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# Regulatory Frameworks in Developing Countries: An Integrative Literature Review

Casper Chigwedere, Sam Takavarasha, Bonface Chisaka

► To cite this version:

Casper Chigwedere, Sam Takavarasha, Bonface Chisaka. Regulatory Frameworks in Developing Countries: An Integrative Literature Review. 15th IFIP International Conference on Human Choice and Computers (HCC), Sep 2022, Tokyo, Japan. pp.170-185, 10.1007/978-3-031-15688-5_15. hal-04395447

HAL Id: hal-04395447

https://inria.hal.science/hal-04395447v1

Submitted on 15 Jan 2024

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ifip

International Federation for Information Processing

This document is the original author manuscript of a paper submitted to an IFIP
conference proceedings or other IFIP publication by Springer Nature. As such, there
may be some differences in the official published version of the paper. Such
differences, if any, are usually due to reformatting during preparation for publication or
minor corrections made by the author(s) during final proofreading of the publication
manuscript.
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Regulatory Frameworks in Developing countries: An
Integrative literature Review

Casper Chigwedere¹[0000-0002-1172-5539] Sam Takavarasha Jr²[0000-0002-0845-0677] and Bonface Chisaka³

Women's University in Africa
549, Arcturus Road Harare, Zimbabwe

² Department of Information, ¹,³System, Postgraduate Research Centre
casperchigwedere@gmail.com

**Abstract.** In spite of good intentions to develop effective ICT regulatory frame-
works that foster universal access, improve competition, drive down access cost,
address disputes between stakeholders and create equal opportunities to enter the
sector, the outcomes often fail to match their preferences. The development of
ICT regulatory frameworks in developing countries is dependent on lessons
drawn from industrialised countries. Since the models from different countries
have their strengths and weakness, it is imperative to investigate the causes of
failure, to compile the strengths and avoid the weaknesses that are documented
in literature as a first step to developing any effective ICT regulatory framework.

This paper presents an integrative literature review on regulatory frameworks
in developing countries using Habermasian Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)
which views discourse under an Ideal Speech Situation. After a key word selec-
tion, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Synthesis
(PRISMS) model was employed by three researchers and a compilation of 30
papers was drawn from an initial list of 90 papers from AIS, Research4Life,
Googlescholar and Academia.edu data bases. The results present the components
of an effective ICT regulatory model for developing countries as a hub and spoke
framework with institutionalism as the hub that supports the rest, and all under a
common jurisdiction and legislative context.

**Keywords:** ICT Regulation, Frameworks, comparative analysis, best practice, telecommunication

# 1 Introduction

There is a growing body of literature on ICT regulation in developing countries (José Antonio Gouvêa and de Souza, 2020; Galhardo, 2020; Walden, and Christou, 2018; Palvia, Baqir and Nemati, 2015; Makoza and Chigona, 2013). ICT regulatory frameworks often called telecommunication regulatory frameworks are being discussed in this paper from an Information systems perspective. The literature often draws from a combination of policy studies, ICT law and sectoral regulation studies that are concerned with regulatory frameworks of different sectors (Nesti, 2016; Brown, Stern, and
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Tenenbaum, 2006). We build the background and we critique the ICT regulation corpus on this polymorphic approach because other scholars recommend a move beyond monomorphic nation, region, or sector (Levi-Faur, 2017).

Information systems scholars have noted that as their research area continues to grow it is becoming difficult to have a firm grasp of previous work. This then makes it challenging to advance knowledge in a research area that is increasingly diversified and fragmented, both in terms of its content and methods (Pentland, 1995; Ravichandran et al, 2005). This makes it necessary for the writing of review papers, conceptual frameworks, taxonomies, polemics (Rowe, 2014; Pare’et al, 2015; Okoli, 2015). Such work will enable the upcoming scholar to have a quick starting point while at the same time serving as a reference body for regulatory bodies seasoned scholars.

