Where Adoption Becomes Value - Segment Assessment for Digital Administrative Systems in Kenyan Tertiary Education

Sammanfattning

Digital administrative systems are increasingly used in tertiary education. These systems act as the institution’s nervous system by supporting and connecting processes such as registration, attendance, grading, fees, reporting and records. However, the implementation itself does not automatically imply adoption, utilisation or value realization. In heterogeneous educational contexts the same type of system can create value in some institutions and cause friction in others, depending on the institutional conditions, workflows and stakeholders. This study investigates how adoption feasibility and value realization are shaped by institutional conditions, administrative workflows and stakeholder alignment in Kenyan tertiary education. Empirically, it is a qualitative field-based case study featuring interviews, complementary field conversations and secondary data. Investigated institutions were grouped into four archetypes, based on institutional type and ownership. The analysis combines adoption theory, value perspectives and socio-technical system theory to understand the relation between institutional readiness, workflow-level value and stakeholder alignment. The main findings show that there is a high demand for digitalised solutions, but the adoption feasibility varies within and between the institutional archetypes. Value was most clearly realized in standardised, repetitive and data-driven workflows, while cross-departmental processes were more prone to cause friction. The study also found digital maturity should not be understood as a fixed institution-wide trait, as even digitally mature institutions may experience process-specific friction and value loss. The contribution of this study is an analytical logic to assess where and when digital administrative systems are able to create value. For system providers this means that segmentation assessment should consider the overlap between adoption feasibility, workflow value potential and stakeholder alignment. Keywords: Digital Administrative Systems; Adoption Feasibility; Kenya; SchoolTry; Tertiary Education; Technology Adoption; Value Realization; Stakeholder Alignment; Segment Assessment.