Usage of the mobile phone on agricultural farm enterprise development by women in rural Bangladesh

Abstract

The mobile phone is one of the most accessible and transformative communication technologies globally and a staple in modern life. This study explores the impact of mobile phone usage among women on developing agricultural farm enterprises. Data were collected from 150 rural women involved in agricultural enterprise development. Descriptive statistics, chi-square test, multiple linear regression, step-wise regression, and path analysis were used for quantitative data analysis. The study found that a large proportion (70.0% and 64.0%) of the respondents in crop and fisheries enterprises had a medium extent of mobile phone usage. In contrast, more than half (56.0%) of the rural women in livestock enterprises fell under the low usage category. Factors such as reduced transportation costs, time-saving, easy contact with stakeholders, and frequent contact with fellow entrepreneurs were identified as significant influences on rural women’s mobile phone usage. Multiple regression analysis revealed that 14 selected characteristics explained 66.0% of the total variation. Among them, membership in an organization, distance of residence from the nearest market, training received on mobile phone usage, skill in using mobile phones, attitude towards mobile phones, amount of money spent, and perceived ease of use had a significant positive contribution. The attitude towards mobile phones had the highest contribution, explaining 36.0% of the variation. The path analysis showed that attitude towards mobile phones had a positive direct effect (0.30) on the extent of mobile phone usage. Perceived ease of use had the highest total indirect effect (0.413), primarily channeled positively through attitudes towards mobile phones.

Keywords

• Agricultural enterprise
• ICT adoption
• rural farm
• technology adoption
• women entrepreneur
• Dr. Guangchao Charles Feng, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong