Information technology in Kenya: A dynamic approach

Telematics and Informatics, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 57-65, 1995 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA. All rights reserved 0736-5853/95 $9.50 + .OO

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY A DYNAMIC APPROACH

IN KENYA:

Dominique Van Ryckeghem Abstract-Though

Africa may still be the least-computerized continent, information technology (IT) penetration is increasing rapidly. However, IT is an imported technology and it is not culturally neutral. This article has two aims: (a) to provide a framework to understand how IT and culture interact, and (b) to illustrate this interaction with examples from Kenyan case studies. Culture is used as a “diagnostic” instrument and focuses entirely on Kenya’s

national context. The framework analytically distinguishes three ways of interference: culture influences IT, culture is influenced by IT, and culture provides the conditions to interpret IT’s utility. The simultaneous interplay between the three levels results in IT practice. Through the study of IT practice in three cases, aspects of Kenyan cultural context are revealed and analyzed according to the proposed reference frame. For the past two decades, information technology (IT)’ penetration in Africa’s public and private sector has been growing rapidly (Odedra et al., 1993). However, many different obstacles may prevent IT from transferring into appropriate technology practice (Odedra & Madon, 1993). In this article, I will focus on one issue that may be important in this respect but is often treated in a minor way: culture. To Sub-Saharan African countries (and in contrast with some Asian or Latin American countries), IT is, in essence, an imported technology. Hardware, software, and system processes have been designed and produced in other parts of the world. It is our belief that technology is not culturally neutral, but closely related to the particular society where it originated, and therefore share a common value system (Pacey, 1983). Although there is a substantial literature that documents the idea of culturally-biased technologies, or focuses on the importance of culture for managerial and organizational changes, much less information can be found on how socio-cultural characteristics interplay with technology (and possible other factors) in concrete settings. Culture is used here as an analytical concept, i.e., a diagnostic tool (Wildavsky, 1992) to frame IT practice as a social phenomenon (Smircich, 1983; Frissen, 1989). The aim of this article is twofold: to provide an analytical framework to comprehend the relationship between IT and culture, and illustrate this interaction with evidence

Dominique Van Ryckeghem is a PhD candidate (Belgian National Fund of Scientific Research), and researcher at the Centre for Sociology and the Centre for the Study of New Media, Information Technologies and Telecommunications (CSNMIT), Free University of Brussels (VUB), Pleinlaan 2, B-1050 Brussels, Belgium; e-mail: dpvryckeQvub.ac.be. ‘The term ITencompasses the technolgies, activities, and services associated with the storage and processing of information (Inter-American Development Bank, 1988).

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from Kenyan cases and concurrent literature. Analytically, this interaction comprises three levels: culture influencing IT, culture mediating IT utility, and IT influencing culture.* IT practice should herein be understood as the dynamic outcome of the interplay between the three levels. This IT practice has been the point to start investigative research within three Kenyan cases. One case is public and the remaining two cases are private (a profit and a nonprofit). Interviews, daily observations of IT use, document analysis, and a diary accounted for the research techniques. For the purposes of this paper, the research material has been analyzed3 on its similarities in work and IT practice only.4 In the next chapter, characteristics of IT practice common to the three cases will be elaborated against Kenyan cultural context. The argument is built upon the lines of the analytical framework. IT PRACTICE IN KENYA: AN ANALYSIS At the moment of implementation, IT practice was characterized by interest and eagerness to learn, but also fear of failure, uneasiness, and in some cases reluctancy. Especially among juniors (clerks, secretaries, etc. ), interest and eagerness to learn contributed to a welcome environment for IT. The new tool also scared people. However, these people were not opposed to learning, and hence used the new tool. Only when reluctancy came in, could this lead to some obstruction. This was especially the case for persons in senior positions who, until the moment of introduction, never had anything to do with computing. However, beyond the moment of implementation and acceptance, an “IT dynamic” was clearly not created. When approaching IT, the user generally sticks to the IT applications that he or she has learned. In case of IT problems, the user seems to prefer handing the problem over to an IT professional (or the IT department) instead of setting to work empirically to see the matter through. Manuals are seldom consulted. Concerning IT activities, informating5 applications and networking do not seem to find a breeding ground on which to flourish, while programming encounters difficulties. Moreover, IT practice is specialized and, hence, fragmented. In the following, IT practice is appraised as the outcome from which the three levels in IT and culture interaction, are assessed. Analytical level 1: culture influencing technology Kenyan cultural context is the point of reference to interpret work attitudes and work procedures, as they interfere with IT. The following exposition should be interpreted in a cumulative way. Strict separations between structure and culture or between work organization and work attitudes are irrelevant and therefore erroneous. Attitudes. The statements concerning IT practice express a rather conformist and pragmatic attitude. Similar attitudes can be found in educational patterns, religion, and *he analytical framework is based on Klitgaard’s (1992) analytical definition of development and culture. ‘This analysis was conducted according to the Development Research Sequence Method (Spradley, 1979, 1980). 4Differences in organizational culture and IT practice are complementary in the analysis of the garnered material (for a more complete picture, see Van Rckeghem, 1994). ‘Automating tasks refer to an increase in rapidity and volume. Informating tasks include informationgenerating processes that fo beyond automating. Informating encompasses the understanding and analysis of operations: it may widen the scope of work activities (Zuboff, 1989; Peterson, 1991).

