IT, Globalization, and Human Development: A Personal View
Geoff Walsham · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2011
This article addresses the relationship between IT, globalization, and human development, and discusses how IS research can inform our understanding of this relationship. It summarizes some key literature on globalization through the eyes of various well-known scholars of the contemporary world. All of them argue the need for increasing reflection and changed action in order to make a better world or to support human development in its broadest sense. This is followed by globalization and presents a brief discussion of ‘human development’ arguing that this is needed by all people and countries, not just by the developing countries. The argument is made that IS researchers can contribute by addressing their research explicitly to issues of human development through a critical approach. Two illustrations are given of critical research on IT in a globalized world, namely health information systems and IT for the poor.