Presentation
Mobile Telecommunication: Social Innovation for Developing Economies
5th Biennial Conference of the African Academy of Management
(2020)
Abstract
Mobile phone technology has swept the developing world in recent years. This unintended social innovation has had positive effects in terms of both economic and social development. We explore the mechanism through which this effect manifests itself: opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship (OME). In the base- or bottom-of-the-pyramid (BOP) markets, necessity-motivated entrepreneurship (NME) is the norm, but mobile telecommunications are increasingly reshaping this narrative. This is important because OME—characterized by growth, job creation and choice—is more likely to lead to development that NME—characterized by income replacement, replication, and lack of viable options. We contribute in explicitly developing the micro-foundations of the technology-development nexus in BOP markets, by placing entrepreneurship as an important mechanism through which macroeconomic development occurs. Using a mixed-methods approach and guided by primary qualitative date collected during a field study in Ghana, we derive theory-driven propositions on a data panel of African nations from 2000-2015. We posit that the transformational nature of mobile telecommunication in developing economies, is one of the truly underrated social innovations of our time.
Publication Date
January, 2020
Location
Lagos, Nigeria
Citation Information
Chad David Coffman. "Mobile Telecommunication: Social Innovation for Developing Economies" 5th Biennial Conference of the African Academy of Management (2020) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/chad-coffman/7/