Skip to main content

The Role of Social Capital and Cooperation Infrastructures Within Microfinance

Rethinking the Example of the Grameen Bank

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Proceedings of COOP 2010

Abstract

Microfinance has become a most important instrument for rural development. In regard of its technology, there are two main positions: a static analysis points out that ICT does not play a central role in many of today’s microfinance activities and, therefore, will not do so in future, whereas technological determinism assumes the technological path of microfinance to follow the one of established banking in the North. In this paper, in which the well-known Bangladesh Grameen Bank is analyzed as an example, we want to show that both assumptions are wrong. Instead CSCW foci may play a productive role in developing appropriate technology for microfinance.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Ajani, O.I.Y., Tijani, G.A.: The Role of Social Capital in Access to Micro Credit in Ekiti State, Nigeria. In: Pakistan Journal of Social Science, 6 (3), (2009) 125–132

    Google Scholar 

  2. Bourdieu, P.: Le capital social. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 31 (1980), 2–3

    Google Scholar 

  3. Brau, J.C., Woller, G.M.: Microfinance: A Comprehensive Review of the Existing Literature. In: Journal of Entrepreneurial Finance and Business Ventures, Vol. 9, Issue 1 (2004) 1–26

    Google Scholar 

  4. Counts, A.: Small loans, big dreams. Wiley, Hoboken, NJ (2008) p. 255

    Google Scholar 

  5. Daniel, B., Schwier, R.A., & McCalla, G.: Social capital in virtual learning communities and distributed communities of practice. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology (2003) 29(3)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Diniz, E.H., Pozzebon, M., Jayo, M.: The Role of ICT in Improving Microcredit: The Case of Correspondent Banking in Brazil (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  7. Friedman, J.: Empowerment. The Politics of Alternative Development, Blackwell, Oxford (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  8. De Angeli, A., Athavankar, U., Joshi, A., Coventry, L., Johnson, G.: Introducing ATMs in India: A contextual inquiry, Interacting with Computers, Special Issue Global Human-Computer Systems (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Harper, R., Randall, D., Rouncefield, M.: Organizational Change and retail finance. Routledge International Studies in Money and Banking, London, UK (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Hollis, A., Sweetman, A.: Microcredit – What can we learn from the past? World Development 26 (1998) 1875–1891

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Johnson, W., Jellinek, H., Klotz, J.L., Rao, R., Card, S.K.: Bridging the paper and electronic worlds: the paper user interface. In: Proceedings of CHI 1993, ACM Press, New York (1993), pp. 507–512

    Google Scholar 

  12. Klemmer, S.R., Graham, J., Wolff, G.J., Landay, J.A.: Books with voices: paper transcripts as a physical interface to oral histories. In: Proceedings of CHI 2003, ACM Press, New York (2003), pp. 89–96

    Google Scholar 

  13. Karlan, D.S.: Social Capital and Group Banking. In: Economic Journal, Vol. 117, No. 517, February (2007), pp. F52–F84

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Ledgerwood, J.: Microfinance Handbook: An Institutional and Financial Perspective. World Bank. Washington, DC (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Littlefield, E., Kneiding, C.: The global financial crisis and its impact on microfinance. CGAP, Washington, DC (February 2009)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Medhi, I., Gautama, S. N. N., Toyama, K.: A Comparison of Mobile Money-Transfer UIs for Non-Literate and Semi-Literate Users. CHI 2009, (April 8th 2009) Boston, MA, USA

    Google Scholar 

  17. Otero, M.: Bringing Development back into Microfinance, paper based on a talk at the conference, “New Development Finance,” held at the Goethe University in Frankfurt, September 1999 (1999) URL: http://www.accion.org/Document.Doc?id=64 (accessed 15.10.09)

  18. Olomola, A.S.: Social Capital, Microfinance Group Performance and Poverty Implication in Nigeria, CSAE 2002 (2002), URL: (downloaded 08/08/09) http://www.csae.ox.ac.uk/conferences/2002-UPaGiSSA/papers/Olomola-csae2002.pdf

  19. Parikh, T.S.: Rural microfinance service delivery: Gaps, inefficiencies and emerging solutions. ICTD 2006, abstract, (2006), URL: (accessed 10-10-2009) http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/ictd2006/abstracts.html#CameraReady_152

  20. Parikh, T., Javid, P., Sasikumar K., Ghosh, K.: Mobile Phones and Paper Documents: Evaluating A New Approach for Capturing Microfinance Data in Rural India. Proceedings of the SIGCHI 2006 Conference on Human Factors in computing systems, ACM, NY (2006), pp. 551–560

    Google Scholar 

  21. Putnam, R.D.: Making democracy work. Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press 1993

    Google Scholar 

  22. Robinson, M.: The Microfinance Revolution, Sustainable Finance for the Poor, World Bank, Washington, DC (2001)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  23. Schmidt, K., Bannon, L.: Taking CSCW Seriously: Supporting Articulation Work. In Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW): An international Journal 1 (1992) 7–40

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Sellen, A.J., Harper, R.H.: The Myth of the Paperless Office, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Star, S.L.; Griesemer, J.R. (1989): Institutional Ecology, ‘Translations’ and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. In: Social Studies of Science, 19, pp. 387–420

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Stevens, G., Nett, B.: Business Ethnography as a research method to support evolutionary design, in: Habscheid, S., Nett, B. (eds.): Schnitte durch das Hier und Jetzt, Qualitative Methoden medienwissenschaftlicher Gegenwartsforschung, Zeitschrift Navigationen, 2/2009, Schüren, Marburg (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Strauss, A.L., Corbin. J.M.: Basics of qualitative research: techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Tamagaki, K.: Effectiveness of ICTs on the Dual Objectives of Microfinance (2006) URL: www.waseda.jp/assoc-cioacademy/pdf/tamagaki.pdf

  29. The Economist: “The Hidden Wealth of the Poor”, 11/03/05, (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  30. United Nations (UN): End Poverty 2015 – Make it happen. Millenium Development Goals, (n.d.), URL: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/global.shtml (accessed: 17.06.2009)

  31. UNHQ (United Nations Headquarters, publ.): factsheet on goal one of the MDGs, New York, September, 25th, 2008, (2008) (accessed: 16.06.2009) http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2008highlevel/pdf/newsroom/Goal%201%20FINAL.pdf

  32. Wellner, P.: Interacting with paper on the Digital Desk. Communications of the ACM, 36(7) (1993) 86–97

    Google Scholar 

  33. Yunus, M.; Khan, A. Hai; Wahab, Md. A.: Grameen Bank at a Glance, December 2008, in: Grameen Bank, Banking for the Poor, (2008), URL: (accessed 22.12.2008) http://www.grameen-info.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=175

  34. van Bastelaer, T.: “Imperfect Information, Social Capital and the Poor’s Access to Credit.” Working Paper No. 234. Center for Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector (IRIS), University of Maryland, College Park (2000)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Simon Plogmann .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer London

About this paper

Cite this paper

Plogmann, S., Adeel, M., Nett, B., Wulf, V. (2010). The Role of Social Capital and Cooperation Infrastructures Within Microfinance. In: Lewkowicz, M., Hassanaly, P., Wulf, V., Rohde, M. (eds) Proceedings of COOP 2010. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-211-7_13

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-211-7_13

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-84996-210-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-84996-211-7

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics