Socioeconomic Foundations Enabling E-Business and E-Government

摘要

We hypothesize that four key national factors of e-readiness are associated with e-business and e-government development: national economic prosperity, technological innovativeness, institutional maturity, and Internet service provider competition. Using hierarchical regression with cross-sectional data on 122 countries, we show that these hypothesized factors are independently associated with nations' reported developmental success in the areas of e-government and e-business. These results are obtained using data for 2006 and are replicated using data for 2007. Between-groups analysis using regression provides evidence of the model's applicability to both developed and developing nations, where the four factors can serve as parsimonious indicators for e-readiness and as key areas for public policy. We then discuss implications and limitations of the present work. We conclude by highlighting the current outlook for progress in developing nations along the four dimensions investigated and suggest a targeted approach for public policy.