Scholars have lamented that the ICT regulatory systems have failed to deliver as expected. Investors have complained about a lack of fairness while subscribers have claimed to be disenchanted (Brown et al., 2013). Information systems scholars attribute ICT policy regulation failure to the lack of critical research on policy regulation. They further suggest that ICT policy outcomes are affected by the lack of capacity to conduct research that acknowledge the political and economical dimensions of policy reform (Gilwald, 2010). Such research on policy is also said to be key to the implementation of information systems at the local level (Thompson and Walsham, 2010). Kunyenje and Chigona (2017) suggest that this non-achievement of macro and micro-level ICT policy objectives is to blame for the failure of information systems projects and initiatives.

Due to the foregoing, we argue that research on ICT policy regulation in developing countries need to adopt a critical research theoretical lens. This paper is based on Jürgen Habermas’ (1984) Ideal Speech Situation as an emancipatory for the developing world and particularly the post colonial state where ICT design often worsen inequalities. This will help us to go beyond the explaining and understanding phase to the critical questioning of established social structure and norms of ICT regulation and policy making environment. The controversy around conducting critical research from an interpretivist paradigm has already been problematised (McGrath, 2005) and rebutted in IS literature (Walsham, 2005).

Habermasian Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is used for analysing the literature on ICT policy frameworks that are used by developing countries. This paper is motivated by the need to build a knowledge base that the lead author may harness in the context of a PhD research at Women’s University in Africa. Their objective is to contribute the IS body of knowledge on ICT regulation by systematically synthesising the body of knowledge on literature on regulatory models in developing countries. The paper therefore takes a conceptual approach which is organised around the main themes and concepts of ICT regulatory topic under review (Torraco, 2016). The study endevours to develop an emancipatory model which will enable equal opportunity to communicate, invest and compete in the ICT sector. This objective is addressed by answering a research question which reads, ‘What are the components of an effective ICT regulatory model for developing countries?’
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The rest of this paper is organised as follows: this introduction is followed by related work and theoretical grounding. This is followed by a methodology and findings and conclusions

## 2 Related work and theoretical framework

The use of systematic literature review is common in ICT policy and regulation research. In a similar endeavour to investigate the ICT regulatory process, Galhardo and de Souza (2020) conducted a systematic literature review from a critical perspective and they found that there are opportunities for more Habermasian critiques of ICT regulation processes. This research follows this and earlier work's (Makoza and Chigona, 2013) call for more critical work in the conduct of ICT policy and regulatory work in developing countries.

While this literature review project excludes publications by multilateral bodies, it important to acknowledge the outstanding work that also informs the peer reviewed. Zwahr, Rossel and Fingers(2005) posits that governments find themselves sharing their power with non-state actors such as Transnational Corporations (TNCs) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). For instance, World bank's (2013) handbook for evaluating infrastructure regulation which specifies eight factors of a regulatory system. These are, 1) Independence and accountability of the regulator, 2) the need to have a working relationship between policy making bodies and the regulatory authority, 3) the need for regulator to have autonomy, 4) the need for the regulator to exercise transparency in their decision making. 5) the regulator's predictability in decision making. 6) the need for the regulator to have organisational structure and resources available to them, and 8) the need for formal and informal processes for regulatory decision making (Brown et al, 2013).

Space limitations won't allow us to enumerate the vast work done by International Telecommunications Union. The noteworthy is ITU Hand Book of Digital Regulation (2020) which addresses including regulatory independence, Regulatory responses to evolving technologies and technical regulation. Other key non-peer reviewed bodies included the regional bloc-centric bodies like European Commission's (2020) Body of European Regulatory for Electronic Communications, OECD and national bodies like the Ofcom, FCC and the Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI).

Similar to the work by multilateral bodies is work on best practice (Gülen, Makaryan, Volkov, and Foss, 2007). These authors tend to compile the ideal way of developing and implementing ICT regulatory frameworks. This is usually done as compendiums and evaluations of the components that make up an ideal ICT regulatory framework as discussed below (Palvia, Baqir, and Nemati, 2015).

