Information Technology in Context

Studies from the Perspective of Developing Countries

Chrisanthi Avgerou, Geoff Walsham

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138733183
• eBook ISBN: 9781351741132
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This title was first published in 2000. A discussion of information technology (IT) in developing countries. The contributors can be considered to share the following set of broad premises: information and communication technologies, and related systems, have significant potential to aid the economic growth and improvement of social conditions in the developing world; however, such potential is not released by simply transferring technologies and processes from advanced economies; in order to better serve development needs, people involved with the design, implementation and management of IT-related projects and systems in developing countries must improve their capacity to address the specific contextual characteristics of the organization, sector, country or region within which their work is located. The text thus emphasizes the importance of context in examining the role and value of IT in the developing countries. It focuses attention on the fusion of the activities of "professionals" (technical experts, managers, policy makers) and "users" (more broadly, all other groups affecting or affected by the technologies and systems), with the intention of facilitating locally meaningful and effective change.

Part I
Organisational Context

1 Information Systems and Human Activity in Nepal

PETER MALLING

1 Introduction

In spite of increasing evidence among researchers that information technology (IT) is culture bound in its very essence (Mòuritsen et al., 1991; Korpela, 1994; Hall et al., 1996), it is still a widespread belief among practitioners that IT is an objective and exact science, value-free and applicable to the same problem in different contexts (Mailing, 1992; Dvorak, 1997). This has clear consequences for the foundation of real life systems development and implementation of ΓΓ. Even though it is seen as the trend that more consideration is given to human interaction and to the whole organisational set-up in systems development and even in standard software, it is also a matter of fact that it is very seldom realised to what extent organisational and psychological issues are intertwined with IT.

As the cultural background of various members of the same part of the world is implicitly shared as tacit knowledge, the values embodied in technology by system developers and programmers will often fit the values shared by the users of the systems. This presumption can no longer be considered valid when we deal with what is often referred to as technology transfer. By transferring IT to another culture, the norms and values embodied in the technology are simultaneously conveyed. To a certain extend the new norms can be assimilated into the new social and psychological context to which the system is 'transferred'. But many of the values shared by a culturally homogenous group will be so fundamental that they are not changeable, even over centuries (Hofstede, 1991). In this situation a clash will happen between the values of the recipient society and the culture conveyed by IT implemented there.

This chapter will focus on the dialectical relationship between culture and IT. A theoretical framework grounded in activity theory will be posed and comparisons will be drawn with observations made by this writer during a two year assignment in a project involving implementation of a management information system (MIS) in a Nepali institution.

2 Culture and Personality

As the point of departure for a discussion of how culture and IT are intertwined, let us start by looking at the relationship between culture and personality. Karpartschof (1984) argues that the interaction between a society's culture and the personality of a member of the society constitutes human activity. In this process, the members contribute to culture through externalisation and appropriate from culture through internalisation.

Human activity can take place on two levels: the operational and the meaning level. Human activity on the operational level manipulates entities in the physical world directly, and will eventually transform nature into human products. The meaning level encompasses the intentional content of activity, enabling processes such as planning, coordination and evaluation. Labour can mostly be considered part of the operational level, while management and decision making belongs to the meaning level.

The theory of activity is indeed an evolutionary approach. It is argued that new epoch-creating inventions in fact have made it possible to externalise activity in still more powerful forms. Thus activity can take place in: 1) a person-bound form; 2) a passively externalised; and 3) an actively externalised form. In the person-bound form, the activity is tied to individuals and can only be conveyed through direct encounters between members of the society. Passive externalisation will enable mediation of knowledge concerning a given activity from person to person, though depending on man in its execution. Active externalisation further enables the activity to be carried out without human intervention. Now we can draw up a matrix of the three forms of activity on the operational and the meaning level (Table 1.1).

Table 1.1 Externalisation of activity

	Person bound	Passive externalised	Active externalised
Meaning Operational	Spoken language Skills	Written language Tools	IT Machines

On the operational level, skills means the person-bound form of activity, while the advent of tools in the Stone Age made passive externalisation possible and the Industrial Revolution's invention of machines made active externalisation possible.

