Announcements

Volume 40 of EJISDC has six articles and a book review.

In the first paper, Al-Ghaith, Sanzogni and Sandhu report on a survey (n=651) of the adoption and usage of e-services in Saudi Arabia. They note that Perceived Complexity was found to be the most significant factor, followed in turn by Privacy and Compatibility.

In the second paper, Berisso and de Vries explore the adoption of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in the municipal utility sector in Ethiopia. The authors find that GIS was adopted especially when it served strategic purposes, such as structural adjustments to maintain organizational control. Furthermore, GIS adoption did not necessarily cause changes in power structures and communication lines.

In the third paper, Grimshaw and Gudza explore ways in which an uneven balance of power in local contexts (with specific reference to a podcasting project in Zimbabwe) may be managed via the use of local voices producing local content in a way which respects local choices and where the intervention is shown to enhance livelihoods.

In the fourth paper, Vodanovich, Urquhart and Shakir report on an interview-based study of women who work in the ICT sector in the United Arab Emirates. Five major themes from the research are discussed viz.: Westernization, IT as Modernity, Education, Government Initiatives, and Gender Perspective. They then continue to develop a preliminary framework for research in the area.

In the fifth paper, Alampay and Hechanova examine the practices of 112 Philippine organizations across a range of industries in monitoring employee use of the Internet. While most organisations do monitor employee use of the Internet, less than half have an Internet use policy. Implications for both policy development and employee education are discussed.

In the sixth paper, Miller and Khera examine some of the features that inform user acceptance of a digital library system implementation at agricultural universities in Kenya and Peru. Notably, they found that application of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to IT implementation in developing countries must be guided more by the specificities of local circumstances than by the performance of TAM in highly-developed countries.

Finally, we conclude this volume with a book review. Westrup reviews the recently published “E-governance for Development: A Focus on Rural India”, by Shirin Madon.