Applying Critical Scandinavian ISD research principles in an African Context: Opportunities and Challenges

IT-driven organizational changes through information systems development and implementation (ISD&I) is highly challenging because of high complexity and many stakeholders and even more so in developing countries, where the failure rates are higher than elsewhere. Unfortunately, since these countries have a vast need for the technology to develop their economies and living standards. We investigate opportunities of applying Scandinavian principles for ISD&I in the context of Africa, through analyzing and comparing two action research projects that have applied two classic approaches; The Trade Unionist (TU) and the Activity Theory approach. We focus specifically on the principles of participation, empowerment, and evolutionary design and discuss how they can help mitigate the challenges, create opportunities and exploit possibilities of ISD&I in this context. Based on this we argue how and why we think the Scandinavian approaches to ISD&I can be useful for the African context and in developing countries in general.