Investigating the Effects of IT Adoption between Micro-Enterprises from an Ethnic Community in the United States

The present research study aims to discover the effects of IT adoption in micro-enterprises in the Latino community in the United States. While the majority of the IT adoption literature considers large organizations, this study relies on Sen’s Capability Approach and an adaptation of Action Research to support the adoption of IT by micro-enterprises. This “IT therapy ” process enables IT to be used by micro-entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. Following an analysis of four Latin American micro-enterprises, this paper presents the most predominant outcomes. An assessment is made of the IT solutions implemented in the participating micro-enterprises. This paper contributes with a better understanding of how IT adoption can enable micro-enterprises in ethnic communities to grow. This has implications for governmental and non-governmental agencies supporting technology implementations in local communities. Future research based on the research findings should investigate communities of local enterprises at underserved areas as they adopt technology. 1