Digital divide, gender gap, and entrepreneurial orientation: How to foster technology adoption among Pakistani higher education students?

Abstract

Advances in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) bear the promise of multiple benefits, including individual and entrepreneurial empowerment. The prospect of harnessing ICT as a means of creating growth and development opportunities is particularly appealing in developing countries. Still, several factors, including digital illiteracy and gender inequality, hamper the possibility of effective and universal utilization of these opportunities, in extreme cases leading to digital divide, gender-based exclusion, poverty, and precarity. Using this observation as a springboard, the objective of this paper is to conceptualize and quantify the digital divide-gender-entrepreneurial orientation nexus as it emerges in the perception of Pakistan higher education students. Using a quantitative approach, this study identifies the impact of digital skills (and thus the knowledge inequalities that can determine the potential digital gap) on entrepreneurship-related technology adoption (as measured through Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, UTAUT), whereby gender is treated as a moderator. The empirical findings, based on Structure Equation Modelling (SEM) and Multiple Group Analysis (MGA), show that digital skills and perceptions of technology capabilities have a substantial impact on the desire to use ICT in entrepreneurial activities. The influence of technology adoption intent on the development of entrepreneurial orientation is also confirmed. This paper adds to the broader debate on gender, digital divide and entrepreneurship. Importantly, by identifying some of the drivers behind students’ technology adoption in a developing nation such as Pakistan, filled with technological and economic unbalances, the conclusions of this study will have conceptual, managerial, and policymaking applications, notably in terms of technological access, digital literary, and gender-based exclusion.