Song and Qureshi The Role of an Effective IT Intervention for Micro-enterprises Micro-enterprise Development: The Role of an Effective IT Intervention

The use of Information Technology is often seen to enable people in underserved communities to achieve the benefits of globalization. In particular, micro-enterprises stand to benefit the most by using IT to achieve better access to new markets, knowledge and information and enable their businesses to become more competitive. While various researchers have conducted studies on the effects of IT adoption in micro-enterprises, little research has been conducted to explain critical aspects of an effective IT intervention for micro-enterprises from a theoretical perspective. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating four cases of micro-enterprises undergoing changes relating to their businesses and adoption of IT that is seen to assist them. The empirical investigation relates to IT interventions that can effectively facilitate the process of IT adoption by micro-enterprises. Following an analysis of four micro-enterprises using a theoretical lens developed from Actor Network Theory, this paper provides insight into the ways in which IT interventions can improve the ability of micro-enterprises to adopt IT to benefit and grow their businesses. The key contribution of this study is in the use of the Actor Network perspective to address the contextual factors that affect the ability of micro-enterprises to adopt IT. The resulting analytical model may assist researchers and practitioners in examining the effects of their IT interventions. This has implications for effective IT intervention policy development and implementation for micro-enterprises.