Japanese Journal of Administrative Science Volume20,No.1,2007,43-54. 経 営 行 動科 学 第20巻 第1号,2007,43-54. Research Note 研究ノー ト Internet Adoption and Usage in Bangladesh Md.Shah Azam (Universityof Rajshahi,Bangladesh) Like many developed and developing countries,Bangladesh has witnessed a phenomenal growth in accessing digital technology particularly using the Internet.Although facing many constraints in establishing an internet-dependent society,Bangladesh Government has paid utmost priority to develop the Information Technology usage pattern in her different sectors.Recently Bangladesh has been connected with information superhighway through submarine optic-fiber cable network that creates a favourable environment to increase Internet usage among various citizens.The study attempts to explore the effects of different factors influencing the adoption of Internet in Bangladesh.The Rogers model of Innovation Diffusion has been utilised as theoretical framework to measure the effects of the factors that account for adoption of the Internet,assuming the Internet as an innovation.A multiple regression analysis is carried out to determine the attributes that affect the intention to adopt the Internet,where adoption intention is considered as the explained variable.The study reveals that relative advantage,compatibility and complexity appear significant among the five attributes of innovation,relative advantage,compatibility,complexity,trialability,and observability considered as explanatory variables. Keywords:Rogers model,innovation,adoption,diffusion. INTRODUCTION Technology innovation and its adoption declining the older one is a common phenomena.It is observed as the nature of technology to provide completely or comparatively new and sophisticated benefits and services to the user replacing the foregoing technology. Adoption and usage of an innovation largely depends on its nurture and the perception of the user on different attributes of the innovation. In recent years,developing countries including Bangladesh have witnessed a phenomenal development in the technology-dependent communication medium, which is Internetl.In both developing and developed countries,Internet is growing rapidly as a strong and popular medium of communication2.Internet is not used only to meet the users information needs.It has already been widened its scope in introducing many services. Business activities are also considered to be operated through Internet,popularly known as e-commerce.3 The Internet is revolutionizing every aspects of business throughout the world.Although the quantum of business done through Internet is small,it is growing exponentially (Khatibi and Thiagaraj an,2000). Internet is the fastest diffusionary Information and Communication Technology (ICT) innovation till to date. For instance,it took just ten years for the web-based Internet to reach 50% of American Homes,compared to 52 years taken by telephone.It took only three years for the Internet to reach 50 million users.By contrast,it took 38 years for television to have 50 million users.During 1999,the number of Internet users increased by one million every month(Dholakia,Dholakia and Kshetri, 2003). ITU figures for 2000 and 2001 to show the geographical distribution of the growth in the Internet population.The 1 Internet refers to the physical network that links computers across the globe.It consists of the infrastructure of network servers and wide area communication links between them that are used to hold and transport the vast amount of information on Internet. 2 A voluminous statistics show that the growing trend of Internet in developing countries is higher than that of in developed countries. 3 E-commerce is the procedure to perform every business operation from production to distribution and sales through Internet. ―43―
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Japanese Journal of Administrative ScienceVolume20,No.1,2007,43-54.経 営 行 動科 学 第20巻 第1号,2007,43-54.
Research Note
研 究 ノー ト
Internet Adoption and Usage in Bangladesh
Md.Shah Azam
(University of Rajshahi,Bangladesh)
Like many developed and developing countries,Bangladesh has witnessed a phenomenal
growth in accessing digital technology particularly using the Internet.Although facingmany constraints in establishing an internet-dependent society,Bangladesh Government has
paid utmost priority to develop the Information Technology usage pattern in her differentsectors.Recently Bangladesh has been connected with information superhighway through
submarine optic-fiber cable network that creates a favourable environment to increase
Internet usage among various citizens.The study attempts to explore the effects of different
factors influencing the adoption of Internet in Bangladesh.The Rogers model of Innovation
Diffusion has been utilised as theoretical framework to measure the effects of the factors
that account for adoption of the Internet,assuming the Internet as an innovation.A multiple
regression analysis is carried out to determine the attributes that affect the intention to adopt
the Internet,where adoption intention is considered as the explained variable.The study
reveals that relative advantage,compatibility and complexity appear significant among the
five attributes of innovation,relative advantage,compatibility,complexity,trialability,and
observability considered as explanatory variables.
government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh hasinaugurated the connectivity on 21st May 2006 althoug
has not started its operation for public use (Daily Star,
2006,Prothom Alo,2006).The landing station has
been established in Cox's Bazzar,the southern City,
near the Bay of Bengal.Country is expected to enjoy
high bandwidth with the benefit of lower usage charge
of Internet,certainly that will help develop the digital
environment and ICT usage behavior of the countries
citizenry.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The study of innovation adoption has drawn much
attention in the previous researches.Numerous studies
have been initiated to look at the adoption of innovation
in the developed as well as in developing countries
(Rogers,1983,Davis,1986,1989,1993,Moore andBenbasat,1991,Premkumar and Potter,1995,Agarwal
and Prashad,1997,1998,1999,Taylor and Todd,1995,
Tan and Teo,2000,Kendall et,al.,2001,Sathye and
8 Dhaka is the capital city of Bangladesh.9 The main way of Internet service is dial up via digital
telephone.Bangladesh has 14 million populationliving in 64 districts,495 thanas and more than 68000villages.Among them only 64 districts and 164Upazilas (Thanas) have been provided digital telecomnetwork where people are getting Internet service.considerable portions of the population are still quiteaway from internet service.
