IT Transfer to Egypt: Process Model for Developing Countries

Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc., Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

Research on Information Technology Transfer (ITT) to developing countries has suffered due to a lack of knowledge about how the process works. Studies have generally been done from a distance and have assumed an acultural environment in which national IT policy plays an unspecified role. Implementation factors have also been missing from the explanatory models. The goals of this project are to test a theoretical model that explains the ITT process and examine the effectiveness of national IT policy in one developing country -- Egypt. Egyptian users of urban/rural information centers, cybercafes, and ISPs, private and public sector knowledge workers, and national IT policy makers will be sampled. Research methods will include ethnography, interviews, systematic observation, and questionnaires. Drawing from anthropological, economic, and technology innovation and diffusion theories, this research integrates technical and socio-cultural factors within a national setting. Policy makers in developing countries can learn why some policies encourage the process of ITT while others hinder it. Managers in transnational firms charged with introducing IT in foreign subsidiaries, offices, and plants can learn how to better implement IT. This research will result in new knowledge, theories and methods for assessing Information Technology Transfer in other developing countries.