Applying information science lens for advancing critical research on IT adoption: Insights from continued usage of mobile phones by poor women in rural India

Critical research on IT adoption dominated by cognitive models grounded in psychology and communication is always in search of new theoretical perspectives to understand, explain, and interpret social issues. Since information plays an important role in IT adoption, this study applies an information science lens to investi-gate the factors affecting the continued usage of mobile phones in rural India. Analysis of interviews with 22 women earning less than a dollar day reveals the influence of social, economic, cognitive, technological, and information-related factors on their continued usage of mobiles. Micro- and meso-level socioeconomic motives and active information-seeking behavior emerge as the most significant factors encouraging respondents to continue using mobiles against several technical and human barriers. The application of information science lens yields three constructs and ten micro-, meso-, and macro-level variables, advancing critical research on IT adoption with the help of a theoretical lens outside of psychology and communication literature.

This paper is published in the International Journal of Technology Diffusion.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/IJTD.2015010105