Mobile marketing application for entrepreneurship development: Codesign with women entrepreneurs in Iringa, Tanzania

Abstract

Mobile marketing apps have been progressively employed as business gadget innovations in developing economies. Research has acknowledged a number of encounters between women entrepreneurs and innovation opportunities. One identified opportunity is the application of technology to enable women entrepreneurs' access to market information with ease. This paper reports the cocreation process of a mobile application contextualized to Tanzanian women entrepreneurs to facilitate access to market information for improving their business performance and livelihood. Our study employs design science research (DSR) strategy for the cocreation and codesign of the mobile application artifact. After evaluating in the wild the mobile application, the women entrepreneurs participating in the study reported that through the codesigned mobile phone app access to market information is facilitated, and their business and the networks could be expanded. The contribution of our paper highlights the benefits of employing codesign and cocreation in combination with DSR to achieve a meaningful and contextualized virtual platform for accessing market information and for business networks expansion through direct contact with target consumers.

Demonstration of a Mobile Education Artifact in a Tanzania’s Higher Education Institution

“…The explication exposed the need for the mobile training application and the need for proper sharing of educational materials by all teachers. Similar works on applying the DSR with participatory design has been done in Tanzania, for example Kapinga et al, [24]. Following the explication process, the requirements definition was done by teachers, researchers, and a developer.…”

Enhancing Tax Administration to Micro Businesses Through Digital Technology: An Exploratory Study in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

“…In this respect, many studies (see for example, Gomera et al, 2019;Kapinga et al, 2019;Mramba et al, 2017) have advocated for the usage of digital technology in enhancing business activities of practitioners, in the informal sector, MBs inclusive. Mobile money services, mobile banking, mobile training, and digital marketing are examples of MBs' activities undertaken using digital technology.…”

“…Kapinga et al, 2019). This opens up the way for different authorities in seeing the potential of using technology-based innovations to formalize the informal practitioners and enable them benefit from the initiative.…”

The components of an innovation ecosystem framework for Botswana's mobile applications

“…Despite the wide adoption of, and the socio‐economic developmental potential presented by, mobile phones, in Africa the mobile app development industry faces challenges such as skills shortages (Pieters, 2014), the high cost of mobile bandwidth and smartphones, limited awareness of the importance of mobile apps (Kapinga & Mbise, 2019), poor policy and regulations, a lack of financial resources, poor ICT governance (Pankomera & Van Greunen, 2018) and numerous financial and technical obstacles (Drouillard, Taverner, Willianson, & Harris, 2014). These challenges manifest themselves in inhibited local content development, content in inappropriate languages and the absence of broadband‐dependent rich content, all of which culminate in local populations becoming passive/non‐consumers of information and services, rather than producers and active consumers (Tongia, Subrahmanian, & Arunachalam, 2005).…”