The regulators in developing countries keep drawing lessons from best practice from multinational bodies and other jurisdictions (Kunyenje and Chigona, 2017). The manner in which this is done has awakened the vexed question of whether the developing world is marching to the beat of its own drum, or stuck in eternal mimicry
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of external agendas. These borrowed models have often been blamed for IS intervention that failed due to their acontextual nature. Avgerou (2010) emphasises the need to avoid the transfer and diffusion model and they advocate for a social embeddedness approach to ICT interventions. The undue influence of external actors was problematised by IS scholars, (Chiumbu, 2008, Kunyenje and Chigona, 2013). They found that the influence of external play comes in different ways, e.g. the funding of the process and seconding of experts. The systematic review, however, concludes that the effect remains unknown.

A growing body of literature on ICT regulation in developing countries has tended to focus on the challenges that are faced by developing countries during the policy making process (Chiumbu, 2008; Kunyenje and Chigona, 2013; Wadhwa and Hallur, 2013). Parallel to the above tracks of research also runs a body of comparative works on ICT regulation by different countries (Wadhwa and Hallur, 2013; Hallur and Sane, 2017). These papers attempt to compare the models in different countries with a view to analysing their differences and commonalities. Such studies often compare two or more countries from developing and/or developed countries. The other key body of literature has focused on the evaluation of existing policy frameworks (Palvia et al, 2015). These are evaluated against their ability to enable key policy and regulatory objectives.

A final group of papers tends to focus on rerunning the evaluations using different theoretical frameworks (Palvia et. al., 2015; Galhardo and de Souza, 2020). Such work is based on the assumptions that different theoretical lenses may extract different policy out comes. These have also been influenced by the effectiveness of the theoretical frameworks in unpacking the research problems they wish to tackle. For instance, Palvia et. al., (2015) adopted the design actuality gap with a view to investigating why the intended outcomes are not always realised.

Some of the works on ICT regulation tend to adopt a country specific focus (Kerretts, 2004; Mollel, 2008). These include papers that also fall into the above categories. This stream of works has the strength of adopting a more context specific approach. Information systems scholars have long emphasised the need for contextualism (Urquhart 2016). Context is the social setting that shapes IS design implementation and intervention at large (Benbasat and Zmud 2003). It is therefore important for best practice work to acknowledge the need for contextualising international best practice to specific jurisdiction. The functionalist approach which embraces universalism of IS solutions has been problematised in literature (Avgerou, 2019). There has also been serious debate about the trade-offs between particularism and universalism (Cheng et. al., 2016; Davison and Martinsons, 2016). Particularism has respected IS design and implementation context at organisational and environmental levels while universalism expect IS to be universally applicable. While agreeing with particularism Cheng et. al., (2016) characterise it as the King which is subordinate to generalisation, which the view as the Emperor and ultimate goal of all scientific work. This bergs the question, ‘Are there any universally generalisable components and agendas of IS policy in general and ICT regulation in particular?’ The jury it out so far.
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The post-colonial developing country must adopt an emancipatory focus in order to overcome the disparities that ICTs tend to worsen as digital divides translate to economic divides, and vice-versa. From a feminist epistemological perspective, the IS scholar Alison Adam (2001) posits that ‘...the power relations will remain unbalanced if the systems designers do not cast themselves as the liberators or emancipators, with a privileged epistemology based on the new critical IS, storming the barricades of ignorance in emancipating the system users who maybe did not even realize that they were candidates for emancipation (Adam, 2001) p.143’

## 2.1 Theoretical Background

A “Regulatory Framework” is real, as articulated by John Dewey’s “Theory of Reality” in his Middleworks (Dewey, 1899-1924). It, therefore, has metaphysical dimensions and characteristics. He equates the “real-thing” to an organism, which means that the framework is organismic and organistic. The dimensions define the mandate and boundaries of the framework, and the organism has its characteristic behaviour when exposed to stimuli. Andrew Reck presents an accurate account of Dewey’s metaphysics based on Experience and Nature (Reck, 1993). Since the regulatory framework is real, we need to understand firstly, where it fits in the Universe within which it exists, and secondly, how it communicates / responds to/ with adjacent elements. The regulatory framework resides within an institution, as depicted by Williamson’s “Institutionalism”

He presents 4 levels of social analysis. The top level includes the norms, customs, morals, tradition, religion, all of which form the informal rules. The second level is the Institutional environment comprising of the polity, judiciary and bureaucracy of government, as well as formal rules. The third level is where the institutions of governance, i.e. where the regulatory organisations are located. Transaction cost economics operates at Levels 3 and 4, which are concerned with resource allocation and employment (prices and quantities, incentive alignment). Level 3 is the main focus of this study, but it can not be looked at in isolation, as it impacts, and is impacted upon by the levels on either side. This will compel us to investigate the whole framework and its inter-relatedness.

