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Browsing RP-School of Economics by Author "Bosire, E. E."
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Item Information and Communication Technology Integration and Performance of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission Kenya(strategic journals, 2023) Bosire, E. E.; Mutuku, M.The volatile political climate in Kenya was significantly exacerbated by several electoral frauds and transmission delays of the presidential results during this election. The Kriegler Commission suggested the adoption of technology in the electoral process in order to offer effective, transparent, auditable, and credible outcomes, among other significant reforms. The IEBC which was established in 2011 oversaw the general elections of 2013 and 2017. However, in both instances, the IEBC was questioned on how it conducted the elections. Kenya's Supreme Court decided that the latter round of presidential election results was invalid due to vote irregularities. The legitimacy of the official election results, which are frequently rejected, have consequently been at the center of Kenya's electoral crisis. This has eroded public confidence in the digital technologies at IEBC’s. There are significant obstacles to integration of ICT in election process due to budgeting and financial costs, lack of sufficient specialized knowledge, technological drawbacks, low levels of awareness, public employee resistance, information security, laws, necessary technology, and a lack of faith in e-Government. These factors are broadly categorized into technology characteristics, organizational, and individual factors. To this end, this study sought to determine the enablers and impact of ICT integration on performance of IEBC. Diffusion of innovation theory and the technology-organization environment model served as the study's foundations. For this study, a survey design was selected. The target population comprised of 373 permanent employees working at the IEBC headquarters as well as 200 politicians. Purposive, convenience and simple stratified random sampling were applied to select a sample size of 236 respondents. The findings of this study revealed that organizational-level factors, technology characteristics and individual-level factors positively and significantly influence performance of IEBC. This study recommended IEBC to pay particular attention to organizational-level factors that affect ICT integration as they ultimately affect its performance. In this regard, there is need for IEBC to ensure that it is well-equipped to use various innovative aspects, have a high availability of appropriate ICT equipment in the organization, utilize prior expertise in relevant ICT domains, conduct employee training to create a greater understanding, positive attitude, more usage, and diversified use of innovation, and provide adequate training and aiding staff when they encounter difficulties utilizing different technologies. Additionally, there is need to provide proper management support for the adoption and usage of various technologies, avail individual workers with incentives like recognition and awards for innovation adoption, and train them to promote effective completion of specific task performance.