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Transforming Small, Medium, and Microscale Enterprises? Information-Communication Technologies (Icts) and Industrial Change in Tanzania

The changing structure of international trade offers new opportunities for Africa, and some believe that new information communication technologies (ICTs)—especially mobile phones, the Internet, and computers—can accelerate and deepen the region's integration into the world economy. This paper evaluates such claims through an in-depth empirical analysis of ICT use and its contribution to small, medium, and microscale enterprises (SMMEs) and industrial development in Tanzania's wood products and furniture sector. Drawing on concepts from time geography and sociotechnical transition theory, the analysis determines whether, how, and why (not) ICTs are enabling SMMEs to overcome constraints on their activities and whether the industrial regime governing and guiding the activities of firms is being transformed through ICT-driven changes in communication and information management practices. The findings detail the ways in which ICTs are (not) becoming integrated into the everyday industrial practices, highlight the implications of this integration for the industry's development, and demonstrate how research into ICT for development can benefit from a deeper and more critical understanding of the contexts in which technological diffusion occurs—conceptualized here as activity constraints and sociotechnical regimes.