Having discussed the regulatory institution as a real organism through the Dewey’s (1899-1924) institutionalism lens its components and response to stimuli can be analysed through a Habermasian critical lens. Habermasian CDA perspective proposes that emancipatory discourse should happen under an Ideal speech situation. An Ideal Speech situation refers to a situation where discourse is free from coercive, hegemonic powers. Communicators are therefore free to make assertions and assess the assertions made by others without the influence of either conscious or unconscious hegemonic powers (Cukier et al., 2009; Habermas, 1984).

It identifies the veracity of communication through violation of Four key validity claims i.e. 1) the communication's comprehensibility, which refers to the technical clarity of the language used; 2) its truthfulness, i.e. the propositional aspects of the communication as depicted by the completeness of the arguments and unbiased assertions and 3) the legitimacy, which refers to the balance in representing the opposite sides of the argument and 4) the speaker's sincerity which is the correspondence between
what the communicator says and what she means (Cukier et al., 2009, Wall, Stahl, and Salam, 2015).

Habermasian CDA is used for analysing the literature on ICT policy frameworks that are adopted by developing countries. According to Myres and Klein (2011), in IS research, critical research deals with social concerns like power, freedom, values, social control, the use and impact of information technology. According to Orlikowski and Baroudi (1991), critical research takes a critical stance against taken-for-granted assumptions on the organisation and IS and its aim is to critique the status-quo by exposing the deep-seated structural contradictions in the social system. It is however problematised for being gender blind and universalistic (Adam, 2001).

The Theory of Communicative Action (TCA), which is an extension of Habermas’ Ideal Speech Situation, helps us to be critical with the ICT regulatory frameworks that have been deployed in literature. Critical IS research takes on the nature of a cause that aims to critique the wrongs that affect stakeholders in the developing world. Our pro-poor approach to ICT regulation and deployment in developing countries is motivated by the need to foster universal access, improve competition, drive down access cost, address disputes between stakeholders and create equal opportunities to enter the sector.

Habermasian critical theory has been adopted in literature reviews that involve ethical and regulatory aspects of emerging technologies (North-Samardzic 2019; Galhardo 2020).

At the core of critical philosophy is the “Emancipatory” principle (Lyytinen and Klein 1985). It also offers classifications such as “Knowledge Interests” (Habermas 1972a) as “Technical”, and “Practical” Three key kinds of social action are associated with these Knowledge Interests i.e. “Social Action” (Habermas 1972b): “Strategic”, “Communicative” and “Discursive”. In TCA, is his popular rational framework of so-ciety, from a “deontological perspective, based on communication driven to a mutual understanding.” he also includes the concept of “Valid Norm”. (Habermas, 1995) from and ethical and moral stance and the concept of “Deliberative Democracy” (Habermas 1996). These concepts are used in several IS research works (Habermas 1995; Habermas 1996; and Mingers & Walsham, 2010).

