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Journal of Information Technology Case and Application Research
Volume 12, Number 4, 2010
Special Issue on ICT
Innovation in Emerging Economies
Special Issue Editors Sudhanshu Rai and Mogens Kühn
Pedersen
From the
Editor’s Desk
A Bittersweet Farewell
Steven Gordon, Babson College, USA
Editorial
Preface
IT Innovation in Emerging
Economies
Sudhanshu Rai and Mogens Kühn
Pedersen
Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark
Research
Article One
A Framework for the Co-Creation
of ICT Innovation: Empirical Results from India
Sudhanshu Rai and Mogens Kühn
Pedersen
Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark
Agnė Kazakevičiūtė
Department of Business Administration, Kaunas University of
Technology, Lithuania
Research
Article Two
Digital Divide and Equity in
Education: A Rawlsian Analysis
Josephine Anthony and
Dr. Sudarsan Padmanabhan
Department of
Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT-Madras, India
Research
Article Three*
Transition to Market Economy
through Information Systems and Organizational Learning: A Case of Sava
Company
Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic,
University of New South Wales, Australia
Marius Janson, University of Missouri-St. Louis, USA
Jo˛e Zupančič,
University of Maribor, Slovenia
* Reprinted with
permission of the publisher from Journal of Global Information
Technology Management, 2008, Vol. 11, Iss. 4.
Book Review
Technology at the Margins: How IT
Meets the Needs of Emerging Markets
By Sailesh Chutani,
Jessica Rothenberg Aalami, and Akhtrar Badshah
Published in 2010 by
John Wiley & Sons
ISBN:
978-0-470-92063-3; 166 pages
Reviewed by Richard
G. Platt, University of West Florida, USA
From the
Editor’s Desk
A Bittersweet Farewell
Steven Gordon, Babson College, USA
INTRODUCTION
I
have served JITCAR in various capacities with great pleasure since its
inception in 1999 as JITCA, the Journal of Information Technology Cases
and Applications. I strongly
believe in JITCAR’s mission, to publish rigorous case studies that
advance the world’s knowledge and improve its understanding of how
information systems and technology affect organizations. I believe that case research is as
important to the generation of knowledge as statistical research. It
provides an indispensable balance to and augmentation of statistical
research findings. Statistical
research is needed to identify broad, generalizable
truths in our discipline.
However, because organizations are exceedingly complex, these
truths need to be interpreted within a context. Case research provides a nuanced
perspective, allowing managers to assess how a general theory might apply
to situations they face in their own organizations and providing
academicians with a more complicated understanding of the interactions
that occur within real organizations; such an understanding is needed
to motivate scholars to enrich theory and further its ongoing
development. Until JITCAR’s
founding, it was quite difficult to publish case-based research. One reason, of course, is that it is
difficult to do case research well.
But, case researchers who followed solid, well-grounded
qualitative methods also found that journals were hesitant to publish
case-based research because reviewers,
concerned that such research was not sufficiently generalizable,
failed to understand exactly what case research can contribute.
Editorial
Preface
IT Innovation in Emerging
Economies
Sudhanshu Rai and Mogens Kühn
Pedersen
Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark
ABSTRACT
In
this special issue we highlight the role played by IT Innovation in
Emerging Economies. To understand this role with some clarity we focus
on three theme concepts derived from underlining theoretical frames
researchers have used to explain innovation. We identify these as the
economic theme, the knowledge theme and the interactive globalization
theme. Using each of these themes, we make some observations about the
state of the art for IT innovation research. For instance, we
conjecture that IT innovation needs to be researched independently
rather than in terms of diffusion or adoption studies. In the knowledge
theme we propose that IT innovation will flourish only if local
knowledge is made mainstream. It means that not all knowledge needs to
be scientific knowledge, but it does need to be locally embedded.
Therefore, we suggest that local knowledge be given more legitimacy for
IT innovation. From the interactive globalization theme we suggest that
co-creation is a form of IT innovation and that co-creation is mutually
beneficial.
Research
Article One
A Framework for the Co-Creation
of ICT Innovation: Empirical Results from India
Sudhanshu Rai and Mogens Kühn
Pedersen
Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark
Agnė Kazakevičiūtė
Department of Business Administration, Kaunas University of
Technology, Lithuania
ABSTRACT
The main aim of this
paper is to develop a conceptual framework for understanding the
co-creation of ICT Innovation. To do this we first review key
innovation literature with the argument that each set of innovation
literature considers the world of innovation from a sterile
perspective, normally linear in nature. We propose an alternative view
encapsulated in our idea of ‘Co-creation of ICT Innovation’. To
illustrate the nature of Co-creation of ICT Innovation, we present
three case studies from India and show the distinctness in the nature
of problem solving in each case. We then use this distinctness to
develop a dual interactive framework. One framework is at a Meta level
that develops the conceptual theme for the process of co-creation. The
other framework, that populates the conceptual theme with operational drivers,
is aimed to populate the Meta level with ideas that can initiate the
process of Co-creation of ICT Innovation. Our contribution in this
paper is this dual interactive framework that we argue explains the
nature and process of co-creation.
