The effect of information communication technologies utilization on profitability was examined among 120 catfish farmers drawn through a multistage sampling procedure. Data were elicited with the aid ...of a structured questionnaire, analysed using percentages, budgetary technique and multiple regression model. Agricultural media information sources utilized by the farmers include mobile phone (79.2%), television (76.7%) and radio (68.3%). The result revealed that ₦592,448.90 was expended as cost per annum on fish production with ₦970,700.54 as revenue and a gross margin of ₦438,880.28 among ICT users while for non-ICT users ₦652,067.47, ₦1,026,428.66 and ₦427,337.41 were obtained as total cost, revenue and gross margin respectively. A value of 0.64 realized on the investment among ICT users implies that for every ₦1 invested in catfish farming, ₦1.64 is gotten as returns, leaving a profit of ₦0.64 while a profit of ₦0.57 is realized among non-ICT users. The factors that determine the profitability of catfish farming include household size (10%), input cost (1%) and television usage (5%) as agricultural media information source. Catfish farmers who utilized ICT have a higher profit level than non-users. Efforts and policies that will promote the farmers’ timely availability and accessibility of agricultural information, particularly through television is recommended
The current era of industrial development and innovation is revolutionized using the internet, robotics, and artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, the appraisal of global economic progress shows ...increasing trends, there are environmental degradation issues associated with this improvement. The role of renewable energy, urbanization and foreign direct investment received a lot of attention in the literature on environmental issues, however, the simultaneity with information communication technology is missing. Therefore, the present study used data from 10 emerging countries during 1996–2015 and applied the novel Method of Moments Quantile Regression to analyze the nexus among the variables. Further, we applied the second-generation unit root test, and Driscoll Kraay standard errors to reach robust results. The findings revealed an inverted U-shape relationship between economic growth and environmental degradation; thus, the validity of the Environmental Kuznets Curve is revealed. Moreover, foreign direct investment is significant and positive at 0.05th-0.50th quantiles, however, it becomes insignificant at higher quantile levels. Urbanization enhances while renewable energy mitigates carbon dioxide emissions at all quantile levels. Information communication technology proxied by internet usage reduces environmental degradation significantly at 0.25th-0.95th quantile levels. Results of the study suggest insights for the policymakers to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions through encouraging renewable energy and internet use.
The adoption of information and communication technology (ICT) applications for the development of innovative, sustainable, and smart cities has become a new model for municipal cooperation between ...government and corporations. Smart cities contribute to social stability and economic prosperity by encouraging and enabling corporations to invest their resources and expertise in the cities, and by providing more prosperity and contentment for their citizens. Smart city services provide citizens with an improved living environment and increase their overall quality of life. Since the citizens are the users of the services, it is vitally important that their ideas and perspectives are taken into account during the planning and management of such services. This study surveyed citizens in Taiwanese cities that had all participated in the Intelligent Community Forum smart city campaigns at least once. The findings reveal that citizens are willing to accept and use ICT-based smart city services if the services are designed with innovative concepts that secure their privacy and offer a high quality of services. The more they use the services, the higher the quality of life achieved. The only factor that does not influence citizens' acceptance and usage of ICT-based smart city services is their city engagement. The study contributes to the academic literature and also provides practical pointers for cities and technology suppliers embarking on smart city initiatives.
•ICT-based smart city services increase citizens overall quality of life.•The more usage of the ICT-based smart city services, the higher the quality of life achieved.•Citizens' accepting and using ICT-based smart city services can be influenced by their social groups.•ICT-based smart city service should focus on service quality, innovation concepts, and the protection of users' privacy.
•A distinctive dichotomous pattern of ICT use among older adults emerged.•Older adults’ main ICT activities involved family/social communication and accessing information.•Age, education, attitudes, ...and socio-personal characteristics were associated with ICT use.•Older adults 65–70 with higher education and/or living with a spouse were more likely to use ICT.•Older adults, who adopt ICT, valued their ICT activities as important in their lives.