## 3 Methodology

This study uses an Integrative Literature Review (ILR) for identifying the major publi-cations on ICT policy regulation in developing countries (Torraco, 2016). Integrative Literature Review is a qualitative version of the Systematic Literature Review (SLR) which is associated with the positivist or logical empiricist paradigm (Oates, 2015). Like SLR, ILR also conducts literature search using a methodological (systematic) manner using pre-specified protocols that are meant to minimise paper select bias. We conduct ILR under a hermeneutic literature search as articulated by Schultze (2015) in order to achieve the rigour of systematic literature search and a flexible hermeneutic engagement with literature. A hermeneutic approach is an iterative process that allows the understanding of texts through ongoing cycles of dialogue between the reader and the text (Rowe, 2014).
A integrative literature review aims to identify the most appropriate papers using the
Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Synthesis (PRISMS). We
adopt the term PRISMS to deviate from the PRISMA model which employs meta-anal-
ysis using quantitative methods. This paper uses meta-synthesis under a qualitative re-
search methods approach. ‘Synthesis is a creative act that results in the generation of
new knowledge about the topic reviewed in the literature’ The approach, therefore, uses
syntheses review under an interpretivist paradigm, of a hermeneutic orientation, as op-
posed to aggregative reviews that are preferred by positivist (Pare, Tate, Johnstone and
Kitsiou, 2016). A hermeneutic tradition is preferred for its usefulness in interrogating
textual content using an iterative process (Radnizky, 1973; Ricoeur, 1981; Gadamer,
1986; Klein and Myers, 1999).

**Literature review plan:** we started by developing a review that laid out how to select the key words, how and where to search the literature from, the selection criteria, the quality assessment process, data extracting process and analysing and interpreting process (Pare et al, 2016).

**The search process** started with a selection of the data bases i.e. AIS, Research4Life, Googlescholar and Academia.edu using NVIVO's NCapture. NCapture is a tool for importing papers from an online data base to NVIVO. This process was guided by the relevance and the accessibility of the databases to our research team. The final three data bases that were Research4Life, Googlescholar and Academia.edu were selected for their ability search from various publication outlets that contain articles.

This was followed by a key word selection process during which an initial list of
papers on ICT regulation was compiled using narrative literature review search meth-
ods. The key words were compiled into a lexicon of parent and children hierarchy. See
Table 1. The list was augmented by works from expert researchers in the field. A team
of three researchers took turns to contribute to the list without being influenced by the
others. This was followed by a brain-storming of the relevance of each of the key words
on the basis of their appropriateness for addressing the research objectives and for an-
swering the research question. While we acknowledge that this stage was weak on the
systematicity front we acknowledge that it was a transparent process which got refined
at each iteration. The final list was made up of the following key words; ICT Regula-
tion, Frameworks, comparative analysis, best practice effectiveness, telecommunica-
tion, developing countries **The selection criteria** involved that development of an in-
clusion and exclusion criteria. To refine this stage, we consulted previous review papers
in order to evaluate the approaches that were used. Our criteria included peer reviewed
journals, conference and book chapters. It, among other varieties, excluded the maga-
zines, unpublished papers, internet sources that fell outside the inclusion criteria.
<table><caption>**Table 1** The keywords lexicon organised as superordinate and subordinate relationship</caption><thead><tr><th>ICT Regulation</th><th>ICT Regulation Frameworks</th><th>ICT Best practice</th><th>National ICT Policy</th><th>Telecommunication regulation</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Regulation</td><td>Regulation</td><td>Ethics</td><td>Convergence</td><td>Developing countries</td></tr><tr><td>Developing countries</td><td>Transparency</td><td>Code of practice</td><td>Tool kits</td><td>Systematic review</td></tr><tr><td>Systematic review</td><td>consistency</td><td>Enforcement</td><td>legislation</td><td>Comparative analysis</td></tr><tr><td>Comparative analysis</td><td>Accountability</td><td>Developing countries</td><td>laws</td><td>process</td></tr><tr><td>Process</td><td>Competency</td><td>Systematic review</td><td>Arbitration</td><td>National ICT policy</td></tr><tr><td>Policy formulation</td><td>Independence</td><td>Comparative analysis</td><td>Developing countries</td><td>ICT Governance</td></tr><tr><td>Stakeholders</td><td>Competitiveness</td><td>Process</td><td>Systematic review</td><td>Investment</td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">Other</td><td>Enforcement</td><td>Effectiveness</td><td>Comparative analysis</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Funding</td><td>International</td><td>National ICT policy</td><td></td></tr><tr><td></td><td>Investment</td><td></td><td>conflict</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

The quality assessment process, mainly focused on full papers that addressed the subject matter as defined by the key words and research objectives. The extraction process employed NVIVO for compiling nodes of that addressed the theme relevant to the research objectives. Finally, the analysing and interpreting process involved a thorough analysis of the nodes that were identified. It also included the drawing of insights from the themes and the full papers that we read.

