icegov2012 proceedings

7
Unaffordable Cell Phone
Prices and Maintenance
7%
6% 8%
8 Miscellaneous Financial
Reasons
13% 16% 32%
9 Poverty 12% 5% 1%
10 Costly
Upbringing and
Education of Children
11 Miscellaneous Nonfinancial
Reasons
3%
9% 6%
8% 5% 14%
4.3 Perceived Consequences of and Incentives
for Cell Phone Adoption
Anticipated and desirable consequences of adopting cell phones
were as follows. Ninety-five percent of respondents think that
their status in the family would improve if they started using cell
phones. Ninety eight percent of respondents believe that cell
phone usage will lead to personal development. Table 3 presents
respondents’ top perceived incentives for cell phone adoption.
Social networking with family, relatives, friends, and neighbors
emerged as the most important incentive for cell phone adoption.
Table 3. Perceived Incentives for Cell Phone Adoption
# Incentives for First Second Third
Cell Phone Adoption N = 334 N = 327 N = 271
1 Easy to make calls to
anybody any time
3% 3% 1%
2 For expanding business 25% 28% 17%
3 To maintain social contact
with family, relatives,
friends, and neighbors
55% 51% 62%
4 To seek out help in
emergency situations
17% 17% 19%
5 Entertainment 0% 1% 1%
5. CONCLUSION
The lack of cell phone ownership among female slum-dwellers
was largely based on unfavorable socioeconomic and financial
conditions and not driven by choice as is the case with laggards.
Poor female slum-dwellers are the victims of socioeconomic
conditions in rural and urban India, discouraging them from
adopting cell phones. Table 4 lists the differences between three
key characteristics of laggards identified by the diffusion of
innovation theory and the current study findings.
Table 4. Differences in Theory and Study Findings
# Theoretical Views
for Laggards
1 Laggards are
conservative
their outlook.
in
Current Study Findings
In the male-dominant Indian
society, business of selling services
and products forms the topmost
source of income for poor female
slum-dwellers. Respondents are
financially independent microentrepreneurs
with modern
205
2 Laggards are not
part of any social
network with very
limited exposure to
the outside world.
3 Laggards do not
believe in
innovations, hence
are suspicious of
innovations.
outlook.
Social networking with friends and
family members emerged as the
topmost incentive for slumdwellers
to adopt cell phones.
100% of respondents expressed
their confidence in the utility of
cell phones. They were not
suspicious about the value created
by adopting cell phones.
Findings based on responses from 334 poor laggards suggest
hypotheses for predicting cell phone adoption by the remaining
poor laggards in India, who do not own and use cell phones. The
hypotheses are as follows.
H1: Demographic variables (e.g., education, age, marital status,
family characteristics, and facilities at home) do not influence cell
phone adoption.
H2: Low or insufficient income is the main barrier for cell phone
adoption.
H3: Improvement in social status is the most evident perceived
consequence of cell phone adoption.
H4: Social networking is the major perceived incentive for cell
phone adoption. Hence, H4a: Respondents are more likely to
adopt cell phones, if they have family, friends, relatives, or
neighbors who own and use cell phones.
In addition, future research focusing on personal characteristics
and communication patterns of laggards without cell phone
ownership would equip us better for predicting cell phone
adoption by laggards in India.
Practical implications for cell phone manufacturers are as follows.
Cell phone features supporting the “business of selling services
and products” could increase the cell phone adoption by
microentrepreneurs in India. In addition, mobile applications
facilitating social networking with appropriate user interfaces
designed for illiterate and semi-literate cell phone users would be
an additional incentive for poor laggards to adopt cell phones.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to thank the University of Tennessee at Knoxville
for funding this study.
REFERENCES
[1] ITU. International Telecommunications Union
Retrieved from www.itu.int/ on December 21, 2011.
[2] Rogers, E. Diffusion of Innovations (4th ed.).
New York: Free Press. 1995.
[3] Sinha, C. Effect of Mobile Telephony on Empowering Rural
Communities in Developing Countries, Conference on Digital
Divide, Global Development and the Information Society
(Tunis, Tunisia, 2005), 2005.
[4] TRAI. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India
Retrieved from http://www.trai.gov.in/ on October 23, 2011.
[5] US Census Bureau. US Census Bureau’s Intl. Database,
Retrieved from http://www.census.gov on May 1, 2010.