Design for empowerment : Empowering Sri Lankan farmers through mobile-based information system

Journal article


Ginige, Tamara, Richards, Deborah, Ginige, Athula and Hitchens, Michael. (2020). Design for empowerment : Empowering Sri Lankan farmers through mobile-based information system. Communications of the Association for Information Systems. 46, pp. 444-483. https://doi.org/10.17705/1CAIS.04619
AuthorsGinige, Tamara, Richards, Deborah, Ginige, Athula and Hitchens, Michael
Abstract

We developed a mobile-based information system (MBIS) to empower users to improve their livelihood activities. To do so, we first developed an empowerment framework (since one does not exist) as a basis to develop the MBIS. In particular, we conducted this research to solve an agriculture over-production problem in Sri Lanka where farmers remain trapped in a poverty cycle. They cannot make informed decisions due to lack of access to timely, context-based actionable information to achieve a good revenue. We had to generate some essential information such as current production level in real-time by capturing farmers’ decisions such as what and how much to grow. For this purpose, we needed to empower farmers to actively engage them in informed decision-making process through the MBIS. In evaluating the impact of the MBIS, we found a statistically significant positive change in farmers’ empowerment levels based on measuring self-efficacy, sense of control, and motivation before and after they used the application. Commercial organizations have since adopted this mobile-based system in India and Sri Lanka to solve agricultural problems, in universities Africa to mitigate hidden hunger, and the Corporative Research Center in Australia to develop digital health applications to manage chronic diseases, which indicates the approach’s wide adoptability.

Keywordsempowerment framework; mobile-based information systems; design science Research; Sri Lankan farmers; empowerment processes
Year2020
JournalCommunications of the Association for Information Systems
Journal citation46, pp. 444-483
PublisherAssociation for Information Systems
ISSN1529-3181
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.17705/1CAIS.04619
Scopus EID2-s2.0-85089337185
Research or scholarlyResearch
Page range444-483
Publisher's version
License
All rights reserved
File Access Level
Controlled
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online09 Apr 2020
Publication process dates
Deposited30 Jun 2021
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