Four approaches to systematic reviews were considered for this work, firstly the reviews that describe the phenomena without theory building. Secondly, the reviews that aim at understanding and unpacking phenomena through analysis of concepts investigated in earlier work (Rowe, 2014). Thirdly, a positivist genre that endevours to quantitatively test theories through aggregating prior works. Finally, theoretical reviews (Pare et al, 2015) or configurative reviews which combine different streams of work and employ various synthesis approaches and methods (Gough at al., 2012). We adopted the second one because it is amenable to critical IS research and interpretivist approach. This genre, *Understanding may also refer to examining consistencies and*
inconsistencies which may be accomplished with the help of various forms of literature reviews, including conceptual and critical reviews.' (Boothet al, 2012)

<table><caption>**Table 2.** Cluster analysis</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Initial Cluster</th><th colspan="3">Articles</th><th rowspan="2">Re-clustering</th></tr><tr><th>Iteration 1</th><th>Iteration 2</th><th>Iteration 3</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Policy for conflict/competition/investment</td><td>7</td><td></td><td></td><td rowspan="2">International Best Practices for inclusive growth</td></tr><tr><td>International Best Practices for inclusive growth</td><td>19</td><td>21</td><td>8</td></tr><tr><td>ICT Governance and policy</td><td>36</td><td>8</td><td>5</td><td>ICT Governance and policy</td></tr><tr><td>Policy Appraisal and reforms for stimulating investment and funding;</td><td>25</td><td>15</td><td>14</td><td>Policy Appraisal and reforms</td></tr><tr><td>Investment and tariff management</td><td>3</td><td>8</td><td>3</td><td>Tariff management</td></tr><tr><td>TOTAL</td><td>90</td><td>52</td><td>30</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

In Fig. 1 below we present the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Synthesis flow chart showing the articles screening process which selected 30 article out of an initial 147 papers extracted from four databases.

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>**Fig 1.** PRISMS model showing articles inclusion and exclusion process</figcaption></figure>
## 4 Findings

Table 3 presents the findings from the systematic review. It lists the publications categorised by factor as well as well as the comments on the findings on each of the key regulatory factor

