The article contextualizes the telecenter movement and creating the euphoria resulted from the need to ensure access to ICTs which had its highest point around the year 2000, when most telecenter movements started. Still, the author states that telecenters still lack a theoretical approach, and then propose the use of stakeholder theory to better understand their mechanisms.
The article points 3 key issues regarding telecenter development: sustainability, impact and best practices. The author says that stakeholder theory can provide important insights in all three areas, since it allows the mapping of actors which are involved and influence the continuation of the projects. Also, “one must first identify who is impacted before one can ask what the impact has been”. He says that once stakeholders are identified and understood, two potential benefits will flow: First, in research terms, telecenter projects themselves will be better understood in terms of issues such as sustainability, impact and best practice. Second, in practical terms, stakeholder analysis and management would form part of best practice that could offer greater chance of long-term sustainability”.
The paper provide tables of examples of which could be stakeholders in the case of telecenters and explain the theory and why the stakeholders should be considered for the sustainability of the project. He lists 3 kinds of approaches: Descriptive, normative and instrumental. Also, he explains different strategies in mapping stakeholders: Internal and external, primary and secondary, or in a matrix of importance and influence, which differentiates those stakeholders which are more impacted by a project and those that have more power over the decisions. The author argues that, ideally, stakeholder identification and engagement should be an iterative process and could be done in different ways such as Informing, Consulting, Partnership and Control. He uses a case study to illustrate how this framework would apply in the case of a telecentre and says there are two ways it could be used: as a best practice template, and the practices of a project can be compared against, or as a research tool, to understand the basis of stakeholders behaviours and the way they are managed. The article finishes offering the barriers for using stakeholder theory in ICT4D projects, which is that it involves the premise of honesty, transparency and flexibility, and this is usually not the case in this type of project.
Bailur, S., 2007. Using Stakeholder Theory to Analyze Telecenter Projects. Information Technologies and International Development, 3(3), 61-80.
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