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world view. The Kenyan way of life is marked by “cultural” socialization, where obedience and subjection are valued and open conflicts avoided. The political discourse denies the reality of conflict (Mbembe, 1985). According to the Kenyan theologist John Mbiti (1992), pragmatism and realism are characteristic for African religions and the concurrent world view: “African peoples look for the usefulness (or otherwise) of the universe to man. . . . But man is not the master in the universe, he is only the user. For that reason, he has to live in harmony with the universe” (Mbiti, 1992, p. 43). However, placing man at the centre of the universe does not correspond with a valorization of the lone individual. The African, as Chernoff (1979) describes him, finds meaning within a social network. Consequently, a highly valued sense of social harmony accounts for placement of group needs over those of the individual. In brief, the ideas of harmony, conformism, and pragmatism are consistent throughout existential matters such as man’s position in the universe and his “social group membership.” This communal sense is important to understand the role that work fulfils within one’s life. People execute their jobs because they consider it as a duty toward their families in the first place. But the sense of harmony, the relativity of the individual within the group, and, thus, avoidance of open conflicts reflect on attitudes within the workplace as well: Conformism and pragmatism stand side by side. Complying to demands is the way to deal with work tasks. Particular job exigencies are seldom issues that develop into a fierce quarrel. Work attitudes run into IT practice. In case of IT implementation, these may partly explain the easy acceptance of new work tools in general. After all, rejecting them would mean conflict or at least asking for trouble. Consequently, users conform to the orders and expectations of the higher echelons. They get into IT if training is provided for. Juniors use IT in a regular manner, but up to the level whereupon they have been trained. To exceed that level is not explicitly asked for. It corresponds with a sense of pragmatism. Why learn a new package or facility if doing so is not required and not perceived as directly useful? Why learn to solve your own IT problems if a person who happens to be more familiar with IT can be called upon anytime? Or, in the seniors’ case, why put in the effort if it is not imposed, little benefit can be derived, and “executing” tasks can be delegated? Social structures. IT is used in a very specialized manner. IT tasks are delegated according to the status of the task. Seniors almost never perform “executing” tasks on the PC. Thus, IT use is fragmented. Hierarchy is omnipresent in Kenyan society. Traditional hierarchy along criteria such as kinship, residence, age, and sex has merged with top-down authority which is characteristic for British colonial administration. Kin and lineage6 relationships together with values of communalism-are still very important up to the highest political level. Hierarchy coincides to a certain extent with conformism: Cultural socialization with little critical tradition reflects on the political discourse as well as on the way society is organized. Consultative principles, instead of explicit participatory rules, and subsequent (imposed) unanimity lead the way. Although unanimity and social har-

6A lineage is defined as a group of persons who, depending on their cultural background, trace common ancestry through either male or female descent and which actually establishes kinship (Robinson, 1986). Traditionally, lineage heads have had corporate duties and rights. They may oversee marriage, and regulate use of property and access to land; they may assume collective liability if one of their members is harmed (Bourgault, 1990).

