Rationalization of mobile telephony by small-scale entrepreneurs in Myanmar

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the adoption and use of mobile communication among several dozen micro-entrepreneurs in Myanmar during the country’s transition into mobile communication. The objective of the paper was to examine whether mobile phone ownership facilitates the work of some micro-entrepreneurs and constrains the work of others. In addition, the paper examines the situation of those who were exploiting the ‘spillover efficiencies’ of mobile telephony by borrowing (sometimes for pay) the phones of others. The findings of this study suggest that the early adopters reap efficiency benefits while those who lag behind have a weaker position. The paper also examines examples of some small-scale ‘sideline’ activities enabled by the mobile phone, e.g., phone owners selling air-time to non-owners. At the same time, the affordances of the device threatened the core of other small-scale entrepreneurs.

KEYWORDS:

• Mobile telephony
• rationalization
• micro-entrepreneurs
• Myanmar

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Richard Ling (Ph.D., University of Colorado, sociology) is the Shaw Foundation Professor of Media Technology, at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has an adjunct position at the University of Michigan. For the past two decades, Ling has studied the social consequences of mobile communication. He has written extensively on the social consequences of mobile communication. He is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication and is a founding co-editor of Mobile Media and Communication (Sage) and the Oxford University Press Series Studies in Mobile Communication. He was recently named a fellow of the International Communication Association [email: [email protected]].

Priya Parekh is a graduate of Nanyang Technological University. She is working as a marketing and advertising planner for OMD Worldwide [email: [email protected]].

Ayesha Zainudeen is a Senior Research Manager at LIRNEasia, where her core research area is mobile and Internet usage in Asia, with a particular focus on low-income markets and market segments in Asia. She has over ten years of extensive experience in this field, focusing on demand-side data collection and analysis, through a variety of methods [email: [email protected]].

Helani Galpaya is CEO of LIRNEasia, a pro-poor, pro-market think-tank working across the emerging Asia Pacific on ICT policy and regulatory issues. She researches and engages in public discourse on topics related to connecting the next billion, user perceptions of privacy and rights online, the role of knowledge in agriculture markets, changes in labor and work due to digitization and related topics [eamil: [email protected]].

Notes

1 http://myanmar.unfpa.org/sites/asiapacific/files/pub-pdf/Census%20Highlights%20Report%20-%20ENGLISH%20%281%29.pdf.

2 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/.

3 http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/human-development-report-2014.

4 http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx.

5 http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/enterprise/business_environment/n26026_en.htm.

6 The research report developed by CKS can be found Data collection was supported by the International Development Research Centre, Canada and UKaid, Department for International Development, UK. The research report is at http://lirneasia.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/2014.11.12.-CKS_LA_MM_Final_Report-2.pdf.

7 This is the ‘street-based’ exchange rate at the time of the research. The official rate was somewhat different.

8 One person was not classified. For more information on the SEC system, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_Classification.