<table><caption>Table 3. Literature review findings categorized by regulatory factor</caption><thead><tr><td>Factor</td><td>Article</td><td>Comment</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Independence</td><td>Wadhwa and Hallur, (2013); Xiuqiang, Jing and Xiongjian(2014); Robert Herian (2018); Yan Li and Bruce Lyons (2008)</td><td>The regulator must have financial independence from government and stakeholders such as business, regulatory,</td></tr><tr><td>Regulatory Transparency</td><td>Xiuqiang, Jing and Xiongjian(2014); (Majone 1996a, 1996b, 1997; Thatcher and Stone Sweet 2003, 4; Gilardi 2008, 30); (Bert-Jaap Koops, Miriam Lips, Corien Prins & Maurice Schellekens( 2006)</td><td>The openness and predictability of the policies allows for investors and the market to plan accordingly, with full knowledge of the impact of their decisions.</td></tr><tr><td>Pro-competitiveness</td><td>Xiuqiang, Jing and Xiongjian(2014); Joseph Schumpeter; Jose Antonio Gouvea and Cesar Alexandre de Souza</td><td>A regulator should create an environment that allows fair competition, limits powers of any individual stakeholder, protects all stakeholders, and still leave room for innovation and possibility of realising profit, in order to attract investment.</td></tr><tr><td>Enforcement powers</td><td>Xiuqiang, Jing and Xiongjian(2014); (Bert-Jaap Koops, Miriam Lips, Corien Prins & Maurice Schellekens (2006); (Stuart Biegel, 2003)</td><td>The regulatory intervention's success is dependant upon the regulator's capacity to enforce its laws and decisions.</td></tr><tr><td>Consistency</td><td>Anita Bramford-Wade and Cheryle Moss (2010); McCubbins, Noll & Weingast (1987);</td><td>The regulatory body must use the same principles and act consistently and predictably on similar situations</td></tr><tr><td>Competency</td><td>Nguyen Hai Thi Thanh (2007); Pujan Ziaie (2013); (Majone 1996a, 1996b, 1997; Thatcher and Stone Sweet (2003, 4); Gilardi (2008)</td><td>The regulator's Human Resources, Leadership, and interventions must exude competency on the policy, arbitration and technical realms</td></tr><tr><td>Policy research capacity</td><td>Majone (1996a, 1996b, 1997); Thatcher and Stone Sweet</td><td>The ICT industry is fast moving, therefore continuous adaptation of</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table><tr><td></td><td>(2003, 4); Gilardi 2008); Nesti (2014);</td><td>policies in order to remain competent and current</td></tr><tr><td>Accountability</td><td>Nesti (2014); Righettini and Nesti, (2014); Majone (1996a, 1996b, 1997); Thatcher and Stone Sweet (2003, 4); Gilardi (2008); Nesti (2014);</td><td>The institutional environment, and clearly articulated responsibilities, will determine respective ownership.</td></tr><tr><td>Financial autonomy</td><td>Xiuqiang, Jing and Xiongjian (2014);</td><td>The regulator must be financially independent to avoid being constrained and conflicted by relationship with government and local and international funding bodies who may want to control the sector</td></tr><tr><td>Political & Legal</td><td>Pujan Ziaie (2013); Roger Brownsword (2008); (Bert-Jaap Koops, Miriam Lips, Corien Prins & Maurice Schellekens (2006);</td><td>The political and legal instruments determine commitment, and provide oversight and enforcement powers of the regulator.</td></tr><tr><td>Institutionalism</td><td>Ziaie, 2013); Williamson (1990);</td><td>The institutional space within which the regulatory framework will operate, is the determining factor for its success.</td></tr></table>

# 5 Discussion and Conclusions

These findings are meaningless if they end without a model that can inform future research and practice and build a better word with the power of ICTs. Critical IS focuses on an emancipatory epistemology. Webster and Watson (2002) posit that literature review must develop models that guide future research and provide conclusions and implications that will inform researchers and practitioners. Consequently, we have developed the hub and spoke conceptual model that presents the an emancipatory ICT regulatory framework in developing countries. See Fig 1.

Harbarmas' Ideal Speech Situation depicts the nature of the play field that the ICT regulator aims to establish in post colonial developing countries that are affected by inequalities of ICT access, influence and ICT enabled opportunities. It prepossess that the participants are free to communicate. There should be no hindrances due to lack of effective regulatory regime and no conscious or unconscious cohesive forces that constrain citizens' ability to express themselves thorough ICT platforms. The Ideal speech situation consists of 1) the communication's comprehensibility, 2) truthfulness, 3) the legitimacy, 4) the speaker's sincerity (Cukier et al., 2009, Wall, Stahl, and Salam, 2015). The following section we will discuss the factors of a regulatory framework in the context if the four valid claims of an Ideal Speech Situation.

1) The communication's comprehensibility: Under the first of the four valid claims i.e. communication's comprehensibility, three spokes of the regulatory model link the institutional hub to the regulatory context. These are Competency, Policy research
capacity, and the Political & Legal parameter. Habermas' (1984) Comprehensibility
refers to the technical clarity of the language. We operationalised this to conceptualise
the need for clarity in the regulator's implicit and tacit messages to and from the ICT
sector. The sector needs to receive coherent messages, technically correct and research
based policy from the regulator. The lack of research capacity has been blamed for poor
policy outcomes in developing countries (Kunyenje and Chigona, 2017; Gilwald,
2010). The second spoke from literature is competency. This is closely related to re-
search capacity in that it calls for training and experience though it can also draw from
multi national bodies that seek to inform grant receiving developing countries
(Kunyenje and Chigona, 2017). The third spoke refers to political and legal factors.
These tend to affect the implementation of otherwise plausible regulatory frameworks
developed by the most competent consultants. The weaknesses on this front often lead
to the hinderance of an emancipatory environment in the post-colonial developing
country.

