Mobile Phone Adoption in Rural Ghana: Understanding How Technologies and Platforms Influence Farming Business Activities
type: CreativeWork
description: Mobile phone technology and related platforms play an important role in developing economies, helping to bridge the gap between rural areas and cities. They are also used to support business activities, manage family relationships, and provide instructions and educational material for high school children. The technology is particularly important in rural Africa because many of these areas lack telecommunication landlines and infrastructure facilities, and therefore rely on the mobile technology to connect with the outside world. For developing economies like Ghana, which depend significantly on agricultural businesses in the rural areas, the freedom offered by mobile technology allows these businesses to connect with customers and suppliers in the cities and across the country. Farming small business entrepreneurships (FSBEs), upon which the study focuses, which are hard-to-reach for research purposes – are making increasing use of mobile phone technology. However, little extant literature addresses how these farmers adopt the mobile phone technology, how it influences their farming businesses and behaviour, the skills and knowledge they acquire in learning to use the technology, and how they integrate these into the farming businesses. This study aims to fill the knowledge gap by understanding why the farmers adopt the technology, how they learn to use it, and how the technology influence farming business activities. At the theoretical level, the study draws on the Resource-Based View, Kolb’s Experiential Learning (ExL) cycle, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Boundary Object theory. At the empirical level, it draws on two farming groups in the Kwahu district – a remote area of rural Ghana. For the study, 24 farmers were interviewed, 12 each from Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) farmers groups and ESOKO farmers groups – the two main farming groups in the district. The interviews were backed up by participant observations of two farmers, during w…
abstract: Mobile phone technology and related platforms play an important role in developing economies, helping to bridge the gap between rural areas and cities. They are also used to support business activities, manage family relationships, and provide instructions and educational material for high school children. The technology is particularly important in rural Africa because many of these areas lack telecommunication landlines and infrastructure facilities, and therefore rely on the mobile technology to connect with the outside world. For developing economies like Ghana, which depend significantly on agricultural businesses in the rural areas, the freedom offered by mobile technology allows these businesses to connect with customers and suppliers in the cities and across the country. Farming small business entrepreneurships (FSBEs), upon which the study focuses, which are hard-to-reach for research purposes – are making increasing use of mobile phone technology. However, little extant literature addresses how these farmers adopt the mobile phone technology, how it influences their farming businesses and behaviour, the skills and knowledge they acquire in learning to use the technology, and how they integrate these into the farming businesses. This study aims to fill the knowledge gap by understanding why the farmers adopt the technology, how they learn to use it, and how the technology influence farming business activities. At the theoretical level, the study draws on the Resource-Based View, Kolb’s Experiential Learning (ExL) cycle, the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Boundary Object theory. At the empirical level, it draws on two farming groups in the Kwahu district – a remote area of rural Ghana. For the study, 24 farmers were interviewed, 12 each from Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) farmers groups and ESOKO farmers groups – the two main farming groups in the district. The interviews were backed up by participant observations of two farmers, during w…
author: Asiedu, Emmanuel Mensah
language: en
date published: 2022
date modified: 2026-07-24T03:42:57Z
provider: Oxford Brookes University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: Oxford Brookes University

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.24384/nzr5-0928