This study is part of a research project that examines patterns of information communication technology (ICT) use, social participation, and health of older adults (age 65+) residing in the New England region. Specifically, we surveyed the breadth of ICT use, technology experiences, and socio-personal characteristics of 198 older adults and analyzed the dispositional correlates of ICT adoption. Results showed that majority of participants used ICT to maintain family and social connections and to access information on health and routine activities. Those aged 65–70 with higher education and/or living with a spouse/partner were more likely to use ICT. Key relationships between ICT use and perspectives on technology were found. Higher ICT use was associated with self-perceived socio-personal characteristics such as being “satisfied with activities”, “persevering”, “physically and emotionally independent” and having a “positive outlook”. Whereas, the majority of non-users reported that their activities did not change across time and that they felt “intimidated” and “anxious” with technology. The performance of ICT-based activities and/or the desire to perform them were significantly associated with the perceived importance of the activities. The older population’s age, education, attitudes, and personalities influence how they approach ICT. We propose a community-centered socio-ecological model to factor in these dispositional characteristics in future ICT training programs.
Prior research has shown that work-related ICT-use outside work hours is generally related with more work-to-home conflict, but that this effect can be mitigated or even reversed when people have an ...integration preference. In this study, we posit that the moderating role of integration preference in itself depends on the work environment because the context can alter people's sense of control and autonomy and may therefore affect the influence of a preference-behavior alignment. To test this, we examine three-way interactions between two types of work-related ICT-use outside work hours (i.e., smartphone use and PC/laptop use), integration preference and two characteristics of the work environment (i.e., organizational integration norms and work demands) on time- and strain-based work-to-home conflict. Analyses are performed on a survey sample of 467 working parents in Belgium. Findings indicate that only work-related PC/laptop use – and not smartphone use – outside work hours is positively related to work-to-home conflict. This effect is buffered for people who have a preference to integrate work and personal life, but only when their work environment is characterized by low organizational integration norms and/or low work demands. This indicates that for employees with integration preferences, work-related ICT-use outside work hours may not complicate – and could even facilitate – finding work-home compatibility; yet, this effect depends on organizational factors as well. The results of this study may help organizations to better understand the impact of expectations regarding staying connected to work while being at home.
•We argue to study the effect of work-related ICT-use outside work hours ‘in situ’.•We focus on the role of integration preferences, integration norms and work demands.•Work-related PC/laptop use outside work hours relates with work-to-home conflict.•The effect depends on the interaction between individual and organizational factors.•No effects of work-related smartphone use outside work hours are found.
Background There is an inadequate number of radiologists in Ghana whose distribution are skewed in favour of urban areas, creating a huge service gap with the few radiologists overburdened with work. ...The only way to bridge this service gap while increasing numbers of radiologists by training is from the application of information communication technology (ICT), hence this study. Methods This was a cross-sectional questionnaire administered study conducted between 16th - 18th May 2019 during the annual general meeting of the Ghana Association of Radiologists involving 46 consented radiologists. The questionnaire investigated the available ICT tools, imaging modalities, the degree of usage and impacts of ICT on radiologists work output. Results The most available modalities were digital. 13.0% had teleradiology available, but 32.6% were familiar with it. All radiologists indicated improvement in work output with ICT. The time taken to report a case reduced from 1-2 hours to 10-30 minutes with ICT. Majority did not communicate professional issues via e-mails. 95.7%, 13.0% and 10.9% of radiologists used WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter respectively to communicate radiological information. Online research provided significant information for their radiological reporting. Conclusion The topmost four imaging modalities readily available were Digital Ultrasound, Digital Radiography, Computed Tomography scan and Magnetic Resonance Imaging. The availability of and familiarity with teleradiology was low in radiological practices. The reporting time per case and work output of radiologists were improved with ICT. The two most common social media platforms used by radiologists were WhatsApp and Facebook.
This article reports the results of a 33-wave longitudinal study of changes in, and reciprocal relations between, workplace digitalization and workload. Monthly data were collected between April 2020 ...and December 2022 from n = 1661 employees in Germany. Based on theoretical models of workplace information and communication technology use, stress, and coping, we hypothesized both positive and negative within-person effects of digitalization on workload, and vice versa. Results of an autoregressive latent trajectory model with structured residuals (ALT-SR) showed on-average positive linear trajectories in digitalization, but not in workload over time. Moreover, higher digitalization was associated with subsequently higher levels of workload, and vice versa. This pattern of results suggests a dynamic, reciprocal process wherein positive deviations from one's average trajectory of digitalization (workload) are associated with subsequently higher levels of workload (digitalization). We additionally find evidence for linear trends in these within-person processes, suggesting that the strength of the within-person effects of digitalization on workload, and of workload on digitalization, becomes more strongly positive over time. Practitioners developing work design interventions could focus on ways to reduce the detrimental impact of digitalization on increased workload, while simultaneously encouraging the potential of digitalization to help employees cope effectively with their workload.
