Determinants and impact of ICT use for African SMEs: Implications for rural South Africa

This study focusses whether the use of ICT (as production technology, as information processing technology or as information communication technology) can help them to cope with these new challenges. The spread of ICT has led several commentators to argue that these technologies are creating a new economy – an information economy – in which information is the critical resource and basis for competition in all sectors – manufacturing and probably even more in services. Generally, from the performance perspective, the competitiveness effect of ICTs derives from the impact that ICTs have upon the productivity of the factor inputs. In this regard, ICTs can improve efficiency and increase productivity by different ways including, improving efficiency in resource allocation, reducing transaction costs, and technical improvement, leading to the outward shifting of the production function.