Understanding the Cultural Roots of India's Technology Development from Homi Bhabha's Post-Colonial Perspective

This chapter introduces Homi K. Bhabha’s post-colonial social theory of interstitial perspective and then discusses the application or overlay of the constructs that emanate from that to the roots of India’s technology and (subsequent) IT development and its complementary effect in shaping Indian Information Systems professionals. The chapter spotlights various events and persona in India’s history, including the current crop of IT professionals emerging from the subcontinent. It then overlays Homi Bhabha’s constructs to verify that the constructs do, indeed, apply to India’s developments in the IT arena. The chapter thus aims to offer a cultural and social-theory viewpoint with philosophical underpinnings to explain the roots and current happenings in the field of IT in India.

Developing Electronic Content for the Support of the European Cultural Inclusion

Various European initiatives and appropriate policies have been deployed (and are still in progress) to promote the creation and the distribution of new forms of electronically available content, aiming to support the “European cultural inclusion,” which constitutes a high-priority societal issue. The present works investigates diverse potential opportunities for realizing and offering innovative services, applications, and/or related facilities in the market through the proper use of modern electronic communications, especially for the promotion of cultural and social targets. Such options implicate vigorous participation both of state authorities and market industry players to launch dynamic business partnerships in parallel with efforts to improve quality of life and social cohesion in order to forward new ways of participating in society and to advance the European diversity and rich cultural heritage.

Information-Communications Systems Convergence Paradigm

This chapter is on cultural aspects of information-communications systems embedded into new media environment and invisible e-technologies, and on a new age of social responsibility for information technology professionals. Besides the key issues in information technology development that create smart environment and ambient intelligence, the chapter also discusses digital e-culture and the new media role in cultural heritage. From the viewpoint of information technology, the current information-communications systems converge with media. This convergence is about tools-services-content triangle. Thus, we are confronted with a new form of media mostly presented with the term digital, reshaping not only media industry but also a cultural milieu of an entire nation on a regional and global basis. The discussion follows on the World Library idea that is rebuilding with new form of World Memory (World Brain), the shift from visible culture domination to the domination of invisible culture in the world of e-technologies predominance. From this scenario, information technology professionals coping with information systems projects, e-services development, and e-content design have more cultural responsibility than in the past when they worked within closer and inner cultural horizons and when their misuse of technologies had no influence on culture as a whole.

A Model for Selecting Techniques in Distributed Requirement Elicitation Processes

This chapter introduces a model based on techniques from cognitive psychology as a means to improve the requirement elicitation in global software development projects. Since distance negatively affects communication and control, distributed development processes that are crucially based on communication, such as requirements elicitation, have to be specially rethought in order to minimize critical situations. This chapter proposes reducing problems in communication by selecting a suite of appropriate elicitation techniques and groupware tools according to stakeholders’ cognitive styles. It also shows how information about stakeholders’ personalities can be used to make them feel comfortable and to improve their performances when working in a group.

Information Technology Acceptance across Cultures

This chapter introduces national culture as a possible factor accounting for the differences in information technology adoption and use between countries. Based upon culture theory and the technology acceptance model (TAM), the author offers a conceptual model aiming at better understanding IT acceptance across countries of different cultures. It has been argued that six value dimensions—individualism/collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity, high/low context, and polychronism/monochronism—act as moderators of the TAM relationships. Furthermore, the author aims at helping IT designers and IT managers all over the world to understand why certain national cultural values may be congruent or not with the IT to be designed or implemented.

Organizational Time Culture and Electronic Media

This chapter explains the electronic media diffusion process within organizations and provides a guideline to implement electronic media within organizations. The concept of Hall’s (1976) time dimension culture, monochronic and polychronic, and two dimensions of media speed, production and interaction speed, are used to explain the media diffusion process within organizations. It suggests that the diffusion process and expected benefit of electronic media are significantly different, depending on national culture, organizational culture, and the characteristics of that medium. Therefore, careful examination and understanding of organizational time culture and the characteristics of media should be ahead of making a decision on electronic media adoption and implementation.

Information and Knowledge Management for Innovation of Complex Technologies

This chapter investigates the role of information and knowledge management in innovation of complex technologies. A conceptual framework for three patterns of technological innovation (normal, transitional, and transformational) is presented, and the process of information and knowledge management in accessing and using knowledge is analyzed. Particularly, emphasis is put on the cultural impact on the information and knowledge management processes. Five case studies of evolving technologies carried out in the United States, Japan, Germany, India, and China are used to elaborate the conceptual framework and key points presented in this chapter. Lessons for managers and public policymakers concerned with facilitating the innovation of technologies are discussed.

Challenges in Building a Culture-Centric Web Site

This chapter discusses the challenges in constructing a culture-centric Web site. The Internet has expanded business opportunities into global marketplaces that were virtually unreachable in the past. With business Web sites reaching international audiences, cultural differences are an important issue in interface design. Global Web sites must be culture-centric, taking into account the attitude, technology, language, communication, sensibility, symbolism, and interface usability of targeted communities. Site design and development also should follow the Unicode standard for multilingual support with implementation done on UTF-8-enabled operating systems and applications. Globalization has led many people to become more sensitive to cultural diversity. The author hopes that understanding and awareness of international user needs, limitations, and expectations will lead to global Web sites with improved usability and sensitivity.

The Role of Information and Communication Technology in Managing Cultural Diversity in the Modern Workforce

This chapter demonstrates how managers can use information and communication technology (ICT) more effectively in culturally diverse workforces. Basing our analysis on the cultural dimensions of Hofstede and Hall, we compare a range of ICTs and provide a chart summarizing their strengths and weaknesses. In addition, a framework for developing ICT is proposed, and an example of its application to a global organization is presented. The study shows that none of the existing ICT tools is perfect in all situations and all cultural contexts. Therefore, managers need to provide a variety of ICTs to their employees, and developers should build flexibility into their ICT designs.

Dialogue Act Modeling

Web-based information systems (WBIS) aim to support e-business using IT, the World Wide Web, and the Internet. This chapter focuses on the Web site part of WBIS and argues why an easy-to-use and interactive Web site is critical to the success of WBIS. A dialogue act modeling approach is presented for capturing and specifying user needs for easy-to-use Web site of WBIS by WBIS analysis; for example, what users want to see on the computer screen and in which way they want to work with the system interactively. It calls such needs communicational requirements, in addition to functional and nonfunctional requirements, and builds a dialogue act model to specify them. The author hopes that development of the Web site of WBIS will be considered not only an issue in WBIS design but also an issue in WBIS analysis in WBIS development.