10 SEA-ME-WE means South East Asia,Middle East,and West Europe.
―45―
研 究 ノー ト 経営行動科学第20巻第1号
Diana,2001).Many researches are still being initiated to
study the adoption of newly innovated technologies both
in individual and organisational perspective(Ramayah
Compatibility emerged as an important factor affecting
the adoption of Internet by the academics.For the
academics,the Compatibility issue is significant
because it deals with their perception on the importance
of Internet to various tasks performed by them at
present and future.If Internet is compatible with thetraditional way of performing various activities of the
teachers,with the existing values and mentality of the
teachers,and is also compatible with the different parts
to be communicated for higher research or academic
development as well as with the authority's and students'
way of conducting various functions in future,higher
rate of adoption occurs.The study observation is similar
to many previous researches(Gan,2003,Tan and Teo,
2000,Kendall et.al,2001,Azam,2005,Ramayah et.al,
2006).Although the study findings is straight forward
to understand that innovation compatible with existing
values,cultures,processes and way of working will be
adopted very fast,the case of Bangladesh can be thought
of in different way as the existing process and the way
of conducting different works,services and businesses
are not presently compatible with the Internet dependent
communication(Azam,2006).Thus the adoption rate of
Internet may be observed differently in different sectors
among various classes of people of the country.
Relative advantage is also important factor in explaining
Internet adoption in universities.The significance of
relative advantage represents that teachers in Bangladesh
positively perceived that Internet creates advantages forthe community,reduces cost of overall communication
and information collection.It reduces the time of
operation in conducting overseas interactions,helps easily
establish contact with many experts in any time by web
browsing,helps provide opportunity to communicate
with the unknown person by viewing their details in the
web.This positive perception influenced their intention to
adopt Internet in which the higher the relative advantage,
the higher the rate of Internet adoption.The findings
supported many previous researches(Gan,2003,Tan and
Toe,2000,and Azam,2005) but showed a contradiction
with the research conducted by Ramayah,et.al,2006 to
examine the adoption of HRIS.
In terms of practical implications for the development
and implementation of Internet,the findings provide a
guideline on the factors that a potential adopter considerin evaluating Internet.This study was administered to the
teachers of the University of Rajshahi who have a higher
education level and the previous knowledge on Internet
technology.They have the privileges to operate Internet at
their department as the university has its own VSAT.This
brings in a question whether this result will be significant
for the academics of other universities and/or the people
working in many other professions in Bangladesh,who
don't have adequate facilities to enjoy available access
to Internet.It may be considered as the area of future
research.Despite the above limitations the results of the
study have implications to the academics and researchers
who are interested in looking at the inhibitors and
stimulators of Internet.Finally it is concluded that an
innovation with lower complexity and higher relative
advantage which is compatible with the existing values,
processes and way of working will have higher likelihoodof being adopted.Thus the outcome mey be utilised by
the concerned authorities and business entrepreneurs
to encourage the development and implementation of
Internet in Bangladesh
REFERENCES
Agarwal, R. and Prashad, J. 1997 The role of innovationcharacteristics and perceived voluntariness in theacceptance of information technologies. DecisionScience, 28, 557-582.
Agarwal, R. and Prashad, J. 1998 The antecedents andconsequents of user perceptions in informationtechnology adoption. Decision Support Systems,22, 15-29.
Agarwal, R. and Prashad, J. 1999 Are individualdifferences germane to the acceptance of newinformation technologies. Decision Sciences, 30,361-391.
Azam, Md. Shah 2006 Implementation of B2Ce-commerce in Bangladesh: The effects of buyingculture and e-infrastructure. In Dianne H. B. Welsh,Mohd. Shukri Ab Yajid Valentin H. Pasthenko andZafar U. Ahmed (Eds.) Advances in GlobalBusiness Research 3 55-66.
Azam Md. Shah 2005 Adoption of personal computerin Bangladesh: The effects of perceived innovationcharacteristics. In Noorhayati Mansor Lim ThienSang Mohd Safri Saiman and Kalsom Abd Wahab
(Eds.) Proceedings of the 2nd InternationalConference of the Asian Academy of AppliedBusiness (AAAB) 28-30 July Padang Indonesia,647-655.
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Internet Adoption and Usage in Bangladesh
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Zolkafli and Hashim,Fariza 2000 E-commerce
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