How do drivers of human capital systems and corporate social responsibility affect sustainability of grassroots level knowledge-­‐based organisations which exercise digital divide elimination as their main social responsibility?

Abstract

This research examined the drivers of Human Capital (HC), Social Responsibility (SR) synergies and their perceived impact on the Sustainability of grassroots level organisations. This was done in the form of a case study of Sri Lankan Nenasala telecentres. The e-Sri Lanka program, funded by the World Bank as a South Asian first, has established a network of 1000 Nenasala telecentres (Knowledge Centres) over 10 years. However, Nenasala telecentre models point to dissimilar sustainability records. Royal and O'Donnell (2008) models were used to investigate these dissimilarities. Royal and O'Donnell (2008) models identified some key indicators and drivers of performance, which were represented as ‘Human capital drivers of the value of the firm' model. Prior research investigated how these drivers act on individual segments of human capital systems with Royal and O'Donnell’s (2008) ‘human capital wheel’. However, these models have not been empirically investigated in developing countries, in an area such as telecentres in ICT4D, which are grassroots level small-scale organisations. Likewise, it has also not been examined how the drivers of human capital systems and social responsibility collaboratively affect sustainability of organisations. This theoretical gap will be bridged through this research. The research undertook a comprehensive archival material analysis, focus group discussions with Nenasala stakeholders and interviews with Sri Lankan Information and Communication Technology Agency officials, to uncover how different operationalization of the human capital drivers within different Nenasala models may lead to more or less sustainability outcomes. The findings showed leadership, which research termed Socio-Cultural Leadership, intertwined with SR synergies was a key to success, although it was controlled by numerous other variables such as funding and parent organisations’ influence. Microfinance and crowdfunding were specially found to be potential tools that could aid SCL. This research succeeded in modifying Royal and O’Donnell’s (2008) model and identifying how drivers of human capital systems affect the sustainability of grassroots enterprises. The model developed through a unique South Asian experience of a developing country, could be applied to other countries in the region that have similar social, cultural and religious boundaries as the underlying unifiers for overall grassroots programs.