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Information and communications technologies (ICTs) have transformed the lives of many people around the world, yet billions remain unconnected. While many initiatives attempt to “connect the unconnected,” initiatives focused on access and skills-development alone will still fall short. Based on the authors’ experience with the SolarSPELL initiative, this study aims to propose using the concept of socio-technical awareness as a step forward in conceptualizing a more accurate picture of capabilities necessary to enable people to make meaningful use of the internet.

This paper uses an integrative literature review for the ideas related to the digital divide, digital inclusion and digital literacies, as well as the applied work of the authors in the SolarSPELL initiative, to develop the concept of socio-technical awareness, which is presented as a method for understanding empowered, meaningful internet use.

The argument is made that access, skills- and literacy-development are necessary but insufficient conditions for meaningful ICTs use. Accordingly, a third concept, socio-technical awareness, is introduced, and the case is made for including this concept in both application and measurement of meaningful use of ICTs.

The design of digital inclusion initiatives should focus on increasing socio-technical awareness to empower users to make meaningful use of digital technologies.

Taking a step further than most assessments of the digital divide or digital inclusion, this study proposes that to achieve meaningful internet use, people need access, requisite skills development and socio-technical awareness, to be able to make informed, empowered decisions about ICT use.

This last edition of the column begins with the disadvantages of sleeping in the library and ends with 60-year-old overdue loans, but in between are alternate ways of using different technology to access information!

Sleeping in the library is trending on the internet, not because it is a nice pastime, but because it is one of the most viral trends of the year.

The real advice is that falling asleep in public places such as libraries is not good. A lot of wild reactions to the picture of a girl sleeping in a university library has caused all sorts, as “photo-shoppers”have had a field day, putting the sleeper in all sorts of situations – in Drake’s “Hotline Bling” music video, dancing with Michael Jackson and more.

Derrick Lewis on 26th August reported that an Orange County library had made wi-fi devices available for rural internet users.

It is helping rural families make faster connections, and it is free to try the device which can be borrowed for 3 weeks and renewed twice if no one else has booked to use it.

The purpose of this paper is to operationalize the subjective measures of business performance and assessing their justification for use in place of objective measures of business performance.

The study is based on a sample survey of 171 companies listed on Bombay Stock Exchange, India. A cross-sectional descriptive research design has been used. Exploratory factor analysis was used to assess the factor structure and dimensionality of objective and subjective measures of business performance. The psychometric properties of these measures and their interrelationship have been assessed through confirmatory factor analysis.

The study finds a strong positive correlation between subjective business performance and objective business performance. The study finds it justified to use the subjective measures of business performance.

Response bias may have crept in because of self-reported measure used for the study. Future researchers may cross-verify the subjective perception of respondents with data available from the records of the firms. Second, the study focuses only on financial and operational indicators of performance. The future studies may widen the scope of business performance by incorporating the interests of other stakeholders like suppliers, government, environment and society in general.

The strategy researchers confronting the challenge of adopting appropriate measures of business performance can use either or both of subjective and objective performance measures, as suggested in this study. The study has suggestions for strategic decision makers regarding measurement of business performance in terms of financial as well as operational indicators.

The study operationalizes and validates two measures of performance, namely, subjective business performance and objective business performance. The study contributes to the strategic management literature by providing evidence for association between objective and subjective measures of performance.