Mobile Technology for Street Traders in Tanzania

Abstract

Street trade is an ancient and important category of informal occupation found everywhere in the developing world. It is an important source of income and livelihood for poor and less educated people merely because one can do it with relatively low capital and education. Despite many research in street trade there is a paucity of knowledge about how street traders conduct business in terms of business skills, strategies, and the use of technology to improve their undertakings. Most of the available literature on street trade focuses on socioeconomic factors and the challenges encountered and little on improving their activities, particularly through Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Theoretical and empirical studies have demonstrated the importance of ICT to small enterprises in fostering productivity, growth, efficiency and competitiveness. However, there are few ICT projects targeting street traders. ICT devices, particularly mobile phones, have become popular among small enterprises in Africa; however, their use is embedded in existing relations of social support and little in business improvement. The main research interest of this thesis is to explore street traders’ activities, strategies and skills in order to design and develop mobile interventions for improving their business. The study followed the design science framework developed by Johannesson and Perjons (2014). Data was collected from Dar es Salaam, Dodoma and Joensuu, Finland. The thesis employed an exploratory sequential mixed methods approach where the qualitative data was followed up by quantitative data (Creswell, 2014). The systematic literature review was carried out in research paper four (PIV). A total of 313 street traders (Dar es Salaam and Dodoma), 12 business lecturers from the College of Business Education Dodoma Campus (CBE), and 17 PhD and Masters students from the University of Eastern Finland Joensuu Campus (UEF) were involved in the project. Data was collected through personal interviews, focus group discussions, surveys, and documentary review. Data analysis was done through qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics. The findings show that street vendors operate in a challenging environment, possess low levels of business skills in all domains of business, and make most of their decisions based on tacit knowledge. Traders are restrained by unreliable business information, weak business strategies, lack of capital, and absence of record keeping. This thesis resulted in a successful design, development, and demonstration of the first version of the bookkeeping application for street traders’ bookkeeping, ready for further Design Science Research (DSR) projects. The findings suggest the possibility of intercultural co-creation activities within limited resources. In addition, the findings show a low level of ICT uptakes by informal workers, scarce use of user centered design principles, lack of design science research approaches, and uneven distribution of ICT solutions among different types of informal workers.