ICT adoption,innovation, and SMEs’ access to finance

This study examines the association between ICT adoption, innovation, and SMEs' access to finance by exploiting the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data of 171,000 SMEs from 149 countries between 2006 and 2020. We decompose SMEs' access to finance into two components, i.e., basic and advanced access to finance. Basic access to finance is captured from two indicators; namely, the firm's bank account and line of credit from a financial institution, while advanced access is captured by whether the firm's investments and working capital is financed by the bank. Consistent with the information asymmetry hypothesis, our findings confirm that ICT adoption reduces information asymmetry between SMEs and banks. Therefore, banks are more likely to grant credit and to finance projects and the working capital needs of innovative SMEs. Moreover, this study complements the argument of resource-based theory (RBT) and suggests that innovation can provide a competitive advantage with regard to a firm's access to credit. These results imply that SMEs with greater access to and use of new technologies are more likely to acquire financial resources from banks. The results hold to various robustness checks and identification strategies. Our findings provide important policy implications for SMEs around the globe.     

ICT as a source of economic growth in the information age: Empirical evidence from the 1996-2005 period

This paper examines the hypothesis that ICT penetration has positive effects on economic growth. On theoretical grounds, this paper discusses three channels through which ICT penetration can affect growth: (i) fostering technology diffusion and innovation; (ii) enhancing the quality of decision-making by firms and households; and (iii) increasing demand and reducing production costs, which together raises the output level. This paper conducts three empirical exercises to provide a comprehensive documentation of the role of ICT as a source of growth in the 1996-2005 period. The first exercise shows that growth in 1996-2005 improved relative to the previous two decades and experienced a very significant structural change. The second exercise uses the traditional cross-country regression method to identify a strong association between ICT penetration and growth during 1996-2005, controlling for other potential growth drivers and country-fixed effects. The third exercise uses the system Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) for dynamic panel data analysis to tease out the causal link between ICT penetration and growth. This analysis also shows that, for the average country, the marginal effect of the penetration of internet users was larger than that of mobile phones, which in turn is larger than that of personal computers. The marginal effect of ICT penetration, however, lessens as the penetration increases. This paper points out several policy implications drawn from its analyses and findings.     

Progress of e-development in China since 1998

In this paper, a holistic analytical framework for tracing and understanding the progress of e-development is developed and adopted in an empirical case study of China’s e-development since 1998. In particular, the progress is analyzed systematically by benchmarking various ICT infrastructure and e-devices, the composition of Internet users, and the key dimensions of e-government, e-working, e-commerce, and e-networking. In addition, the questions of whether the geographical digital divide in the country has been narrowed is examined. Our findings show that (1) China has made noticeable progress in the e-development since 1998; yet, progress varied in different dimensions; (2) based on the overall performance, 2004 can be considered as the watershed for China to move from the formative stage to the developmental stage; (3) during the e-development, digital disparities in China have dramatically decreased at the provincial level, however, the urban-rural digital gap widened. We suggest that other than promoting affordable ICT possession, the wider and more diversified e-applications for different walks of life will be important for China to move towards the mature stage.     

The (future) role of China in ICT standardisation – A European perspective

The paper argues that the Chinese standardisation system should not be perceived as a threat to international ICT standardisation and that the rather more relaxed attitude adopted by the EU is an adequate way forward. It claims that a co-operation based approach to the increasingly powerful relative newcomer is much more appropriate than one based on competition. These arguments are based on a discussion of the European and Chinese standardisation systems and on a subsequent SWOT analysis.     

Intraorganizational information and communication technology diffusion: Implications for industrial sellers and buyers

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) like CRM, ERP and Intranet are considered important for creating competitive advantage. Despite their rapid deployment rates, only a few studies mainly from the information technology (IT) and engineering literature have been devoted in uncovering the factors that influence the diffusion of new information technologies within an organization. Similarly, empirical studies regarding the impact of ICT diffusion on organizations are strikingly limited. In an attempt to fill this research void, the present study examines the implementation of ICT tools within marketing-related and non-marketing-related functions. By testing a number of hypotheses using structural equation modeling, the authors conclude that the antecedents and consequences of ICT diffusion in these functions vary. Their findings provide the foundation for a more thorough examination of both intraorganizational diffusion of ICT tools as well as their impact on organizations.     

Assessment of information and communications technology maturity level

The use of information and communications technology (ICT) turned out to be a key factor in the process of the wider development of a country. It is therefore very useful to estimate ICT evolution by the means of an appropriate metric. Based on statistical data from 159 countries, the ICT maturity level index (IMLI) is proposed and estimated by using structural equation modelling (SEM). This index is a metric measuring the information society in a country and consists of three sub-indices which are access, use and skills. It is an improvement of the ICT development index, proposed by the ITU in 2009. The analysis divides the countries into two groups, the developed and the developing, due to major disparities in their statistical data. The criterion used to define the groups was the income, as expressed by the Gross National Income per capita. The impact of a number of influential parameters on the ICT maturity level is evaluated and it becomes obvious that there is a substantial difference in their impact between developed and developing countries. Finally, a procedure that allows the ranking of the countries, based on IMLI, is presented.     

Factors affecting ICT adoption among rural users: A case study of ICT Center in Iran

Rural ICT centers are the initiative of the third millennium and widen the accessibility horizons of information and Communication Technology among disadvantaged groups of societies, and play a significant role in rural development processes. Adoption of new technology in rural Iran has been the main challenge and focal point of all agricultural extension activities since the modernization era of the 1950s. Consequently the rapidly growing gap between urban and rural economy has reinforced the critical role of ICT in creating an equal society. Identifying the factors which foster adoption of ICT is among the important challenges of alleviating digital divide. ICT centers attract different groups within rural communities and create a forum for unprivileged rural settlers to learn about and to use computer and internet. This paper attempts to identify the factors influencing the adoption of ICT in rural Gharn Abad's ICT center of Golestan Province. The sample included 218 individuals, who were selected by stratified random sampling method. Survey method was used, and data was analyzed by correlation as well as multiple regression techniques. Based on the results, the existence of ICT center itself, with various funding sources, reinforced the adoption regardless of the users' economic status. At the same time, the other factors such as individual, social, the households' informative & communicative, as well as the innovation related factors were found influential. This case study could be used as a sample for planning, establishing, and developing the ICT centers in the other similar situations.     

Network-centric digital development in Korea: Origins,growth and prospects

South Korea is currently the world leader in digital network infrastructure and the leading example of ICT-driven development. However, the explanation of how and why Korea accomplished these things is not clearly apparent from a review of mainstream scholarship. A deeper understanding of Korea’s “miracle on the Han” requires more historical, cultural, political and social context. This study addresses questions of how, when and why a nation whose infrastructures were utterly destroyed at the 1953 cessation of hostilities in the Korean War could emerge as the world’s digital network leader. It examines policy issues bearing on digitization of networks, network architecture and network technologies, along with broader context in which these policies were considered, drafted and implemented. Chronologically, the study explains the origins of digital development in the revolutionary decade of the 1980s, Korea’s rise to world broadband leader in the 1990s and its ambitious plans for next generation networks. The study concludes with a review of policy “lessons”, including both successes and failures, that may be drawn from the Korean experience.