2) Truthfulness: Habermas, (1984) posits that ‘Truthfulness refers to the proposi-
tional content of communication as represented by complete arguments and unbiased
assertions” (Cukier et al., 2009); the propositional aspects of the communication as de-
picted by the completeness of the arguments and unbiased assertions. Regulatory Trans-
parency, Pro-competitiveness(Limeasia, 2007). Various inequalities that prevail in the
developing world are often masked by opaque processes of regulatory decision making.
There is a crying call for a fair playing field where stakeholders compete fairly, calls
for both transparency and pro-competitiveness. The incompleteness of the arguments
that are presented as justification for an uncompetitive environment are often caused
by the need to avoid scrutiny for the regulatory processes. As a result the existence of
such an environment will fuel the furtherance of inequality and partiality and an inef-
fective regulatory environment which will not emancipate the weak stakeholder who,
according to Adams(2001), may not realise that they are candidates for emancipation.
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 2.** Emancipatory regulatory framework for developing countries</figcaption></figure>

3) The legitimacy: The regulatory climate's legitimacy refers to which refers to the balance in representing the opposite sides of the argument. refers to the representation of different perspectives; all perspectives should be heard and considered (Cukier et al., 2009; Habermas, 1984) We operationalise the regulatory environment's legitimacy as its Independence, Enforcement powers and Financial autonomy. In developing countries, the regulators may be cognisant of the need to be accountable to its stakeholders but this is not always the case due to weak institutions that characterise the developing and emerging economies. This tends to tilt the play field in favour of the executive branch which is often undifferentiable from legislature.

The same challenge is experienced with regards to the regulator's Independence, and Financial autonomy. The independence and autonomy are compromised by the weakness of the governing institutions one which is the ICT regulator itself. The stakeholder that includes the executive branch and business often impose undue disproportionate influence at the expense of other actors interests. Scholars have advocated for elimination of monopolies and privatisation of telecommunication giants (Wadwa and Hallur, 2013). Toward this end, Wallsten (2003) further argues for the
establishment of the regulator before privatisation because investors were found to
invest more in countries were regulatory reforms proceeded

**The speaker's sincerity:** Lastly we use Harbaermas's (1984) speaker's sincerity to conceptualise the stakeholders participation in an Ideal speech situation consisting of Consistency and Accountability. Sincerity is 'the correspondence between what the communicator says and what she means' The stakeholders in the sector are given to tactics that serve inconsistent ends that favour the current situation. The body of literature showed the need for consistency in the regulator's activities (Cukier et al., 2009). While scholars from developing countries such as Nesti (2018) argue that the neutrality of the regulator from politics and democratic values weakens its accountability, however, the developing world stakeholder laments its politicisation as the source of inequality (Ziaie, 2013). As a result, they advocate for privatisation as a way of removing the executive's bias towards state-owned enterprises.

**Institutionalism:** At the centre of the hub and spoke model is the concept of institutionalism as articulated by (Williamson 1990). The implemantation of the above regulatory factors are dependant on institutional capacity. According to scholars of Institutionalism, cultural, normative and cognitive factors are key. They suggest that external institutional pressures shape the organisational structures and practices (Scott, 1992, 95, 2001; Baxter and Chua, 2003). These may take the form of partisan politics The post colonial developing country is often bedeviled by weak institutions which lack the capacity to withstand pressures that impede regulatory decision.

**6 Conclusion**

Due to the finding of this study, it must be concluded that an effective regulatory
framework for the developing country must firstly be context-specific. The contextual
issues of concern in developing countries include the disenchantment of the consumer
and the uneven business climate that do not allow free competition. The weak
institutions in the post-colonial developing state tend to be weak and unfit for dispute
resolution. It is therefore key to note that the prescription of conventional regulatory
factors presented by multilateral bodies like the World bank will not achieve effective
regulatory environment in the absence of context specific research findings
implemented by strong institutions.

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