International Journal of

ADVANCED AND APPLIED SCIENCES

EISSN: 2313-3724, Print ISSN: 2313-626X

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 Volume 9, Issue 3 (March 2022), Pages: 150-158

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 Original Research Paper

 Title: Factors influencing the adoption of ICT for remote work among Zimbabwean SMEs: A case study of Bulawayo Metropolitan province

 Author(s): Vusumuzi Maphosa 1, *, Mfowabo Maphosa 2

 Affiliation(s):

 1Information Communication and Technology Services Department, Lupane State University, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
 2Faculty of Information and Communications Technology, School of Information Technology, The Independent Institute of Education, Sandton, South Africa

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 * Corresponding Author. 

  Corresponding author's ORCID profile: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2595-3890

 Digital Object Identifier: 

 https://doi.org/10.21833/ijaas.2022.03.017

 Abstract:

The study’s purpose was to evaluate factors that influence Information and Communication Technology adoption to support remote working by SMEs in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean economy is excessively informal and has the largest informal economy globally, contributing 60.6 percent of the country’s national Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Small and medium-sized enterprises are vital economic drivers in the developing world. Today’s knowledge society demands firms to intensively apply ICTs for competitive advantage and market share. SMEs face many challenges during the current COVID-19 lockdown, and their survival depends on how they can adopt ICT for remote work. COVID-19 disruptions are being counteracted by e-commerce applications across all other sectors of the global economy. The study adopted a quantitative approach, where a questionnaire was used to gather views from 145 SMEs randomly selected in Bulawayo metropolitan province. From the samples, 113 questionnaires were completed. The study found that ICTs play a pivotal role in ensuring the success of remote working programs. Results indicated that ICT support services positively correlate with remote working and that most SMEs lack appropriate ICT tools to support remote working. Furthermore, SMEs face poor and expensive Internet and erratic electricity supply challenges. The study deduced that firms owned or run by young people promoted ICT adoption for telework. The study recommends improved government support by lowering Internet tariffs and supporting SMEs’ ICT acquisition through import duty exemptions. Future work can evaluate the impact of ICT on the financial performance of SMEs after adopting various teleworking schemes. 

 © 2022 The Authors. Published by IASE.

 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

 Keywords: Information technology, Communication technology, Small and medium-sized companies, Telework, Technology organization and environment (TOE) framework

 Article History: Received 3 October 2021, Received in revised form 8 December 2021, Accepted 24 January 2022

 Acknowledgment 

No Acknowledgment.

 Compliance with ethical standards

 Conflict of interest: The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

 Citation:

 Maphosa V and Maphosa M (2022). Factors influencing the adoption of ICT for remote work among Zimbabwean SMEs: A case study of Bulawayo Metropolitan province. International Journal of Advanced and Applied Sciences, 9(3): 150-158

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 Tables

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