Bridging technology divide to improve business environment: Insights from African nationsKefei You, Silvia Dal Bianco, Zhibin Lin and Joseph Amankwah-Amoah Journal of Business Research, 2019, vol. 97, issue C, 268-280 Abstract: Bridging the technology divide remains one of the contemporary business issues, yet limited scholarly attention has been devoted to exploring the gap between regional developing nations. This study examined the state of technological progress in Africa by applying an innovative two-step total factor productivity (TFP) analysis. We first estimated the TFP for 21 African countries with reference to South Africa (regional leader) and the United States (US) (international leader). We then applied the Phillips and Sul (2007) panel convergence tests. We found three convergence clubs with TFP levels relative to South Africa, where only most developed African countries have been able to catch-up. For TFP levels relative to the US, we found two convergence clubs and only a couple of countries have managed to make short-lived progress of catching-up. Our analysis has implications in terms of capitalising on new technology to create platforms for new businesses to flourish in Africa. Keywords: Technological progress; Total factor productivity; Africa; Club convergence (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:97:y:2019:i:c:p:268-280 DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.01.015 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Business Research is currently edited by A. G. Woodside More articles in Journal of Business Research from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.