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mony (attitudes) are not quite the same thing, they do facilitate each other. Within a tradition of consultative decision-making, contesting decisions looks fairly odd. Pragmatism is more customary. Work life is characterized by “ethnic” symmetries and solidarities. Social interactions and situations such as hiring a new employee within the workplace are often influenced by ethnic considerations. Powerful top-down authority, operating along (ritualized) institutional procedures, such as strict task division, account for work organization within the modern workplace. In a broad sense, juniors execute whereas seniors supervise and delegate. Efficiency may fit in the former whereas personal relationships serve as the guiding principle in senior jobs. Demonstrating one’s own hierarchical position is often the reason to delegate and supervise. It reflects status and “modern” attributes add to that status. Co-existence of strong hierarchy, strict task division, formal procedures, and conformist and/or pragmatic attitudes enhance specialization. Status symbols relating to hierarchical levels could be assets (a private elevator for the managers, five telephones on one desk for a single person) or attitudes (senior ranks principally refusing to perform “minor” tasks). IT has been inserted within the existent work organization. Because IT is associated with efficiency, it is categorized as a tool for executing tasks and fits in a procedure of both delegation and supervision. In some applications, task compartmentalization was formalized through password access. Beyond executing tasks, more advanced applications were considered a specialization in their own right. But even then, the executing parts of jobs such as data entry were again delegated. Therefore, the outcome in terms of fragmented IT processes and IT knowledge is no real surprise. However, it may prevent IT from coming to full fruition within work performance. IT culture versus oral tradition and cyclical time conception. IT applications mostly cover automating tasks. IT use in forecasting or planning is almost nonexistent. Networking facilities such as electronic mail are rarely used. When it comes to complex programming, difficulties arise. Manuals are not commonly consulted. African ideas of time concern mainly the present and the past and have little to say about the future, which, in any case, is expected to go on without end (Mbiti, 1992). African time follows a fluent and cyclical movement: work makes part of that movement. The same applies for the workplace and the broader society: people do not have the tradition to make strict separations between realities and interactions, at once adhering to work and society. The importance of social interactions also refers to remainders of oral tradition. Unlike IT that can be considered as a typical product of delineated time entities and written tradition. Time management and literate culture are incorporated within the machine. Originally designed to enhance productivity per time unit, the transition from mainframe and mini systems to PCs now entails incorporation of values such as autonomy and initiative in the apparatus’ architecture (Jouet, 1989). Following this cultural transition, the user has become much more important. It is the user’s choice-at least theoretically-to approach the machine in a “game-like” manner or, to ignore the available potentialities such as autonomy, flexibility, and interactivity. In brief, initiatives of the individual are valorized whereas a profound interest and curiosity toward technology is supposed. Within this kind of approach, generating new things (e.g., informating) is a logical outcome. However, within the Kenyan workplace, most practices function on a basis of communalism. Social interaction (oral tradition) is all around in work organization. It greatly exceeds the importance of solitary technology interaction. Work planning,

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clients servicing, and supervising are mainly concerned with holding meetings, visiting, phoning, and discussing. Written tools such as production schedules or agendas have no role within that organization. Planning and evaluations are solved by meetings and deadlines are met by working long hours at the moment they come near. In the case of executing tasks, tools may facilitate task performance and hence add to efficiency. When it comes to IT practice, IT makes part of the “fluent time movement.” The work pace has not changed since IT has been put to use and neither have work attitudes. When work volume is increased, workers keep on reading the newspaper or chat with their colleagues. When the deadline approaches, one worker settles in overtime work. IT is a tool that “makes life easier,” not a tool that instigates people to work in a faster way. Apart from a particular IT approach, the influence of an oral culture may render certain computer applications irrelevant or simply difficult in a work organization. Production scheduling or sales forecasting become difficult tasks to perform using IT as does communicating through machines (electronic mail). Programming requires a particular analytical approach, which can hardly exist without a written basis. Manuals are available-even if scarcely-but few users consult them. Scafcify culture. In the above discussion, both work and IT practice have been elaborated against some Kenyan cultural conditions. By including these findings within Kenya’s “developing” context, featuring a generalized scarcity, the Kenyan user may be comprehended. Insecurity may be considered as a characteristic of any human society. However, it receives a particular weight when coupled to scarcity. For exampley, how does one cope with insecurity when food, money, jobs, shelter, water, electricity, and information are only scarcely available? The whole issue is strongly interwoven with social mechanisms and attitudes. The ways people cope with scarcity and uncertainty are roughly twofold: people use pragmatic reflection toward almost every aspect of society (usefulness), and/or they (re-)distribute (money, goods, or services) along kinship ties only, with or without church mediation. Redistribution along kinship ties has its grounds in traditional society where social preceded economic reproduction. Exchange of favours has been the substratum of a political and social system (Bourmaud, 1988). Its blending with modernity against scarcity conditions seems to have given rise to at least two constituents of scarcity culture. For one thing, lineage relationships now play an important role in the distribution of benefits from the modern Western economic and political structure, whereas (scarce) modern assets have become status symbols. Nepotism and corruption can be discerned against that background. For the second constituent, solidarity on a societal or even organizational basis is hard to find. The social group from which the individual derives meaning remains traditional: it is the most secure. Within the workplace, kinship can influence decisions about hiring and firing, but also on mundane matters such as the preferential allocation of assignments, training courses, etc. Getting back to work attitudes, pragmatism and the ambition toward a better life complement each other. People seek little gains here and there: fraud and activities in the informal sector (both internal or external to the workplace) are widespread. As a case in point, the direct “useful” interpretation of things interferes with information scarcity. Information may be scarce but people do not seem to have grown-and neither do incentives exist -in a tradition where information sources are vigorously sought for. People get their information through social interaction and newspapers. Few people for instance, seem to visit libraries or documentation centers. If they do, and the cases proved exemplary in this matter, they come to read the newspaper(s) in