On the meaning level, spoken language is the person-bound form of activity, while written language externalises meaning in a passive way. By putting thoughts on paper, these can be conveyed to another person, who can in turn use them for further activity. Written language cannot in itself carry out activity, neither can it draw conclusions in an active way, make choices or carry out management activities based on the information available.

IT is qualitatively different from any other form of activity by being an active externalisation of the meaning system. Even though it could be argued from a purely technical point of view that a computer is just a physical entity not much different from tools or machines, it should be acknowledged that IT, considered in its entirety with hardware and software, possesses properties which make it able to carry out information processing and decision-making activities independently, which in earlier times would be dependent on people. It is open to debate whether the same capabilities basically were present in ancient technologies such as, e.g., the abacus, but such a discussion is beyond the scope of this chapter. Here it is adequate to note that, especially in newer IT-technologies such as decision support systems, neural nets, decision trees, rule induction, and fuzzy logic, IT can independently process meaning and initiate other activities on the meaning level, independently of man. Put in another way, implementation of IT makes it possible for analyses, decisions and actions to be carried out purely automatically, eventually without human interaction. A very important point is that, by effective utilisation of IT, parts of the decision-making process can be transferred from employees to the IT-system.

Emergence of IT was determined by certain societies' need for an active externalisation of the meaning level of activity. As mentioned before, it can be shown how the Western world has undergone a development since the Stone Age to the Information Age which successively externalised activity, eventually leading to the invention of computers (Karpatschof 1984, pp. 205-7). In my view, Western countries are still in the infancy of the Information Age and will, upon maturation, evolve into societies which take full advantage of the actively externalising nature of IT, eventually leading to new forms of societal governance systems. It is notable that even though this development might be almost universal for the Western societies, readiness for the transformation seems to vary within the West from country to country and even within the same country.

3 Appropriateness of IT in Asia

Turning towards Asia, the picture becomes even more blurred. Several Asian societies have jumped virtually directly from primitive technological stages to highly industrialised societies within a few decades. However, the 'Asian Miracle' was grounded mainly in pure technology transfer from the West and it is symptomatic that the degree to which even leading Asian societies like Japan are using IT is very limited indeed (Steffensen, 1996a and 1996b; Schatzberg et al., 1997). This might be explained by a lack of need in these societies for an active externalisation of meaning. Problems encountered by Western computer companies involved in systems development and implementation of IT solutions in Asia can also partly be explained by this contradiction between Asian cultures and IT developed in the West (Mailing, 1992).

Poorer parts of Asia have not taken part in the economic and industrial revolution seen elsewhere. Nepal - being one of the world's poorest countries - remains virtually unindustrialised. Ninety-three per cent of the population is working in the agricultural segment and only 10 per cent of the country is urbanised (Microsoft Bookshelf, 1996). The farming is traditional, using primitive tools and household animals. Even in urban areas like Kathmandu, machines are rarely seen. Most handicraft is carried out using simple tools, even in most of the few cases of mass production. The literacy rate is among the lowest in the world, 38 per cent (ibid.). There is virtually no tradition of writing, and until a few decades ago access to general education was reserved high caste people (Bista, 1994). Early Nepali literature started only in the twentieth century (Sanwal, 1993).

Hence, according to the above outline theoretical framework, in the vast majority of the Nepali society only the operational level has been externalised, and only in a passive form, namely tools. Meaning is still to a wide extent person-bound, as spoken language remains the common way of conveying information. Nevertheless, it should be kept in mind that the Nepali society is extremely diversified. At one end of the spectre we find minorities, e.g. the Chepang, the Kusunta and the Hayu tribes, which have been characterised as 'fragments of an earlier population ... [living] in the wildest imaginable state of nature' (Sanwal, 1993, p. 12). At the other end we find a top-professional elite often provided with education, experiences and resources from abroad, quickly adapting IT and other modern conveniences quite profoundly. In spite of the multi-ethnic nature of the Nepali society, there are some fundamental national values and personality factors which are quite common across castes and ethnic groups (Bista, 1994).