Research
Article Two
Digital Divide and Equity in
Education: A Rawlsian Analysis
Josephine Anthony and
Dr. Sudarsan Padmanabhan
Department of
Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT-Madras, India
ABSTRACT
In his magnum opus, “A Theory of Justice” (1971), John Rawls,
one of the most influential American philosophers of the twentieth
century, emphasizes two principles of justice, one that ensures equal
liberties and the second equal opportunity for all irrespective of
their status. The most important part of the second principle known as
the “difference principle” addresses social inequity by recommending
institutional support for the under-privileged segment of the society.
These principles of justice serve as guidelines for political
institutions to ensure equality of basic political and civil rights and
equity in the social and economic conditions. To facilitate equity,
Rawls places significant emphasis on the formal notion of “justice”
over its substantive notion which is “fairness.” If fairness could be
achieved in the process of institutionalising
justice in any socio-political system then it would reach the position
of “reflective equilibrium” which is an ideal condition for any just
system. This paper would attempt to apply the Rawlsian
principles of justice in the context of the emerging inequitable
situation in the education sector and web based education in India. The
emerging issue of “digital divide” widens the disparity among the
society in education and economic sectors. The burgeoning fields of
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and the scope of ICT
in education at various levels create a complex situation, when
resources and opportunities remain inaccessible to the poor. Inequity
due to digital divide assumes significance and requires urgent
attention of the policy makers, administrators and community as the
Indian government has been actively implementing massive schemes in
education and rural development, to ensure accessibility, availability
and affordability of education and economic opportunities to all
citizens of the country. The paper analyses how accessibility to web
based learning enhances opportunities for the educated sector and its
inaccessibility implies “injustice” to the deprived sector of the
society. The efforts of the government to bridge the digital divide
could lead to a rapid improvement in the social, political and economic
conditions of the poor and underprivileged strata in India. In this
paper, the efforts of the Indian government to bridge the digital
divide are highlighted and effective measures to tackle inequity due to
the digital divide are suggested.
Research
Article Three*
Transition to Market Economy
through Information Systems and Organizational Learning: A Case of Sava
Company
Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic,
University of New South Wales, Australia
Marius Janson, University of Missouri-St. Louis, USA
Jo˛e Zupančič,
University of Maribor, Slovenia
* Reprinted with
permission of the publisher from Journal of Global Information
Technology Management, 2008, Vol. 11, Iss. 4.
ABSTRACT
The transition to a market economy has been painful, if not
fatal, for many companies in the post-socialist Central and Eastern
European countries. The case of
the Slovenian Company Sava, presented in this paper, is remarkable not
only due to its highly successful transition from a socialist Company
operating in a protected market to a privatized Company competing in
the free, global market, but also due to the ways in which it achieved
such a transition. Our case study shows that the key to Sava’s
successful transition (1995-2005) was its reliance on organizational
learning enabled and supported by information systems (IS). Sava’s transformation provides a
‘natural laboratory’ for exploring and extending theories about the
role of IS in supporting organizational learning under conditions of
radical organizational, social, economic, and political change. The objective of the paper is
twofold: a) to propose a theoretical interpretation of the role of IS
in organizational learning in companies in transition economies by
drawing from theories generated and tested in the context of developed
western economies, and b) to demonstrate how such interpretation can
expand our understanding of the relationship between IS and
organizational learning beyond its traditional western context.
Book Review
Technology at the Margins: How IT
Meets the Needs of Emerging Markets
By Sailesh Chutani,
Jessica Rothenberg Aalami, and Akhtrar Badshah
Published in 2010 by
John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 978-0-470-92063-3;
166 pages
Reviewed by Richard
G. Platt, University of West Florida, USA
INTRODUCTION
From the earliest school days spent learning to program through
the current days’ efforts to
share knowledge in the field, a period that spans more than
forty years, it was this reviewer’s basic belief that he had developed
a breadth of knowledge about the ICT profession. Then the call went out
from JITCAR for a special issue dedicated to collecting the best works
available on the subject of ICT innovations in emerging economies. No
problem. Everyone is familiar
with Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat and its successor The World is
Flat 3.0, all the way to Hot, Flat and Crowded. JITCAR has published
numerous articles and book reviews on global IT, outsourcing, smart
sourcing, and Chindia just to mention a few
topics related to ICT in other countries. The internet is global and
provides ubiquitous connectivity around the world, leveling the field
just like Friedman says. So, the
book review for this special edition should be a snap; an easy project.
And then this reviewer started reading Technology at the Margins. What an eye opening experience; no,
make that a revelation.
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