PhD - comprehensive exam - rewrite - question 1 Essay

PhD - comprehensive exam - rewrite - question 1 - Essay Example However, in developing countries improvement of existing infrastructure still remains the most integral element of the public policy. Although the direct relationship between availability of developed infrastructure and healthier economy is still debated, there is little doubt that such relationship exists and has been confirmed, both explicitly and implicitly, in a plethora of studies. Research in the field of infrastructure development in developing countries features a number of distinctive techniques, assumptions, limitations, different potential for error and error minimization techniques. Such variety is, obviously, due to extreme broadness of the term ‘infrastructure’. The American Heritage Dictionary, defines this word as â€Å"the basic facilities, services, and installations needed for the functioning of a community or society, such as transportation and communications systems, water and power lines, and public institutions including schools, post offices, and prisons.†1 Furthermore, rapid technological and political evolution has resulted in some other important concepts (e.g. homeland security) being defined under this term. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast research methodologies used to study the development of infrastructure in developing countries. Since the term infrastructure is too broad, only one type of infrastructure services, namely librarianship, has been chosen as the focus of this research. The choice is determined by the reasonable consideration that narrowing the research subject will facilitate the process of comparison and reduce the potential for error. The scarcity of serious research in the field of infrastructure improvement in developing countries provides another justification for the choice. The author and supervisor agreed to take librarianship as the focal point in achieving the research purpose. Hemami’s