4 Applying the Theoretical Framework to Experiences Gained

For a period of two years, 1994-96, I worked as a systems developer in a small project for a government department in Nepal, The project had been initiated through cooperation between a large Danish NGO and the said government department. The main objectives of the project was establishment of a system for collection and dissemination of information, including implementation of a management information system (MIS), and establishment of a public resource centre, mainly for giving out information. In the next sections various issues which were observed during the project will be discussed, and using the theoretical framework outlined above a better understanding of the course of events will be attempted. This is done by a partly empirical, partly epistemological approach. Table 1.2 indicates the connection between the findings and the theoretical framework presented earlier.

Table 1.2 Relations between observations and theoretical framework

Empirical observations	Theoretical explanation
Novelty of written language	Meaning is not passively externalised in the organisation
Obstacles for IT utilisation	Active externalisation of meaning in the organisation is limited
IT mainly used for routine tasks and not used by managers for decision-making etc.	Operational and meaning level are kept distinct in the organisation
IT not used for information sharing and communication	Achieving the communicative gain by actively externalising meaning is rejected by the organisation

4.1 Novelty of Written Language

As mentioned above, Nepal has a very young and weak tradition of written communication. For centuries information has been person-bound, only conveyed orally, e.g. through folk songs (Sanwal, 1993). Even though all staff at assistant level and up in the organisation in which I worked were literate, written language was rarely used for internal communication. It was not common to use writing for planning or evaluation of activities. I never received a written agenda for a meeting, neither were minutes from meetings prepared. Most communication took place orally. Often a meeting would be called - in a rather informal way - at very short notice, and yet the participants would display an impressive flexibility in order to attend the meetings.

Upon arrival, one of the first things I asked for was an organisational chart. Usually this is a good tool in the preliminary steps towards a mapping of information flows in the organisation. However, gradually I recognised that there were huge differences between the chart and reality. Actually, almost none of the departments which appeared on paper existed in the real-life organisation. What had happened was that at a particular time in the organisation's life, a major restructuring had been planned and decided. This was how the chart appeared. The plan was never successfully implemented. People just continued carrying out the work they had always done. However, the chart was given to this writer without further comment. This gives a hint of the attitude towards writing: it is something you produce but don't refer to in your daily life.

The situation in a Nepali context is that the written language exists, but it is used to a lesser extent as an actual externalisation of the meaning level of activity in order to turn information into an entity not bound to individuals. Information is frequently seen as a resource; a commodity you only give away if you get something back. This attitude towards information also plays a crucial role in the concepts of chakari and afno manchhe, where employees of a lower status will offer various services, e.g. information, to superiors in return for their protection (Bista, 1994; Burbank, 1992). The safest way to secure full rights over the information is naturally not to externalise it at all. As soon as it is put on paper, it is possible for others to get hold of it. Storing it on IT is even more chancey, as copying it is that much more easy. Putting the information on intranet, or even the Internet, causes it to lose its market value as it becomes accessible to the public.

4.2 Limitations for Externalisation of Meaning

As long as computers were used as stand-alone stations for simple tasks like word processing and simple spreadsheet operations, the use of IT took place without many problems. Computers were in fact mostly used for word processing. At the time of this writer's arrival, computers could not be used for correspondence etc. in Nepali, as they were running DOS and were mostly not equipped with the special Devanagari graphics card needed for typing Nepali (Mailing, 1997). In this way, lack of localisation even on the most elementary level forces the organisation back to simpler technologies when compromises cannot be made regarding language.

During the project period a few computers were equipped with GUIs and Nepali fonts. However, at the primitive level that the implementation of Nepali fonts occurs, we cannot even, in spite of the introduction of the possibility of writing Nepali, consider it a jump to the meaning level. To the use of computers as typewriters is added the possibility of storing documents electronically, while the actual intentional contents of the activity have been carried out beforehand by the officers in charge and conveyed to the computer department in written form. The only task of the computer staff is to reproduce the passively ex...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Contributors
• Statement of Endorsement
• Preface
• Introduction: IT in Developing Countries
• PART I: ORGANISATIONAL CONTEXT
• PART II: SECTORAL CONTEXT
• PART III: WIDER CONTEXT