The impact of the mobile telephone on development: Behavioral change in small business entrepreneurs in Turkey.

摘要

This study investigates the behavior of the small business entrepreneurs in the underdeveloped Black Sea region of Turkey in regard to their adoption of the mobile telephone and the consequences of the implementation of the mobile telephone in their social system. The study employs a trans-theoretical framework to analyze the behavioral change in five stages. The results of a cross sectional survey of 324 entrepreneurs in four provinces show that the mobile telephone had diffused very rapidly in small business with 95 percent of the study group adopting a mobile telephone as of 2005. The motives of the small business entrepreneurs for adoption were primarily business related and the mobile telephone is still considered as a business tool among the entrepreneurs. The mobile telephone is only slightly associated with the creative destruction of traditional business behavior in relation to access to finance, raw material, labor and technology changes in production methods. On the other hand, the mobile telephone is related to behavioral change towards continual learning, an interesting finding which has to be tested in other settings. Finally, the mobile telephone adoption is strongly associated with the PC and Internet adoption; however, more than 36 percent of the study group had adopted the PC before the mobile telephone, therefore the study concluded that the mobile telephone did not act as a gateway to the PC and the Internet.