The Digital Divide: Current and Future Research Directions - MISRC ...

access to ICT and the Internet, and thereby shape the evolution of the divide. As we will
discuss in this survey, policy implications of the digital divide have received considerable
research attention. By comparison, there has been little attention given to the impact of
the digital divide on management strategies and business in general, an issue this survey
will attempt to shine some light on.
For business and social science researchers, understanding the divide is important
because it has a profound impact on how firms compete globally, how they relate to their
customers and business partners, and how they formulate their strategies for online
commerce. One might presume that the narrower the digital divide the better it is for
business; e.g., businesses operating in the online world would benefit from having more
potential customers online. One can imagine scenarios, however, where profitable
business strategies are predicated on the existence of the divide. For example, Riggins
[2004] notes that for sellers operating in both online and offline channels simultaneously,
the digital divide can act as a natural segmentation mechanism to help differentiate the
marketplace. At the organizational level, while managers would like to see their trading
partners investing in the latest ICTs, they would also prefer that their competitors did not
exploit new technologies. Clearly, there are many scenarios where government
initiatives to promote new ICT adoption by businesses will be at odds with the incentives
of competing businesses. Thus, the managerial and business implications of the divide
are sometimes subtle and counter-intuitive and deserve research attention.
In this survey, we critically examine both policy and managerial implications of
the digital divide, at three levels of analysis:
• Individual Level ⎯ those who are technologically, sociologically, or
economically disadvantaged may lack or forgo access to IT, creating a gap
between themselves and those who choose to make ICT an integral part of their
daily life. Indeed, there is considerable variation in access to technology across
geographical areas; e.g., broadband Internet access is still sparse in many rural
areas.
• Organizational Level ⎯ some organizations use ICT to gain advantage over their
rivals and redefine the rules of engagement within their industry, while others lag
behind as technological followers potentially putting themselves at a strategic
disadvantage; and
3