Improving outcomes from Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) studies
ABSTRACT: Research in Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) is becoming increasingly diverse. The reason being that the last decade has seen, in line with the growth in the availability and use of information and communications technologies (ICTs), a large increase in the number and range of published work on the topic which draw upon a whole range of disciplinary approaches (Walsham, 2017). While drawing upon theories that help understand emerging phenomena, research in ICT4D also requires attention to the contextual challenges facing practitioners in the field. There have been attempts to develop theories that enable these challenges to be understood. Global pressures, socio-economic pressures, disruptive technology, and the emergence of multi-stakeholder networks are some of the forces being studied (Njihia and Merali, 2013). For scholars hoping to draw upon this area, this issue offers a snapshot of papers that illustrate the proliferation of technologies and contexts in which they are implemented. They highlight a glimpse of the key contributions of research in this area while describing the challenges.
Keywords: Mobile money, socio-technical, actor-network theory, Enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management
