No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.) --Murdoch University, 2004. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Includes bibliographical references (p.330-332).

South Africa’s rural communities have received Information and Communication Technologies services through initiatives such as tele-centres, living labs, Thusong service centres and donations of computer applications. There is need, with little plans in place to ensure that the rural communities will benefit from those initiatives. As a result of this, it is necessary to establish a framework for implementing Information and Communication Technologies for development initiatives in order to ensure successful implementation of these initiatives in rural communities. Literature shows that in order to successfully implement an ICT initiative for rural communities, there should be active engagement with ICT stakeholders, consultation of Information and Communication Technologies policies, presence of ICT infrastructure, ICT services, monitoring, evaluating, training and maintenance. Current literature on ICT developments shows that in order to successfully implement an ICT initiative for rural communities, there should be active engagement with ICT stakeholders, consultation of ICT policies, and presence of ICT infrastructure, ICT services, monitoring, evaluating, training and maintenance. Unstructured interviews were used as a research method to collect primary data that was used as a basis to develop the proposed framework. Findings from the studies carried out indicated that several ICT4D initiatives which were abandoned due to challenges such lack of proper resources, trainings, lack of local content, access, lack of ownership and lack of stakeholders’ involvement. This study presents a framework for implementing ICT for development initiatives in rural communities which has been developed in order to reduce the number of initiatives that are abandoned or which end up not serving their intended purpose in rural communities of South Africa.

Much has been written and theorized concerning the emergence of technologically dynamic industrial regions. These regions are characterized by the spatial clustering of small and medium-sized firms into flexible production networks. Economic growth models speak to the virtues of spatially concentrated, inter-linked firms and their ability to quickly respond to changing global market demands. According to these models, emerging industrial clusters and expansive competitive strategies emanate from the collaboration among firms within a region where cooperative yet competitive inter-firm relations create the ability to exploit certain "competitive advantages" in an uncertain global economy. Empirical case studies of industrial clusters in the United States have included the center of semiconductor production in the Silicon Valley of California and the concentration of mini-computer producers along the Route 128 Corridor in Massachusetts. These so-called "core clusters" have received the greatest attention due to their technological dynamism and global competitiveness. Home-based core clusters also hold an attraction because they offer the potential for comparative case studies with technologically dynamic clusters within other industrialized nations. Attempts to compare and emulate industrial development patterns in more celebrated geographic regions has limited scholarly research to more advanced industrial sectors of the economy. Mature industrial sectors have received far less attention, despite their growing vitality and contribution to the economic base of their respective regions. The empirical case study of the plastics industry of North Central Massachusetts uncovered a unique industrial cluster with a distinct spatial pattern and organization of production. The case study and contextual analysis offer a formative perspective on a reemerging industrial region that helped to explain the correlation between the spatial concentration of firms and the local production network. The conclusions provide a wider and more varied explanation of regional industrial development, and a meaningful framework for the formulation of appropriate reindustrialization policies and strategies. This has clear implications for industrial planning and development practice. Appropriate and successful economic development planning will need to rely more on grounded interpretive research, require greater local capacity building, and consider the development of more formalized networks of institutional support.

Thesis (M. Soc. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1984.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1984. / Also available in print.