Abstract:

The potential transformative role that information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play in accelerating global development has recently received much scientific and political interest. Drawing upon past research, this dissertation develops a unified theoretical model for understanding societal change, and thereafter puts forth an integrated investigative framework through which a collective understanding of the impacts of ICT investments in emerging societies can be achieved. This framework is then used to undergird three empirical investigations that longitudinally examine several of the economic, political, and cultural ramifications that occur in emerging societies as a result of investing in information and communication technologies.

Utilizing multilevel change models and data from fifty emerging societies spanning several years, the results of these investigations provide broad support for the notion that ICT investments can effect significant change in the developing world. In the first study, positive direct effects of past ICT investments on both foreign direct investment and institutionalized democracy are observed to exist. The current level of institutionalized democracy in emerging societies is also shown to partially mediate the positive impact of past ICT investments on current levels of foreign direct investment in those societies. The second study finds that an emerging society's ICT investment levels directly impact its future levels of institutionalized democracy and political corruption, which in turn directly impact the extent to which the society is accepting of the e-government paradigm In the third study, ICT investments are found to impact the future proportions of both administrative and managerial positions and professional and technical positions held by women in emerging societies, but not the extent to which women in those societies are able to exert control over economic resources. Together, these findings contribute to a cumulative research agenda, the results of which overwhelmingly support investing in information and communication technologies in emerging societies. Such investments can serve as a means of helping emerging societies to narrow the digital divide that separates the information rich from the information poor, therethrough allowing those societies to become increasingly self-sufficient while simultaneously allowing them to build a sustainable future for themselves.