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Carsten Fink and Charles J. Kenny
The “widening digital divide” has the status of fact in most discussions of the global distribution of information and communications technologies (ICTs), and that this divide is…
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The “widening digital divide” has the status of fact in most discussions of the global distribution of information and communications technologies (ICTs), and that this divide is a problem is widely accepted. This paper challenges both assumptions. First, looking at various measures of the digital divide, there is a divide in per‐capita access to ICTs but developing countries show faster rates of growth in network development than developed countries. Moreover, when employing a per‐income measure of access, developing countries already “digitally leapfrog” the developed world. Second, the paper examines the prediction that disparities in absolute access to ICTs between countries will lead to reduced development prospects in poor countries. Past experience has shown that it is very difficult to make predictions of this type. The paper concludes that we may be posing the wrong policy questions when focusing on a “digital divide” as it is commonly understood.
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Donnie DeFreitas, Charles Kenny and Robert Schware
Looks at a reform, supported by a World Bank loan for technical assistance and equipment, by five member countries of the Organisation of East Caribbean States that are undergoing…
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Looks at a reform, supported by a World Bank loan for technical assistance and equipment, by five member countries of the Organisation of East Caribbean States that are undergoing a unique experiment in telecommunications liberalization. Sums up that experience suggest this may be an awkward case to make, as there is mounting pressure to deregulate and open up telecommunications markets. Employs a table to emphasize service provider telephone rate reductions.
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Robert Kenny and Charles Kenny
Governments around the world are providing multi‐billion dollar subsidies to roll out fiber to the home (FTTH) to enable superfast broadband (50 Mbps and above). The premise for…
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Purpose
Governments around the world are providing multi‐billion dollar subsidies to roll out fiber to the home (FTTH) to enable superfast broadband (50 Mbps and above). The premise for this is a belief that superfast broadband brings substantial economic and societal benefits. This paper's purpose is to examine whether this belief is well founded.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors critically review the arguments most commonly made in favor of FTTH, examining their logic and underlying evidence.
Findings
The paper finds that these arguments often inappropriately use benefits of basic broadband to make the case for the upgrade to superfast broadband, or use the benefits of providing superfast to business premises to argue for providing superfast to homes. The authors find the evidence that basic broadband brings economic growth is patchy, and that frequently studies that argue for a link do not adequately distinguish between correlation and causation.
Originality/value
Thus the authors conclude that the conventional wisdom that FTTH will bring substantial economic and societal benefits and therefore deserves a subsidy is, at best, much overstated. The case has simply not been made that FTTH has sufficient incremental externalities over other forms of broadband. This is an important conclusion for politicians, policy makers, telecoms providers and taxpayers, and suggests that billions of dollars of public money may be being wasted.
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Le Grand gives an illustration of an employment situation which would generally be considered racist ‐ (Amanda and Catherine are equally talented and hard‐working employees. The…
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Le Grand gives an illustration of an employment situation which would generally be considered racist ‐ (Amanda and Catherine are equally talented and hard‐working employees. The former is white and better paid than her black colleague) ‐ and gives an analysis of the ethics of the situation in terms of his theory of equity. I shall discuss his analysis and his theory of equity. Is the situation inequitable? If it is, is it ‘inequitable’ for the reason that Le Grand puts forward as constituting the essence of ‘inequity’?
The emergence of strengths-based management may be the management innovation of our time. Nearly every organization has been introduced to its precepts – for example, the insight…
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The emergence of strengths-based management may be the management innovation of our time. Nearly every organization has been introduced to its precepts – for example, the insight that a person or organization will excel only by amplifying strengths, never by simply fixing weaknesses. But in spite of impressive returns, organizations and managers have almost all stopped short of the breakthroughs that are possible. With micro tools largely in place, the future of strengths management is moving increasingly to the macro-management level, as witnessed in the rapid and far-reaching use of large group methods such as the Appreciative Inquiry Summit and its next generation design-thinking summit. Macro means whole and, by definition, unites many improbable opposites – for example, it embraces top down and bottom up simultaneously. It is a prime time source of organizational generativity. But the rules of macro-management are different than any other kind, most certainly micro-management. A decade of research and successful prototyping with single organizations, regions and cities, extended enterprises, industries, and UN-level world summits reveals five “X” factors – a specific set of mutually reinforcing elements of success and organizational generativity – and provides a clear set of guidelines for when and how you can deploy the “whole system in the room” design summit to bring out the best in system collaboration. By analyzing the performance and impacts of six case studies of the “whole system in the room” Appreciative Inquiry design summit, this chapter provides a bird’s eye view of the opportunities, challenges, and exciting new vistas opening up in this the collaborative age – a time when systemic action and macro-management skill are the primary leverage points for game-changing innovation, scalable solutions, and generative organizing. The chapter concludes with a call for more research into the stages of large group dynamics and advances a metaphor from the leadership literature – the spark, the flame, and the torch – to give imagery to the “positive contagion” and “the concentration effect of strengths” that happens during an Appreciative Inquiry Summit where 100s and sometimes 1000s come together interactively and collaboratively to design the future.
SEPTEMBER this year will be unique in the history of the librarian in England in that for the first time in nearly sixty years the annual conference of the Library Association has…
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SEPTEMBER this year will be unique in the history of the librarian in England in that for the first time in nearly sixty years the annual conference of the Library Association has already become a memory only. There are those who profess to believe that the conference should be restored to the autumn months. It may be suggested on the other hand that the attendance at Margate lent no assistance to that point of view; indeed, the Margate conference was one of the most pleasant, one of the most successful, of which we have record. Nevertheless, if it can be proved that any large body of librarians was unable to be present owing to the change of month, it appears to us that the matter should be considered sympathetically. Although no one holds any longer the view that one week's attendance at a conference will teach more than many months' study in hermit‐like seclusion—the words and sentiments are those of James Duff Brown—because to‐day there is much more intimate communication between librarians than there was when that sentiment was expressed, there is enormous value, and the adjective is not an exaggeration, in one large meeting of librarians in body in the year. It is an event to which every young librarian looks forward as the privilege to be his when he reaches a high enough position in the service; attendance is a privilege that no librarian anywhere would forego. And this, in spite of the fact that there is usually a grumble because the day is so full of meetings that there is very little chance of such recreation as a seaside, or indeed any other, place visited, usually provides for the delegates.