Institutions matter: micro-level
determinants of eParticipation
adoption in local government
by
Rony Medaglia
Center for Applied ICT
Copenhagen Business School
Judith Molka-Danielsen
Discussant at SWEG 2009
Look at cross-cultural differences, even
though you cannot use Hofstede scores.
1.
Jarvenpaa, S.L., and D.E. Leidner, "An information
company in Mexico: Extending the resource-based
view of the firm to a developing country context,"
Information Systems Research, 1998, 9:4, pp. 342361.
Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1998) examine how one local firm
in Mexico competes in an information (newspaper)
industry against foreign competitors in an open local
market. Noted within this article is the Mexican
culture runs counter to the acceptance of the
information industry.
(They mention relevant dimensions as collectivism and uncertainty avoidance.
Hofstede (1980) assigns Mexico score 70 on collectivism, and 82 on uncertainty.
He assigns US score 9 on collectivism, and 46 on uncertainty. “As a collectivist
(also called high context) culture (Hall 1976, Hofstede 1980))
Mexicans tend to develop extensive personal and
professional networks which consequently reduce
the need for detailed objective background
information when decisions are made.” (p.346)
The authors continue to say that Mexicans are not
comfortable accepting information from sources
that are not personally known. In other words,
sources like government forecasts are not trusted.
As high in uncertainty avoidance, Mexicans prefer
structure, clear rules, and standard operating
procedures, prefer short term plans, orientation
towards the past and restricted information sharing
(as information sharing is a “threat”). According to a
resource based view of the company, the core
capabilities of firm are managerial foresight,
trustworthiness, and strategic flexibility. Local
managers are able to effect change (make use of
core capabilities) in operations because they honor
the cultural and institutional traditions.