Guest editorial: Cutting-edge technologies for the development of Asian countries
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JABS-04-2022-494 |
| Published date | 23 March 2022 |
| Date | 23 March 2022 |
| Pages | 225-229 |
| Subject Matter | Strategy,International business |
| Author | Antoine Harfouche,Peter Saba,Georges Aoun,Samuel Fosso Wamba |
Guest editorial: Cutting-edge
technologies for the development
of Asian countries
Antoine Harfouche, Peter Saba, Georges Aoun and Samuel Fosso Wamba
Introduction
Artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT)/Internet of Everything, blockchain and Big
Data are expected to disrupt public and private sectors in Asian countries. If well
implemented, these cutting-edge technologies can promote socioeconomic and ecological
developments (Fosso Wamba et al.,2015) and enhance the quality of life (De-Arteaga et al.,
2018) in Asian countries. They have the potential to bring great value to Asian countries in
terms of reshaping competitive advantages(Akter et al.,2020), improving how organizations
respond to disasters (Ofli et al.,2016;Zhou et al.,2018) and emer gency (Johnson et al.,
2021a), reducing inequalities (Korinek and Stiglitz, 2019), developing new knowledge
(Harfouche et al., 2017), improving human health (Guo and Li, 2018;Johnso n et al., 2021b;
Stone et al., 2018; Wahl et al.,2018), improving education (McCalla, 2004), increasing
participationin smart cities (Viale Pereiraet al.,2017), reshapingagriculture (Harfouche et al.,
2019) and empoweringfarmers by increasing their economicintelligence (Saba et al.,2018).
It can alsoenhance microfinance andsocial entrepreneurship(Popkova and Sergi, 2020).
Along with these potential positive impacts, cutting-edge technologies can inevitably have
negative consequences. As these technologies were designed in developed countries,
they could have been built intentionally or inadvertently with biases. If they were created
with a bias or their training data collected from different countries, they could potentially
produce biased results in the context of developing countries. This reality could lead to
unintended consequences such as increased discrimination and racism, inequalities, low
security, reduced privacy, digital divide and lack of national sovereignty.
The special issue tacklesthe potential impact of cutting-edge technologies in Asia, shedding
light on how these technologiesare adopted and implemented, and their effects and causes
on the strategic,operational and technical levels.
Between the technological and social determinisms
Over the past few years, there has been a growing interest in research dealing with the
potential impact of cutting-edge technologies on businesses and societies. To analyze the
impact of cutting-edge technologiesand their causes, we update Heeks and Bailur’s (2007)
framework. This framework was proposed to understand perspectives on the impacts of
introducing technologyand the causes of such impacts. We have selected this framework to
introduce our specialissue because it can help to integrate the most underlying perspectives
and approaches to research dealing with cutting-edge technologies. Heeks and Bailur’s
(2007) frameworkis a matrix that has two facets:
AntoineHarfouche is based
at UniversiteParis-Nanterre,
Nanterre La Defense,
France. Peter Saba is
based at EMLV, La
Defense, France.
Georges Aoun is based at
Universite Saint-Joseph,
Beirut, Lebanon.
Samuel Fosso Wamba is
based at TBS Business
School, Toulouse, France.
DOI 10.1108/JABS-04-2022-494 VOL. 16 NO. 2 2022, pp. 225-229, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1558-7894 jJOURNAL OF ASIA BUSINESS STUDIES jPAGE 225
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