The business of development: The donor logic of technology corporations in international education

• In Event: The power of platforms and the impact of technology philanthropy and other technology actors on educational development

Proposal

Technology corporations are acting on opportunities to leverage corporate employee skills, products, services and platforms to address distance-learning and educational needs in response to the global commitment to the right to education. With their emergence as increasingly powerful players in the social sphere, technology corporations merit the same formal analysis of motivations and rationales as more traditional bi-lateral, multilateral and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the development landscape. Research undertaken during the period 2012-2015, comprising of in-depth interviews with a broad cross-section of key stakeholders, participation observation and document analysis, advanced a tentative theory of the donor logic of transnational technology corporations’ engagement in educational development (Patil, 2015). While common characteristics among the sample of transnational technology corporations were identified, the concluding framework revealed a more nuanced analysis illuminating institutional logics that emerged across three categorical layers: (1) the logic of the technology industry; (2) the logic of an individual corporation’s core business; and (3) the logic of organizational divisions within then same company. This research has been revisited in light of the post-2015 development agenda and the COVID-19 pandemic.

By adapting and applying the concept of donor logic to transnational technology corporations, this research builds upon a longstanding research tradition in comparative and international education by bringing the same rigour applied to various actors in international development to transnational technology corporations. The results expands the body of literature by illuminating the motivations and rationales behind transnational technology corporations as actors in the development landscape and provides insights into the power and influence of these actors in the pandemic environment. Understanding the motivations and rationales of technology corporations is of greater relevance during times of crisis when the perceived opportunities for donors to utilize financial resources, in-kind expertise, products or technology platforms to achieve social and economic returns through for-profit philanthropic mechanisms are of enhanced magnitude.

Author

• Lara Patil, NORRAG