“Taming the Beast”: Exploring the Adoption of Mobile Phone Innovation through the Daily Routines of Traders in Ghana

Most studies on the mobile phone in sub-Saharan Africa traditional markets have not considered the social "journey" that one takes on the "journey" of owning and discarding the mobile phone handset. The purpose of this paper is to explore an aspect of this process and examine how the social journey of owning and using a mobile phone can contribute to our understanding of technological innovation and adoption among traders. Using a survey of 363 traders this paper argues that technological innovations gain acceptance and are adopted when they fit into the daily routines of traders. When these technologies fail to be routinized by the traders, they easily get abandoned. However, these routines are ignored when governments develop policies for technological acceptance in Africa either at the micro or macro level.