Cultural Factors, Technology, and Operations in Developing Countries: Two Case Studies

The development of information technology and operations strategy has been widely recognized as an important potential source of wealth building and social beneˆt in developing countries (Negroponte 1998). The potential to reach and enrich the poorest of the poor is a laudable goal, and one that the operations and information technology communities are seeing as an increasingly important element of their ˆelds. Bridging the digital divide, for example, and advancing from exploitative craft production are merely small examples of the potential impact (Center for Ethics of Science and Technology 2009; Scrase 2003).