Competing Logics in an ICT4D Partnership: Case Evidence from Indonesia

The importance of partnerships is established in the ICT4D academic and practitioner literature as a success factor contributing towards achievement of development outcomes. However, it is also recognised that the failure of partnerships is a common occurrence and there is limited knowledge about the reasons for these failures. International development projects often include partnerships between international organizations and public sector implementers and little is understood about how and why such partnerships may succeed or flounder. This paper aims to improve our understanding of ICT4D project failure by exploring the interplay of logics within an international organization-local public sector partnership. The empirical basis is a longitudinal case study of a health-related ICT4D project in Indonesia. Three vignettes are presented, highlighting the dynamics between local public sector logic and international organization logic. The results show that the “accountability logic”of the international organization (WHO) conflicted with the “hierarchical” public sector logic of the ministry. The paper contributes work in progress towards an improved understanding of partnership failures in ICT4D.