article · Journal of Technology Informatics and Engineering
Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies rely on effective internal data sharing to deliver transparent governance, efficient services, and financial inclusion. An investigation into Wazalendo SACCO in Uganda assessed data types, exchange mechanisms, and sharing challenges through qualitative interviews with management and ordinary members. Results reveal that data sharing remains fragmented across hybrid systems, with digital methods representing 42.3 percent and physical or manual methods accounting for 38.9 percent of practices. Transparency deficits emerged as the primary challenge, cited by 80 percent of participants, followed by standardization gaps at 75 percent and security concerns at 65 percent. The study frames these issues as an interconnected socio-technical governance challenge, presenting the Governance-Capacity Paradox to explain how limited institutional ability to process and communicate information leads directly to transparency failures.
Credit cooperatives are vital vehicles for financial inclusion and community wealth, yet their operations suffer when internal records are fractured. Demonstrating that transparency issues stem from broader institutional and socio-technical capacity limits helps cooperatives, regulators, and support organisations address the organizational root causes of poor data flows rather than relying solely on surface-level software fixes.
The research identifies specific operational bottlenecks in cooperative societies that software developers and IT consultants targeting the financial cooperative sector could address. Potential solutions include unified data-management platforms, secure workflow tools, and standardization frameworks tailored to low-capacity institutions. The work is early-stage diagnostic research based on a single case study, meaning any commercial interventions would require software development, pilot testing, and organizational change management.
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Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOs) increasingly depend on effective internal data sharing to support transparent governance, efficient services, informed decision-making, and financial inclusion. However, fragmented information practices, limited technological infrastructure, and governance constraints continue to hinder reliable data exchange within many SACCOs in Uganda. This study investigates the types of data shared, the mechanisms used for intra-organizational data exchange, and the major challenges affecting data-sharing practices at Wazalendo SACCO. A qualitative single-case study was conducted involving 30 participants, comprising 10 management personnel and 20 ordinary members. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed thematically using NVivo 14, generating 187 initial codes that were refined into 42 focused codes and three major thematic clusters. The findings identified transparency deficits as the most prominent challenge, reported by 80% of participants, followed by standardization gaps (75%) and security concerns (65%). Digital systems accounted for 42.3% of identified sharing methods, while physical/manual methods represented 38.9%, revealing continued dependence on fragmented hybrid practices. The study's novelty lies in interpreting these challenges not as isolated technical limitations but as an interconnected socio-technical governance problem. It introduces the Governance-Capacity Paradox, demonstrating that transparency failures may arise from limited institutional capacity to process and communicate data effectively, thereby providing a broader framework for improving SACCO data governance.
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DOI: 10.51903/jtie.v5i2.509
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