Digital Innovations, Business and Society in Africa

The book seeks to showcase how consumers/citizens, entrepreneurs, organisations, institutions and governments are leveraging new and emerging digital innovations to disrupt and transform value creation and service delivery in Africa. The contributions in this book will help create a shared strategic understanding of what works in Africa and how Africa and other interested stakeholders take advantage of its success stories.

PART 1: Digital Innovation and Value Creation Processes

• • Exploring new and emerging digital business models (e.g. platform business, sharing economy, social media, smart products and services) and the enablers and inhibitors of their value creation

  • Exploring how technical and non-technical entities and structures combine to create value in digital platforms or networks

  • Exploration into what makes digital start-ups start and grow or fail to grow

  • Digital product or service innovations created by traditional non-digital businesses

  • Exploration into environmental (e.g. policy/legal, culture, financial, and technological infrastructure) enablers and inhibitors of digital businesses and their value creation

PART 2: Digital Disruption and Transformation

• Exploration into how new and emerging digital technologies/services/information platforms (e.g. social commerce, social media journalism, fake news networks, blockchain, smart devices, cloud computing, Internet of Things, virtual/augmented reality, 3D/4D printing, big data, and Drones) challenge existing businesses

• Evaluating the impact of digital disruption on different functions in the organisation - sales and marketing, finance, production, logistics, operations and distribution

• Exploring the interrelationships between disruptive entrepreneurial behaviour and disruptive technologies - which one empowers the other

• Evaluation of how users accept, reject or adapt to disruptive technologies

• Successful or partially successful examples of the acceptance or adoption of disruptive technologies in public sector institutions/agencies

• Case studies on how organisations and institutions respond to disruptive technologies in an industry (new media, fashion and beauty, tourism, hospitality, healthcare et cetera)

• Case studies and discussions on relationship marketing on social media platforms and also in financial services marketing and fashion marketing

• Case studies and discussions on generational Marketing and its impact on fashion marketing, retail marketing and financial services marketing in digital platforms

• Case studies and discussions on social media, social commerce and issues with multidimensional trust, commitment and purchase behaviour

PART 3: Digital Innovations and Development

• Successful or partially successful examples of the contributions of digital technologies in the achievement of sustainable development goals

• Digital innovations which empower individuals, organisations and institutions to better respond to climate change challenges

• Insightful case studies on digital technologies introduced by governments to promote democracy, information transparency and improve service delivery to citizens

• Evaluation of adoption, use and impact of open data innovations

• Successful or partially successful examples of collaboration between government, private sector and non-governmental institutions in responding to development challenges

• Exploring the contributions or potential contribution of big data analytics to development in different sectors of the economy- health, agriculture, manufacturing, and governance