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the first place. Borrowing books or consulting journals is much less the purpose of a visit. Information culture reflects on IT practice. Interaction with IT problem solvers is more likely to occur than the consultation of a manual, if one is available. Secondly, neither users nor their senior supervisors seek IT information or IT potential in a rigorous way: this is what specialized computer departments are for. Individual initiatives in information seeking and updating have been seldomly observed. The influence of scarcity culture on IT practice is mainly indirect. It is especially helpful to understand the way people give meaning to the usefulness of something as a new work tool. This is the focus of the next chapter. Analytical level 2: Culture mediating IT utihty Some questions have remained unanswered until now: a pragmatic and conformist approach does not explain why juniors are so keen about learning IT. Neither does it reveal seniors’ interest in IT training. In both cases, training was not ensued by thorough IT use: Juniors used IT in a conservative way, whereas most seniors did not even practice the acquired skills. However, they all agreed on the usefulness of IT. Scarcity culture. Juniors perceive IT first and foremost as a stepping stone toward a better life. IT is considered useful for financial and/or professional reasons. Familiarity with IT enhances juniors’ chances at keeping their jobs, further IT-training, job promotion, and better survival rates on the job market in general. On top of that, workers feel more closely involved in the modernization that Kenya is going through. Within their own job levels, seniors perceive IT as useful for financial reasons, less for professional. IT is considered more worthwhile on an executing job level. However, many seniors attend training courses. IT training seems motivated on the basis of interest and/or opportunism. When the motivation is interest, it corresponds with the motivation encountered in junior jobs: IT is very much present in contemporary society and workers cannot be blind to this evolution. Opportunist motives are found with seniors who consider training an objective in itself and who consequently do not put their acquired knowledge into practice. They are interested almost solely in the perks that come to them with the training: money, a trip abroad, a certificate, etc. IT culture and information culture. Interpretation of IT utility is now subject to Kenya’s particular historical evolution and persistent cultural values. However, one should keep in mind that IT utility can only be perceived according to one’s own knowledge and information about IT. Traces of oral culture are still prevalent in Kenya. Social interaction accounts for most organizing and problem-solving issues. Consequently, the use of IT as a planning tool or as a utensil for in-house communication serves very little direct purpose. The meaning of IT utility is subject to cultural values. Pragmatism and adherence to formalism precede values such as efficiency. IT is especially considered useful since it makes things easier and more presentable. Within the workplace, efficiency may be the result, but it is not the driving force in work. Since IT is associated with being a tool that makes life easier in the first place, working a long time on a programme, investing a lot of time in learning new items, or in solving problems remains completely illogical in this state of affairs. IT utility is interpreted (almost solely) on the basis of the advantages offered by automating. Lots of users have only little knowledge of other domains where IT may

