Title: Assessment of information technology for developing countries: appropriateness, local constraints, IT characteristics and impacts

Authors: Goel Kahen

Addresses: IC-Parc, William Penney Building, Imperial College, University of London, London SW7 2AZ, UK

Abstract: The problems and complexity of information technology transfer to developing countries are affected by the complexity of the concepts and processes of techno-economic and socio-cultural development per se. Information technology (IT), as a modern technology, should be imported from developed countries where technologies are created and developed due to the existing local and national characteristics. Developing countries, therefore, have to meet the imported technology within their own specific technical, technological, socio-cultural and economic contexts. The discussion of appropriateness may, then, arise from this crucial point. A successful IT transfer should involve appropriateness criteria. To be appropriate, a technology needs to be adapted to those people who will operate it. In order to underline the situation of IT in this respect, and to understand IT organisational structure and process transfer, this paper defines the concept of IT appropriateness as well as the related context in which IT should be transferred.

Keywords: appropriateness; developing countries; information technology; IT impact; local constraints; technological change; techno-economic development; socio-cultural development.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.1995.062423

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 1995 Vol.8 No.5/6, pp.325 - 332

Published online: 05 Jun 2014 *

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