SDI ontology and implications for research in the developing world

I examine key SDI concepts: ‘information’, ‘decision processes’, ‘people’, ‘management systems’, ‘social structure’ and ‘information technology’. I attempt to make explicit commonly held assumptions about the nature of these concepts, the ways they contribute to a ‘construction’ view of SDI implementation and their apparent disconnectedness with the realities in the developing world. I suggest alternative understandings of these key concepts that lead to a ‘cultivation’ perspective for SDI design and implementation. A ‘cultivation’ perspective is more likely to help us understand how human actors strike and sustain a dynamic balance between global uniformity and local contextual solutions in SDI design and implementation, especially in developing regions.