tax registered SMEs suggests that ‘spirituality’, ‘African communalism’ and ‘respect for authority and elders’ have significant negative moderating effects on the adoption of e-filing but not on e-payment; and ‘spirituality’, ‘African communalism’ and ‘respect for authority and elders’ are all significant mediators of the intention to adopt both e-filing and e-payment. This means that indigenous African culture plays a significant role in explaining Africa’s position in digital government development and adoption. The findings also showed a negative influence of internet access on the intention to adopt digital government services despite the measures that government has put in place. These results make a novel contribution to Information Systems (IS) theory in identifying a critical yet often overlooked indigenous cultural influence on the adoption of digital innovations in low-income countries. The findings also calls for finding new or adapted IS theories that take into account such unique cultural constructs. The thesis recommends that the research is extended to other low-income countries as well as other contexts that exhibit strong indigenous cultural values.School of ComputingPh. D. (Information Systems

The moderating effect of spirituality on digital government in low-income countries: a case of SMEs in Zambia

The failure of digital government in most low-income countries has often been attributed to, among many factors, culture. This paper investigated the moderating effect of the indigenous African cultural aspect of spirituality on the adoption and usage of digital government services among small and micro enterprises (SMEs). The base theory was the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT). Analysis was done using structural equations modelling (SEM), applying Hayes’ process macro. The results, from 401 SMEs that participated, showed that spirituality has a significant negative moderating influence on the relationship between social influence and the intention to use digital government services. This finding suggests that spirituality, in the Zambian context, has an effect on the usage and adoption of digital government services among SMEs. The study makes a novel contribution to information systems (IS) theory by identifying the influence of an important, yet overlooked, aspect of indigenous African culture on the usage and adoption of digital government services in a low-income country. The paper makes recommendations for practice, policy and IS theory

Investigating cost effective communication alternatives for geographically hostile regions

Includes bibliographical references.The lack of communication facilities in developing countries is a constraint to social, political and economic empowerment of the people. However, advances in technology promise to deliver voice, video and data communication services, that are urgently needed, under a common packet switched communication network. Using Zambia as a case study, the cost effectiveness of three design scenarios which involve a hybrid of radio and microwave, radio and satellite, and radio and optic fibre were evaluated. The communication links in each scenario were modelled as E1 trunks. The cost of establishing these links was determined. Each scenario was then subjected to generic input traffic patterns using a multiclass queueing network analysis model to determine its effectiveness. Our findings show that the scenario involving the microwave links as inter-regional links has the lowest cost. The second is the scenario involving satellite inter-regional links and the most expensive is the scenario involving optic fibre inter-regional links. Furthermore, the microwave- radio hybrid scenario was found to have the smallest cost-effectiveness ratio of 17.9 followed by the optic fibre-radio scenario with 20.3 and finally the satellite-radio scenario with 892.9. These results effectively imply that the microwave-radio hybrid scenario is a better option for developing countries