Review of ICT Adoption Research in Arabic Countries

Abstract

Information systems (IS) researchers have intensively investigated information and communication technology (ICT) adoption. However, very little research has analyzed ICT adoption in the Arab region. This paper aims to review research related to ICT adoption in the Arab world to identify the current state of this research area and provide direction for future research. Fifty articles that addressed ICT adoption in three Arabic countries, namely United Arab Emirates (UAE), Jordan, and Egypt, were found and selected for review. These articles were analyzed based on a research framework that included eight elements: the selected Arabic countries, applied theoretical models, adoption factors, type of adopted ICT, applied research methods, level of adoption, publication year, and quality of publications (i.e. journals ranking). This paper discusses the current trends of ICT adoption research in the Arab region based on the findings of this analysis and provides two main directions for future research: conceptual and theoretical research development and methodological research.