Abstract: This article attempts to verify whether tontines constitute a social learning platform for the appropriation of technology that underlies patterns of adoption and use of the Internet in sub-Saharan Africa. It uses for this purpose a survey of 2650 households in the cities of Douala, Buea and Limbe and employs initially two zero-inflated count data models to highlight the Intensity of the practice of tontines and after, simple probit models to detect the presence of favorable peer effects in the association tontines on the likelihood of adoption and use of the Internet in Cameroonian households. The results show that, while in ROSCA-type tontines social learning is uncertain because of neutral peer effects, in association tontines within socio-professional groups peer effects are positive and reinforce the process of adoption. These results confirm the studies on dissocializing Internet carried in United States and Europe at the beginning of the dynamics of its diffusion. However and more important, the results presented here show that peer effects play positively on social learning and technology appropriation that underlie the adoption and use of the Internet not in tontine of ROSCA-type, but in the tontine envisaged in professional groups according to their propensity to use modern values for jobs.Abstract: This article attempts to verify whether tontines constitute a social learning platform for the appropriation of technology that underlies patterns of adoption and use of the Internet in sub-Saharan Africa. It uses for this purpose a survey of 2650 households in the cities of Douala, Buea and Limbe and employs initially two zero-inflated count data ...Show More
Abstract: Specialists in many fields need to describe how organizations under investigation operate and function. These specialists often try to categorize organizations by structural features that are important for understanding how the organizations function. This paper reports the results of a workshop that asked subject matter experts to generate a framework for describing the critical features underlying organizational functioning. The experts generated a set of 13 systems that reflected the key aspects of organizational functioning for the broad range of organizations. The experts and members of the client organization all agreed that the 13 systems provided an extremely valuable representation of organizational structure and functioning. The systems generated are useful for different types of specialists who examine organizations. Importantly, this analysis indicates that the systems are similar to those of the open-systems theory of organizations.Abstract: Specialists in many fields need to describe how organizations under investigation operate and function. These specialists often try to categorize organizations by structural features that are important for understanding how the organizations function. This paper reports the results of a workshop that asked subject matter experts to generate a frame...Show More