ABSTRACT
Economies of the world invest in ICT with the uniform purpose of obtaining socio-economic benefits. Determination of the most appropriate path of success linking ICT to socio-economic benefits is a complex multidimensional problem that is not amenable to methodological approaches based on a single perspective. Policy analysts and researchers are, therefore, in need of adequate tools for modelling and analysing the complex ICT4D investment problem. In this paper, we present a consistent solution-oriented theoretical and methodological approach that focuses on discovering pitfalls and best practices that the experience of travelling “ICT → outcomes” path may offer. Specifically, we ask: “What are some lessons that ‘newer entrants’ (represented by the economies of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA)) may learn from ‘earlier travelers’ (represented by Transition Economies (TE))?” Among many findings is the difference in the sources of growth in productivity between the SSA- and TE-dominated groups of economies. Besides practical insights, this study offers several contributions to policy-makers and researchers including: a theoretical framework that allows for conceptually complex inquiries into the matters of ICT4D and a multi-method methodology that can be used to identify (a) important areas suitable for benchmarking and (b) differences requiring a customised context-specific approach.
Acknowledgments
We express our gratitude to the anonymous reviewers, the AE and the SE Ojelanki Ngwenyama whose comments and advice have contributed to improvements in the quality of this paper.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).