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Examining the Global Digital Divide: a Cross- Country Analysis

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Examining the Global Digital Divide: a Cross- Country Analysis IBIMA Publishing Communications of the IBIMA http://www.ibimapublishing.com/journals/CIBIMA/cibima.html Vol. 2015 (2015), Article ID 592253, 10 pages DOI: 10.5171/2015.592253 Research Article Examining the Global Digital Divide: A Cross- Country Analysis Sona Mardikyan, Endam Ayçiçek Yıldız, Mehmet Derya Ordu and Burcu Şimşek Department of Management Information Systems, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey Correspondence should be addressed to: Sona Mardikyan; [email protected] Received date: 6 March 2014; Accepted date: 23 July 2014; Published date: 20 January 2015 Academic Editor: Daniel Lang Copyright © 2015. Sona Mardikyan, Endam Ayçiçek Yıldız, Mehmet Derya Ordu and Burcu Şimşek. Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 Abstract Despite the development of the information society and the widespread diffusion of information technology, the disparities between groups of countries in terms of accessing and using information and communication technologies (ICTs) are still valuable. This disparity is defined as the term of digital divide. Although there are several different views about measuring the digital divide, in this study, International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) ICT key indicators are used to measure the global digital divide. The cross-sectional data are collected for 145 countries in the world, for year 2011. One-way ANOVA and regression analysis are applied as statistical methods to analyze global digital divide. According to the results, variables related to development levels, income levels, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) membership and continental differences are highly associated with the digital divide. Keywords: Digital Divide, Global Digital Divide, Information and Communication Technologies, Cross-Country Analysis Introduction for many people. Today, in many countries e- learning, e-commerce, e-business, e-banking, The rapid development of information and e-finance, and e-tax implementations have communication technologies (ICTs) has developed and used frequently. Most of the fundamentally altered many aspects of life developed and developing countries have and societies all around the world. These prepared their national e-government and e- developments affect the way of the health platforms. The World Bank has communications, business transactions, daily determined many specific targets related to routines and life styles. Now, e-mailing, web- ICT. Furthermore, it has presented ICT as a surfing, blogs, social media tools, YouTube, way of the accelerating economic internet news, online shopping, online development and reducing the poverty. services are indispensable components of life ______________ Cite this Article as: Sona Mardikyan, Endam Ayçiçek Yıldız, Mehmet Derya Ordu and Burcu Şimşek (2015)," Examining the Global Digital Divide: A Cross-Country Analysis ", Communications of the IBIMA, Vol. 2015 (2015), Article ID 592253, DOI: 10.5171/2015.592253 Communications of the IBIMA 2 __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ In spite of continuous development of ICTs, different data types, research methods, and members of a society do not have the same data periods. access level to ICTs. There is remarkable difference between individuals in terms of In the literature, various indicators are used reaching and using the information. This to measure the digital divide. difference is not only between individuals in Techatassanasoontorn and Kauffman (2005) society but also between groups, regions, use wireless technology, Dewan et al., (2005) countries and continents. Many countries try use IT penetration, Cuervo and Menendez to implement new policies to achieve their (2006) use ICT-related indicators, Crenshaw technological goals and consequently to close and Robinson (2006) use Internet, Dewan et the digital difference between citizens. At al., (2010) use PC and Internet, Banker et al., that point, the concept of digital divide comes (2011) use digital trading platform, Talukdar into prominence. The digital divide is defined and Gauri (2011) use Internet access and by Organization for Economic Co-operation usage. Bagchi (2005) investigates the factors and Development (OECD) as: “The gap that contribute to the problem of digital between individuals, households, businesses divide in the global community with the and geographic areas at different socio- value of an information technology index economic levels with regard both to their which is comprised of four IT adoption data opportunities to access information and (the Internet, PC, Cell phone and telephone). communication technologies and to their use These analyses are carried out by cross- of the Internet for wide variety of activities” sectional and time-series methods and with a (OECD, 2001). Digital divide can be analyzed large set of variables that may affect the in two different scales: global and domestic. cross-country divide. The former scale is about the analysis of the divide among different continents and Dewan and Riggins (2005) highlighted countries while the later is about the gap current and potential future work on issues between groups and regions of the same related to the digital divide at three levels of country. The main reason of the global digital analysis: the individual level, the divide is the difference of the social and organizational level, and the global level. For economic inequalities between developed each issue, they have identified a variety of and developing countries. research questions to stimulate more work in this area. Corrocher and Ordanini (2002) In this study, instead of addressing the full emphasized the multidimensional and set of issues related to the digital divide, complex nature of digital divide and pointed International Telecommunication Union’s out the role played by political, institutional, (ITU) ICT key indicators are used to measure and cultural cross-country differences to the gap between countries. The continuous explain the gap. Doong and Ho (2012) independent variables of the study are collected secondary data of ICT relevant selected as Human Development Index (HDI), variables of 136 countries spanned five Gross National Income per Capita (GNIpc), continents from 2000 to 2008. The and Education Index of the countries. The methodology behind their framework study also aims to find whether other involved data clustering and multi- important categorizations such as being an dimensional data ranking. They showed that OECD country, being a developed country, most countries had a convergent ICT and having different income levels have development path during this period, and effects on the digital divide . countries with different gross national income (GNI) levels have different ICT Literature Review development paths. The goal of the research conducted by Pick and Azari (2008) is to There are various researches to measure the analyze the influence of socioeconomic, digital divide taking into consideration governmental, and accessibility factors on ______________ Sona Mardikyan, Endam Ayçiçek Yıldız, Mehmet Derya Ordu and Burcu Şimşek (2015), Communications of the IBIMA, DOI: 10.5171/2015.592253 3 Communications of the IBIMA _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ICT usage, expenditure, and infrastructure in a significant level of digital divide in the EU 71 developing and developed countries. For and a certain information society level developed nations, technology factors are currently is not associated with EU strongly associated with scientific membership. Cruz-Jesus et al., (2012) publications, foreign direct investment, % of analyzed digital divide within the European females in the labor force, and education Union between the years of 2008 and 2010. variables. For developing countries, According to this study, a digital gap exists technology attributes are strongly associated within the European Union. The process of with foreign direct investment, government European integration and the economic prioritization of IT, and education variables. wealth emerge are the explanatory factors Chen and Wellman (2004) stated that the for the divide. On the other hand, the digital divide has occurred at the intersection educational attendance is not found to be an of both international and within-country important factor. Labrianidis & Kalogeressis differences in socioeconomic, technological (2006) explored the main characteristics of and linguistic factors. Billon et al., (2009) the digital divide in Europe’s rural presented a cross-country study on the enterprises and found that rural firms appear determinants of information and ICT to be more or less digital in the most diffusion. Canonical correlation analysis was developed countries, while in the less employed to explain the differences ICT developed countries adoption has been much adoption. The results provide the ability to slower. They also showed the characteristics distinguish between different patterns of ICT of human capital are the most significant adoption that can be explained primarily by factors that influence the uptake of ICTs. variables associated with differences in Vicente and López (2008) analyzed Internet development levels. Another study is adoption in the new member states and concentrated on explaining the determinants candidate countries of the European Union. of ICT diffusion (Kiiski and Pohjola, 2002). They stated that income, educational
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