This study investigates the relationship between digital financial inclusion, external financing, and the innovation performance of high-tech enterprises in China. The choice of corporate financing ...methods is an important part of organizational behavioral psychology, and different financing models will have a certain effect on organizational performance, especially in the digital economy environment. Therefore, based on resource dependence theory and financing constraint theory, the present study utilizes the panel data collected from the China Stock Market & Accounting Research (CSMAR) database from 2011 to 2020 of 112 companies in the Yangtze River Delta region and the "The Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index of China (PKU-DFIIC)" released by the Peking University Digital Finance Research Center and Ant Financial Group. The results show that the Digital Financial Inclusion Index (DFIIC) has a significant positive correlation with the innovation performance of high-tech enterprises. The higher the level of debt financing, the stronger the role of digital financial inclusion in promoting innovation performance. Investigating the DFIIC in terms of coverage breadth and usage depth, we find that usage depth does not significantly encourage innovation performance. The effect of the interaction between coverage breadth and external financing is consistent with the results for the DFIIC. The study suggests that equity financing promotes the usage depth of the DFIIC in state-owned enterprises. In contrast, debt financing promotes the coverage breadth of non-state-owned enterprises. Finally, we propose relevant policy recommendations based on the research results. It includes in-depth popularization of inclusive finance in the daily operations of enterprises at the technical level, refinement of external financing policy incentives for enterprises based on the characteristics of ownership, and strengthening the research of technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud computing. The paper presents a range of theoretical and practical implications for practitioners and academics relevant to high-tech enterprises.
We implement a platform to crowdsource information about service provision quality and prices charged and reveal this information to consumers in a market – artificial insemination of livestock in ...Punjab, Pakistan – where individual signals of quality are noisy. We measure the impact of this information revelation using a randomized controlled trial. Farmers receiving information enjoy 25% higher insemination success and no higher prices than controls. These effects are due to existing veterinarians increasing effort, rather than farmers switching to possibly higher-quality providers. These results illustrate the viability of information clearinghouses successfully aggregating information in low-capacity markets. They also suggest the importance of doing so by implying large welfare benefits from our low-cost information intervention.
•Public and private extension organisations use new-ICTs to augment service delivery and facilitate aspects of innovation-intermediation.•Efforts to support innovation-intermediation used ...decentralised data collection, monitoring and enhanced connectivity.•The potential of new-ICTs to support innovation-intermediation roles is far from realised.•Conventional communication media remain appropriate for extension service delivery and innovation-intermediation.•Self-organised social media platforms may enhance interaction in innovations systems to achieve collective goals.
Agricultural extension in sub-Saharan Africa has often been criticised for its focus on linear knowledge transfer, and limited attention to systemic approaches to service delivery. Currently, the region is experiencing a new-ICT revolution and there are high expectations of new-ICTs to enhance interaction and information exchange in extension service delivery. Using an innovation systems perspective, we distinguish the roles demand-articulation, matching demand and supply, and innovation process management for innovation-intermediaries. The study explores literature on how new-ICT may support these roles, with specific interest in the possibilities of environmental monitoring and new forms of organisation enabled by enhanced connectivity. In order to contribute to the understanding of this area, the paper reports on a comparative study of two new-ICT platforms embedded in Ghanaian public and private extension organisations respectively. We assess the roles that these platforms (aim to) support, and document achievements and constraints based on interviews with extension staff and farmers. The findings indicate that while both platforms aim to support innovation-intermediation roles the focus areas and level of detail differ due to diverging organisational rationales to service delivery. In addition, we see that new-ICTs' potential to support innovation-intermediation roles is far from realised. This is not due to (new) ICTs lacking the capacity to link people in new ways and make information accessible, but due to the wider social, organisational and institutional factors that define the realisation of their potential. Therefore, more conventional modes of interaction around production advice and also credit provision continue to be dominant and better adapted to the situation. However, beyond the two platforms that were developed specifically by and for the extension organisations, there were indications that more informal and self-organised new-ICT initiatives can transform and enhance interaction patterns in innovations systems to achieve collective goals through standard virtual platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram.
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