Role of Leadership and Championship in ICT adoption and diffusion in the Developing Countries: Reflections from Bangladesh

Adoption and diffusion of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) is not just a technology issue, it involves a range of complex societal and environmental issues, which unfortunately often been misinterpreted in most of the Asian and developing countries. The West has derived benefit from ICT in their productivity and growth through its effective business application backed by information management systems. ICT can be used as an effective tool to solve many of the deep-rooted problems like accountability, transparency and governance as well as improving business activity and competitiveness. The paper investigates the role of leadership and championship in adoption and diffusion of ICT in organizational and national level and evaluates its influence from the qualitative data of an empirical study, conducted in Bangladesh. Analysis of seven focus group and 11 interview data helped to build a concept map showing the relationship of leadership and championship factor with other associated factors in ICT adoption and diffusion in a developing country. The findings of this study give important direction for this ongoing research. The paper contributes in developing an ICT adoption model from a different perspective of influences, especially in the context of a developing country.