Information and knowledge society and its impact on poverty alleviation and economic empowerment among informal sector women entrepreneurs in South Africa
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Date
2012
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University of Zululand
Abstract
The use of tools for development has evolved from the industrial revolution in the late
18th and 19th centuries that saw the increased use of machines and developments in the
mining industries, to the increased use of information and technology in the 20th century
and major breakthroughs that sparked the evolution into the information and knowledge
society of the 21st century. The basis of the information and knowledge society revolves
around technology’s increased assimilation and diffusion in human society, particularly
information and communication technologies and their rapid growth and use in the
exchange of information and knowledge. This society offers many opportunities and
benefits to people in terms of the facilitation of information creation, distribution,
diffusion, access and use for growth and development in various spheres of life.
Information and communication technologies are thus regarded as tools for the
advancement and development of communities, and this includes rural, illiterate,
marginalized and poor communities and the female entrepreneurs in the informal sector
who are the subject of this thesis.
The aim of this study was to examine information and knowledge society and its impact
on poverty alleviation and the economic empowerment of informal sector women
entrepreneurs in South Africa and develop a model for utilization of information and
knowledge in the informal sector. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were
employed for triangulation, although the qualitative approach significantly outweighed
the quantitative in this study. The absence of a comprehensive list of informal activities
in KwaZulu-Natal led to the decision to use snowball, purposive and haphazard
sampling techniques to select the sample for the study.
Focus group discussions, interviews, observation and content analysis were used to
collect data from 118 women entrepreneurs from the informal sector, 17 women
leaders, and 4 officials from the Hlabisa Local Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal.
Description
Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
in Library and Information Science at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2012.
Keywords
Poverty alleviation -- KwaZulu-Natal, Poverty alleviation -- Information and knowledge society, Economic empowerment -- informal sector, Women entrepreneurs -- KwaZulu-Natal, Information and knowledge society -- South Africa, Economic empowerment -- women entrepreneurs, Informal sector women