FORUM ON ADVANCING THEORY ON NATIONAL IT POLICY
CAIRO, EGYPT
OCTOBER, 2004
Sponsored by:
- National Science Foundation Grant # INT-0322501
- Georgia State University
- American University in Cairo (AUC)
- Social Research Center, AUC
The intent of the forum is to assemble a world-class group of individuals who can both pool their knowledge on how to formulate IT policy on the national level and brainstorm on how to take this scientific work in new directions.
There are two distinct activities in the forum. The first day is intended to be a day of information-sharing and leveling of intellectual grounding. After setting the stage for the importance of government policies in the diffusion of IT at the national level, the forum theme will shift to state-of-the-art knowledge. The major findings of NSF-funded project NSF-IIS-008-2473, ÒIT Transfer to Egypt: A Process Model for Developing CountriesÓ will be presented. In addition, international experts on IT policy will frame what is known about the role of policy in shaping economic prosperity. Effective execution of these national efforts will also be a critical topic.
The second day will be restricted to a small group of invited guests, and is intended to have a defined research output. Tasks will be assigned to groups to specify constructs and to develop strong theoretical linkages between constructs. Initial thoughts on how to measure the constructs will also be part of the intellectual exercise. Documentation of the work of the small groups will be prepared and reports written on the key findings. The goal would be to publish these macro-level findings in highly visible venues.
Intellectual merit. The intellectual merit of the proposal can be argued succinctly. Theoretical advances in this area are immature, as presented in greater detail later. Moreover, these advances have been long in coming. Bringing together international experts in this area will have the effect of concentrating domain knowledge and inspiring innovation. The results of the two-day activities will also be shared with the scientific community, the effect of which should be to direct and foment new work in this vein.
One research question that will likely be explored gives a sense of the kind of knowledge-sharing and building that will take place on a variety of topics. Awareness of policies is obviously a crucial aspect of policy development and implementation. The most enlightened country-wide strategies for disseminating IT will be to little avail unless they are well supported, both by the business community and by the citizenry. But without publicizing these efforts, it is not clear how these stakeholders can be aware of policies, let alone support them. What are the mechanisms that can help to educate stakeholders in the most relevant features of the policies and how they need to be actualized? Are there theoretical links between formulation of policy and dissemination mechanisms?
Impact. There will be a decided effect on attendees now working in the area. Not only will they be participants in the creation of this knowledge, but also they will likely transfer this knowledge to others once they return home. The impact of the effort should go well beyond those who are attending. If the conference-workshop is successful, one result will be the articulation of a theoretical framework, or, possibly, several competing frameworks. Not only would constructs (with their own theoretical underpinnings) be specified, but also possible measurement approaches can also be enumerated. These concepts will be written up in reports and disseminated through scientific journals and conferences.
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