The role of stakeholders and their relationships in the sustainability of telecentres
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/DPRG-05-2022-0042 |
| Published date | 02 February 2023 |
| Date | 02 February 2023 |
| Pages | 104-119 |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information management & governance,Information policy |
| Author | Thai Do Manh,Duong Dang,Morten Falch,Tuan Tran Minh,Tuyen Vu Phi |
The role of stakeholders and their
relationships in the sustainability
of telecentres
Thai Do Manh, Duong Dang, Morten Falch, Tuan Tran Minh and Tuyen Vu Phi
Abstract
Purpose –This paperaims to examine the role of stakeholders and theirrelationships in the sustainability
of telecentresin Vietnam through the lens of stakeholdertheory.
Design/methodology/approach –This study methodologically adopted a qualitative case study to
identify stakeholders that have been involved in telecentres in Vietnam. It then categorizes those
stakeholders’salience through the lens of stakeholderidentification and salience theory.Secondary data
and interviewswere used as data sources for thepresent paper.
Findings –The authors identify six main stakeholders that have been involvedin telecentres, including
the government, entrepreneurs, international donors, telecommunications providers, civil society
organisations and individual community members/users. Among these stakeholders, the government,
entrepreneurs and users belong to definitive stakeholders, which have the greatest impact on the
sustainability of telecentres in comparison to other groups of stakeholders (e.g. dominant, dependent
and dormant stakeholders). Moreover, the authors propose a model to identify the relationships of
stakeholders towardsthe sustainability of telecentres. In particular, the authors indicatethat each group
of stakeholdershas its own role in contributingto sustainable telecentres and theyalso influence others in
eitherdirect or indirect ways.
Originality/value –This study provides an additional approach for managers to make judgments in
prioritizing the interestsof some of their stakeholders while still maintaininga level of satisfaction among
other stakeholders.For example, stakeholders that should be of the highest concern to the sustainability
of telecentres are the government, entrepreneurs and users, while civil society organisations can be
maintained in lower priorityto other stakeholders. In addition, we propose the model of interactionsand
relationships of stakeholders, which can be seen as a starting point for a study on the roles of
stakeholdersin sustainability not only in telecentres,but also in other fields, such as digitaltransformation,
cyber securityand e-government.
Keywords Telecentres, Stakeholders, Salience, Role, Sustainability, Vietnam
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Telecentres are considered remedies for securing the rural population to access to
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Telecentres not only help them
to be connected to electronic services (e-services), such as electronic government
(e-government), electronic business (e-business) and information channels for their needs
(Avgerou, 2008), but also help other institutions (e.g. governments) facilitatethe provision of
a wider range of services to their customers(Naik et al.,2012). Due to its importance, many
governments in developing countries have rolled out telecentres to developsociety and the
economy in those less-developed areas (Faroqi et al., 2019;Mbatha, 2016). However, a
large number of telecentres face challenges in their operations, such as challenges in
finding appropriate mechanisms for sharing information, seeking social interaction with
Thai Do Manh is based at
the Vietnam Public Utility
Telecommunications
Service Fund, Hanoi,
Vietnam.
Duong Dang is based at
the School of Technology
and Innovations, Computer
Science, University of
Vaasa, Vaasa, Finland.
MortenFalch is based at the
Communicatio n, Media and
InformationTechnologies,
Aalborg University,
Copenhagen, Denmark.
Tuan Tran Minh and Tuyen
Vu Phi both are based at
the National Institute of
Information and
Communications Strategy,
Hanoi, Vietnam.
Received 5 May 2022
Revised 9 August 2022
Accepted 25 October 2022
This research is funded by
Vietnam National Foundation
for Science and Technology
Development (NAFOSTED)
under the grant number
502.02-2019.14.
PAGE 104 jDIGITAL POLICY, REGULATION AND GOVERNANCE jVOL. 25 NO. 2 2023, pp. 104-119, ©EmeraldPublishing Limited, ISSN 2398-5038 DOI 10.1108/DPRG-05-2022-0042
locals, collaborating with stakeholders and doing business with local communities (Bailey
and Ngwenyama, 2011). As a result, numerous telecentres have been closed down or
forced to broaden their service portfolio to meet demand from the rural community
(Gollakota et al.,2012;Hoq, 2015), and just a few telecentres have been financially
sustainable and have increased the likelihood of farmers in the community (Gollakota et al.,
2012). Hence, the question of how to sustain telecentres has been substantially arisen for
researchers to investigate(Bailey and Ngwenyama, 2011).
There have been a number of studies conducted to find out factors to sustain telecentres
(Faroqi et al., 2019;Hoq, 2015;Mbatha, 2016;Naik et al., 2012;Thai et al.,2022). For
example, stakeholders play critical roles in successful telecentres (Bailur, 2006;Madon,
2005) and in public e-services (Axelsson et al.,2013;Sæbø et al.,2011). However, there
are surprisingly few studies analysing the degree of stakeholders’ roles in keeping
telecentres sustainable. A study on this issue can help managers to focus on their highest-
priority while still maintaininga level of satisfaction among other stakeholders(Barney, 2018;
McGahan, 2020). Telecentres or Cultural Post Offices (CPOs) in the Vietnamese context
provide an interesting example of how long-termsustainability can be achieved. CPOs have
been established and operated since 1998 providing basic posts and telecommunications
services to rural communities, as well as promoting a reading culture in less developed
areas. Although CPOs have encountered many obstacles over recent years, they are now
quite successful in terms of social, technological and political aspects (Thai et al., 2022).
They are now providing additional commercial services in comparison to their original ones
(e.g. ICT and Internet services). They have built up e-commerce platforms to connect
farmers with consumers and traders all over the country. Those activities help them reduce
economic losses and they become more sustainablein their operations.
This research looks at CPOs in the Vietnamese context through a stakeholder perspective
to identify the role and relationship of stakeholders in sustaining telecentres. In particular,
this research tries to understandthe following research questions:
RQ1. To what degree do CPOs’ stakeholdersinfluence CPOs?
RQ2. Which lessons could be drawn for other developing countries to sustain their
telecentres?
To answer these research questions, we apply the theory of stakeholder identification and
salience from Mitchell et al. (1997). The paper gathered data both from primary and
secondary sources. The primary source has come from interviews conducted with CPOs’
staff, customers and Local Government officials in Dak Lak, Kon Tum and Soc Trang
provinces of Vietnam. The secondary documents were gathered from the Vietnam Ministry
of Information and Communications (MIC), Vietnam Post Office Corporation (VNPost) and
the Vietnam Public UtilityTelecommunication Service Fund (VTF).
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 briefly reviews the literature on
telecentre stakeholders and the theoretical framework, Section 3 presents research
methods and data, Section 4 provides the context of this study, Section 5 demonstrates the
involvement of stakeholders,Sections 6 and 7 are discussion and conclusions.
2. Background
2.1 Literature review
Numerous studies have been conducted to investigate factors enhancing the sustainability
of telecentres. However, surprisingly there are few studies analysing the role of
stakeholders. Among them, the studies of Faroqiand Collings (2019) and Madon (2005) are
typical. The study of Faroqi and Collings (2019) looked at telecentres in Bangladesh under
a public-private-people’s partnership (PPPP) model. They used stakeholder theory to
identify four stakeholder groups involved in telecentres (Central Government, Local
VOL. 25 NO. 2 2023 jDIGITALPOLICY, REGULATION AND GOVERNANCE jPAGE 105
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