Breadth and depth: The impact of ICT adoption on outreach capabilities of microfinance institutions

David Michael Weber, Uday Kulkarni, Frederick J. Riggins

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

A decade ago, the microfinance industry prided itself on its trends toward financial and operational sustainability. Recently, investors, donors, lenders, regulators, and microfinance institutions have been more concerned with social and outreach performance. Transactions cost and distance theories inform a new ICT-enabled microfinance institution (MFI) outreach theory positing that information and communication technology (ICT) adoption among MFIs will result in direct improvements to MFI operations and a greater capacity for poverty and geographic outreach. These propositions are modeled using a case study methodology with primary research materials collected from 14 microfinance institutions in 8 countries. Using a pattern-matching mode of analysis, we find that different ICTs impact two types of outreach: geographic and poverty. Policy, database, and software-related ICT adoption activities impact poverty outreach due to their support of flexibility and information. Infrastructure, networking, hardware, and telephony ICT adoption activities impact geographic outreach since these areas support connectivity.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publication18th Americas Conference on Information Systems 2012, AMCIS 2012
PublisherAIS/ICIS Administrative Office
Pages1211-1223
Number of pages13
ISBN (Print)9781622768271
StatePublished - Jan 1 2012
Event18th Americas Conference on Information Systems 2012, AMCIS 2012 - Seattle, WA, United States
Duration: Aug 9 2012Aug 12 2012

Publication series

Name18th Americas Conference on Information Systems 2012, AMCIS 2012
Volume2

Other

Other18th Americas Conference on Information Systems 2012, AMCIS 2012
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySeattle, WA
Period8/9/128/12/12

Keywords

  • Development
  • Global
  • ICT adoption
  • International
  • MFI
  • Microfinance

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Information Systems
  • Library and Information Sciences

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