Publication Type
Journal Article
Book Title/Conference/Journal
Media Asia
Year
1-2012
Abstract
As the fastest diffusing ICT in history, the mobile has attracted substantial scholarly interest. However, the historic penetration rate of the mobile phone in the developing world seems discordant with the paucity of evidence linking mobiles to productivity gains in micro-enterprises. In this study, we address the dilemma. We are seeing mobile phones everywhere but in the productivity statistics. We believe that there is a disconnect between mobile phone penetration rates and productivity statistics because businesses take time to learn how to exploit the technology for productivity gains. Findings from our study indicate there is latency between the time of mobile phone adoption and the time when this adoption starts to generate economic value. We estimated that it would take approximately three years for the benefits of mobile phone use in business processes to surface in the economic statistics. Practitioners and researchers should take this finding into consideration especially in the planning phase of ICT4D projects.
Keywords
ICTs, entrepreneurs, mobile phones
Disciplines
Business and Corporate Communications | Communication Technology and New Media | Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations
Subject(s)
Applied or Integration/Application Scholarship
ISSN/ISBN
0129-6612
Publisher
Taylor and Francis Group
DOI
10.1080/01296612.2012.11689924
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1080/01296612.2012.11689924
Version
acceptedVersion
Language
eng
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Format
application/PDF
Citation
CHEW, Han Ei; Ilavarasan, Vigneswara P.; and Levy, Mark.
A latency effect for mobile phone investments by micro-entrepreneurs. (2012). Media Asia. 39, (2), 99.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/oi_research/17
Included in
Business and Corporate Communications Commons, Communication Technology and New Media Commons, Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons