1574 2003 — Ninth Americas Conference on Information Systems TOWARDS A FRAMEWORK TO ENHANCE THE TECHNOLOGY CAPACITY OF COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS IN URBAN CONTEXTS Lynette Kvasny School of Information Sciences & Technology Pennsylvania State University lkvasny@ist.psu.edu Roderick L. Lee School of Information Sciences & Technology Pennsylvania State University rlee@psu.edu Abstract This paper presents a strategic framework for conducting action research in partnership with community-based organizations. The framework was developed through projects conducted in three urban communities in Pennsylvania – Harrisburg, Steelton and West Philadelphia. Using empirical data from these case studies, we present the research model as well as methodological considerations for conducting research in an urban context. Keywords: Community informatics, action research, digital divide, organizational divide Introduction The digital society represents the economic, social and cultural change enabled by information and communication technologies (ICT). However, the diffusion of ICT does not occur in an equitable fashion. Increasingly communities can be physically close, but economically, socially and technologically distant. Moreover, residents in communities on the wrong side of the divide become marginalized due to differential access and use of modern technology. As a result, there are entire communities that are underrepresented in the IT workforce. In this study, information and communication technologies consist of personal computers, application software such as Microsoft Office, broadband communications, Internet-based applications such as email and the WWW. Powerful changes radiating from ICT are producing new ways of working and learning, new means of communicating and forming communities, and new goods and services. Used creatively, ICT can be powerful tools for tackling some of our toughest social challenges as well as fostering economic growth (Presidential Memorandum on e/Government, 1999). While advances in ICT have provided unparalleled opportunities to improve the human condition, these same technologies also reproduce long-standing social inequities. Irrespective of the outcomes, the emergence of the digital society will not occur in a vacuum. According to Drucker (1992), the digital society will depend upon three distinct areas: the public sector (government), the private (business) and the social sector (non-profit). Most IS research has been conducted in the domain of private business. Substantially fewer studies have empirically examined the emergent use of ICT in the social and public sectors (Kvasny, 2002; Lee 2003). To increase our knowledge of ICT adoption and use in the social and public sectors, we adopt a community informatics research approach. Community informatics is a technology strategy that focuses on the use of ICT by geographic communities to foster economic and social development (Romm & Taylor, 2001; Gurstein, 1999; Keeble & Loader, 2001). In this approach, community- based organizations (CBOs) represent viable social and economic enterprises that can profit from the use of ICT. However, CBOs have not traditionally realized the potential benefits and may be unwittingly marginalized by technological advances. One unintended effect is the emergence of an “organizational divide.” Kirschenbaum and Kunamneni (2001) define the organizational divide as an organization’s lack of technology capacity to either use ICT to advance its mission or share its resources with