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be beneficial (e.g., informating applications, IT as a planning or communication tool). Incentives to seek past those automating advantages are scarce. Already, people do not have the tradition to go to exhibitions, consult journals or manuals, etc. (cf. information culture), Nor are they used to take solitary initiatives in the workplace (cf. communalism and conformism). Moreover, since most seniors judge IT on its automating capacities only, and IT is not considered useful within their own job level, their interest in IT is already limited. This attitude reflects on their position toward juniors and IT: They do not interfere or provide any encouragement. Seeking further IT knowledge is-apart from training aspirations -almost exclusively confined to IT professionals. Work practices. Apparently, (Kenyan) work practice (strict task division and specialization) harmonizes with the logic of automating. Both account for splitting a task or work process into small, linear jobs that can be performed separately. However, under the pretence of harmony lie divergent assumptions. These divergent assumptions run parallel with the particular historical and cultural background of both work practice (Kenya) and automating (Western countries). Automating derives its meaning from productivity and efficiency. Automating involves a systematic approach toward the task and fixation on a means-end perspective. Functional rationality is (or should be) the driving force within the workplace. It assumes that the worker can perform according to a pure economic logic, cut off from other social or political concerns. But within the Kenyan context, political, social, and economic realities are interdependent and include those that are both internal and external to the workplace. Task division and hierarchical status-specialization-are (ritualized) procedures that connect Africans to the larger social world around them (thus encompassing the economic and political worlds), and not tearing them away from it. Consequently, IT use may be specialized but it is not perceived from a separate means-end perspective. Thinking about IT only in terms of task performance (functional rationality) very rarely occurs. IT is not always put to full use within the margins of task performance. In brief, the utility attributed to IT by Kenyan workers is, in the first instance, substantial:’ IT can be a means to a better life or IT can be financially rewarding. This rationality absorbs the notion of IT as a “work instrument.” Within the expectation that IT elicits, pleasant side effects include job diversity and easier performance of tasks. The functionality of IT to a particular task is clearly of lesser concern to many people. However, it speaks for itself that the gradation in the interpretation of utility can differ widely from organization to organization. Analytical level 3: Technology influencing culture Any thorough study in cultural change necessitates a longitudinal and complex approach. A longitudinal aspect is necessary in order to mark cultural changes in a confident way. A complex aspect is necessary because ascribing cultural changes to a particular technology in a mono-causal way is quite infeasible. Hence, conclusions for this chapter are tentative and speculative. IT may influence culture by its presence alone, and by the way it is used. When more ‘Substantial rationality entails that values precede in interpreting reality. Functional rationality is a pure methodical approach: Goals are achieved those goals are sought for. Functional rationality superseding substantial rationality is characteristic for western modernization (Zijderveld, 1983; Frissen, 1989).

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widespread and utilized, IT will disseminate into more aspects of Kenyan society. Depending on the role(s) IT will fulfil, changes in culture may come about on a longer term. If IT is primarily a work tool, IT practice may have a profound impact on work processes, and consequently, on society in general. But the opposite can be imagined as well. For instance, IT practice will not induce substantial changes. The following two scenarios illustrate the ambiguity in IT as such and, hence, in being speculative regarding future events. If users persist in practising IT in a rather “conservative” way, sticking to automating applications and “tefuseing” to solve the IT problems they encounter autonomously, IT’s influence is expected to be just minimal. After all, the only difference with previous task fulfilment would be that the same tasks are performed, but now with IT. As long as IT does not cogenerate new tasks, applications, or work practices, the margins of culture change look limited. However, if IT gains even more field within the society, a different scenario can easily be imagined. A powerful feature in this respect is the overall pragmatic attitude. When IT is continuously (re-)interpreted in the light of changes in society, the selfsame pragmatic attitude that proved obstructive for thorough IT use, could lead people toward a more profound interest in IT. Both an accrued interest and a better understanding of IT processes could enhance an improved absorption of the whole logic, coming with IT. This might enable emergence of functional rationality and/or of approaching IT in a trial-and-error manner. On a more general level, IT might, amon t changes that have already started, have an influence on oral culture and the way it7emerges within the workplace. A dynamic view of IT and culture integrates the probabilities of both scenarios because it pays respect to both culture’s adaptive capacity as IT’s flexibility, whereas application of IT in a useful way depends on what is considered meaningful. However, an outcome of a perpetuated IT practice is impossible to predict. IT’s impact on culture in Kenya is very uncertain. A gradual integration of IT within more aspects of Kenyan life may induce changes in work practices and attitudes. As a constituent element in a modernization process, it may as well put long traditions of oral culture, time perception, or social structure into question. However, a dynamic view on culture and IT signifies that culture can adapt, and that technology can be appropriated. CONCLUSION The focus of this article was the relationship between IT and culture. The interaction between culture and IT was analytically divided into three levels: culture influencing IT, culture mediating IT utility, and IT influencing culture. The three levels have been illustrated with an analysis of IT practice in Kenyan cases. A further question would be how policy interferes within this dynamic process. Policy may obstinately refuse to think of culture as important and go its own way. Policy may as well cherish a laissez-faire attitude. But policy has also the option to acknowledge culture’s importance and, hence, try to take culture into account. Practically, this is applicable in national policy as well as in management policy. If policy is to take culture into account, the dynamic perspective of culture and IT as a basis for action had better be considered for three reasons: 1. to determine an appropriate IT policy (as regards IT training, applications, and user autonomy) and to try to anticipate problems of implementation and use (Analytical level 1: culture influencing IT);

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2. to know which IT stipulations will be seen by the users to constitute an enhance-

ment of IT-utility (Analytical level 2: culture mediating IT utility); and 3. to anticipate certain possible conflicts with culture and/or cultural change (Analytical level 3: IT influencing culture). However, it should be clear now that enhancing direct utility only (for instance, give people bonuses when it comes to IT work performance) does not necessarily result in another attitude or approach toward the machine as such. Additional measures will have to be taken if policymakers choose an extensive and widespread use of IT. These additional measures could include giving users more information about IT capacities and/or IT applications, for instance, or stimulating users one way or the other in solving their own IT problems. One could think of giving employees more responsibility as regards to IT use and IT problem-solving, organize inter-job category meetings to exchange views and information about IT, etc. Finally, policymakers have to be aware of the fact that such measures may have far reaching consequences. If users would utilize IT to a higher extent, performing more information applications, then existing work practices, organizational structure, and concurrent attitudes may be put under pressure. REFERENCES Bourgault, L. (1990). Participant observation and the study of African broadcast organizations. In S. Thomas & W. C. Erans (Eds.), Communication and culture (pp. 342-353). Norwood: Ablex. Bourmaud, D. (1988). Histoirepolitique du Kenia. Etat et pouvoir local. Paris-Nairobi: Credu-Karthala. Chernoff, J. M. (1979). African rhythm and sensibility: aesthetics and social action in African musical forms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Frissen, P. H. A. ( 1989). Bureaucratische Cultuur en Znformatisering. Gravenhage: Sdu Uitgeverij. Inter-American Development Bank. ( 1988). Economic and social progress in Latin America- 1988 Report (Special section: Science and technology). Washington: Author. Jouet, J. (1989). Nouvelles techniques: des formes de la production sociale. Technologies de l’lnformation et Societe, Z(3), 13-34. Klitgaard, R. (1992). Taking culture into account: From “let’s” to “how.” Paper presented at the International Conference on Culture and Development in Africa. Washington, DC. Mbembe, J. A. ( 1985). Les jeunes et l’ordrepolitique en Afrique noire. Paris: L’Harmattan. Mbiti, J. S. ( 1992). Introduction to African Religion. Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers. Odedra, M., 8r Madon, S. (1993). Information technology policies and applications in the commonwealth developing countries. G. Harindranath and J. Liebenau (Eds.), Commonwealth Secretariat. Odedra, M. et al. (1993). Sub-Saharan Africa: A technological desert. Communications of theACM, 36(2), 25-29. Pacey, A. (1983). The Culture of Technology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Peterson, S. ( 1991). From processing to analyzing: Intensifying the use of microcomputers in development bureaucracies (Development Discussion Paper No. 364). Harvard Institute for International Development. Robinson, P. (1986). Conflicts. In A. Mazrui & T. Levine (Eds.), The Africans: A reader (pp. 133-143). New York: Praeger. Spradley, J. P. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Spradley, J. P. (1980). Participant observation. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Smircich, L. (1983). Concepts of culture and organizational analysis. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28(3), 339-358. Van Ryckeghem, D. (1994). Information technology in Kenya: A cultural approach (Report). Brussels: VUB. Wildavsky, A. (1992). Can cultural theory contribute to understanding and promoting democracy, science and development? Paper presented at the International Conference on Culture and Development in Africa, Washington, DC. Zijderveld, A. C. (1983). De Culturele Factor: Een cultuursociologische wegwijzer. Gravenhage: Vuga. Zuboff, S. (1989). In the age of the smart machine: The future of work and power, Oxford, UK: Heinemann.