Exploring the Digital Divide in Mobile Phone Adoption Levels Across Countries

SMC Author

Zhan Li

SMC Affiliated Work

1

Status

Faculty

School

School of Economics and Business Administration

Department

Marketing

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-1-2008

Publication / Conference / Sponsorship

Journal of Macromarketing

Description/Abstract

Although the adoption of mobile phones has been skyrocketing globally during the current decade, present adoption levels are quite uneven across countries. Such disparities are also found over a range of other information and communications technologies and have been characterized as a “digital divide.” Although the adoption of mobile phones has been the focus of numerous studies, relatively few have systematically and comprehensively investigated the adoption of this technological innovation at the country level of analysis and over a broad range of nations. This study addresses this research gap by examining the effects of three country-level socioeconomic factors paralleling the individual-level demographic traits that in past studies have predominantly predicted early adoption of innovations. We rely on secondary data obtained from several reputable sources to examine this phenomenon across 170 nations. Theoretical, managerial, and policy implications based on our empirical findings, along with directions for future research, are presented.

Keywords

mobile telephone, country-level adoption, digital divide, information and communications technologies

Scholarly

yes

DOI

10.1177/0276146708325386

Disciplines

Business | Economics | Marketing

Original Citation

Li, Z. (2008). Exploring the Digital Divide in Mobile Phone Adoption Levels across Countries. Journal of Macromarketing

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