Healing the Digital Divide with Digital Inclusion: Enabling Human Capabilities

  • Healing the Digital Divide with Digital Inclusion: Enabling Human Capabilities

Introduction

Today, essential services rely heavily on digital technologies, but access to digital technology and the ability to fully participate in its use are unevenly distributed. This reflects the ‘digital divide,’ which refers to societal-level inequalities of digital access, capabilities, and outcomes. This study reframes the digital divide as a ‘digital inclusion’ problem where people may have issues accessing, affording, and lacking the ability to use digital technologies effectively. By adopting the term ‘healing,’ the service opportunities to restore the well-being of human society against digital divide are prioritised. Four topics provide the conceptual background for this research: the digital divide, vulnerability, service inclusion practices, and human capabilities for digital inclusion. The below table shows the definitions of these key constructs and other relevant key concepts.

Despite significant academic research, the digital divide has not been introduced to service research. Moreover, prior academic literature tends to present people experiencing the digital divide as disadvantaged or vulnerable due to a lack of access, thus suggesting improved access to digital technologies as a solution. This research, however, challenges this view by adopting a strengths-based perspective that prioritises the capabilities a person can leverage, rather than focusing on the resources they lack.

First, it provides evidence of the impact of the digital divide on customers experiencing vulnerability to understand how access to the internet and digital devices distribution contribute to inequalities and vulnerability. Second, it observes how service organizations can heal the digital divide by cocreating upskilling opportunities through various deliberate service inclusion practices. Third, the research presents a framework to explain how services organisations can address the digital divide by helping customers develop capabilities that increase their well-being through the pursuit of individually meaningful outcomes such as fostering happiness

Method and sample

The research involves two studies. Study 1 reviewed secondary data via a comprehensive search of peer-reviewed articles, government data, and reports from highly respected research institutes. The results from this study were used to inform the interviews in Study 2. Essential service leaders and service employees from relevant occupations (medicine, teaching, and social welfare) were recruited and interviewed virtually. They were all located near one of the universities affiliated with the research team. 21 interviews were conducted in Australia, and 12 were done in the United States. The interviews were conducted between June and November 2020 and lasted 26:38 to 72:32 min, with an average of 50:26 min per interview. Industry interviewee experience averaged 13 years and ranged from 2 to 33 years.

Key findings

The nature of the digital divide in essential service delivery

  • The digital divide is significantly associated with customer vulnerability, even in developed countries such as the United States and Australia. The digital divide does not solely result from unequal access to digital technologies, but also from the differences in skills, human capabilities, and outcomes.
  • The shifts of physical to digital delivery modes of services, especially during COVID-19, have created and worsened the digital divide for customers across the sectors of healthcare, education, and social services.
  • Macroenvironmental factors, including public policy, legislation, natural forces, and hazards, create significantly more awareness of the effects of the digital divide.
  • Service organisations and employees struggle to continue providing existing services and create new offerings for new client segments. They have had to innovate their models and alter their organisational cultures to support digital inclusion. Changes are likely to persist.

Addressing the digital divide through service inclusion practices

  • Service organisations can contribute to healing the digital divide through service inclusion practices. A total of 12 practices were identified. These include seven practices when preparing to serve customers: (1) leading the organisation to meet a specific challenge; (2) understanding and responding to macroenvironmental forces; (3) obtaining and deploying necessary organisational resources; (4) managing human resources; (5) managing revenue, expenses, and funding; (6) expanding network partners; and (7) creating organizational flexibility. Five other practices are for coproducing inclusive digital services: (1) navigating digital resources and infrastructure, (2) developing necessary digital skills, (3) encouraging digital adoption, (4) facilitating connection and interaction, and (5) dealing with emergent challenges.
  • Four digital service inclusion strategy themes were identified: (1) letting go of past rules and perspectives; (2) sharing control; (3) going beyond the job scope, and (4) facilitating social connections.

Enabling human capabilities for digital inclusion

  • Enabling human capabilities can significantly foster digital inclusion. Six key customer capabilities were identified: (1) technological skills, (2) digital problem-solving skills, (3) career enhancing skills, (4) well-being management skills, (5) coping skills, and (6) social interaction and networking skills.
  • (1) and (2) are in the area of building basic digital skills, while (3), (4), (5), and (6) are in the area of building capabilities to attain meaningful outcomes.
  • The above skills can be achieved through service providers’ role modelling, service providers’ coaching, customer-to-customer mentoring, and expanding networks.

Recommendations

  1. Service providers should build trusting relationships with customers as they play an important role in transformative services that help bridge the digital divide gap.
  2. If transformative service researchers are going to develop methods to heal the digital divide, we must think from a strengths-based perspective on vulnerability and work with employees and customers. We need to take a step back and learn from employees and customers about their lived experiences of vulnerability, strengths, needs, and goals because it is not enough to just offer benefits and solutions.
  3. There is an ongoing need for public policy, government, and NGO activities to help heal the digital divide. For example, digital inclusion effort to improve people’s digital access and skills from certain foundations or the relaxed telehealth rules from the government during COVID-19 have helped address the digital divide.

Lead Researcher

More information

The research article is also available on eprints