Structurational explication of technology adoption In ICT4D: a throwback to Giddens: A throwback to giddens

Adoption of ICT for development (ICT4D) has received much political attention particularly after being linked to the Millennium Development Goals. It has also received corporate attention with several bottom-of-the pyramid initiatives by corporates. It has consequently been of high research interest in the Information Systems (IS) management field. In turn, research in the IS field has taken various theoretical perspectives to explicate the process of ICT introduction and adoption aimed at economic development in underprivileged communities (cf. Avgerou, 2008; Heeks, 2008). A theoretical perspective prominently embraced by this research stream is Anthony Giddens' social theory of structuration (Giddens, 1976, 1979, 1982, 1984). In this engagement, IS research has not only embraced but also modified Giddens' theory of structuration, deploying it to understand how technology evolved in the hands of the user (Donner, 2007; Orlikowski, 1992, 2000), resulting in the propounding of Adaptive Structuration Theory (AST) (DeSanctis and Poole, 1994). Perhaps the choice of structuration theory to understand development processes is apt since development of a community is to a large extent social in nature, that is, social interaction forms the cornerstone and the platform on which community development plays out.