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To show how e‐readiness indicators, specifically the Networked Readiness Index (NRI), participate in the work of defining policy problems.

The article critically examines the Networked Readiness Index in terms of its presentation and its underlying model. It relies on an approach to policy analysis that views policy problems as socially constructed.

E‐readiness assessment tools purport to show how ready the nations of the world are to exploit the potential of new information and communication technologies. Yet they do more than that; being actively engaged in constructing policy problems. In the case of the NRI, the problem of the international digital divide is defined in a particular way that privileges certain interests while at the same time legitimatizing its inclusion on the agenda of international organizations as a problem worthy of sustained attention.

The findings of the article suggest a need for alternative indicators that register the voices of a wider range of groups and could therefore create a more inclusive digital divide policy problem.

Little critical (as opposed to technical) analysis of e‐readiness indicators exits in the literature. By focusing on these tools, the article contributes to the debate surrounding the issue of the digital divide.

The purpose of this chapter is to critically evaluate the development of technological infrastructure and the propensity of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) destinations to adopt digitalisation in their hotel sectors. This paper focuses on technological readiness, the types of digitalisation and its influence on the hotel sector in a post-pandemic environment.

The chapter is a critical and conceptual overview of digitalisation in the Latin America and the Caribbean hotel sectors, the contribution of the hotel sector to tourism economies, and digitalisation in LAC post COVID-19. A comprehensive examination of the academic literature is combined with the Network Readiness Index (NRI) and Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) on several LAC countries focusing on different scopes including ICT readiness, ICT environment and business usage from 2010 to 2020. The paper uses empirical data collected from NRI and TTCI on several LAC countries examining changes in development of information and communications technology (ICT) by conducting a longitudinal analysis over a ten-year period.

The chapter argues that digitalisation in the hotel sector has been given a lot of attention regarding the adoption of digitalisation during the pandemic by a continuation of activities involving check-in and check-out, providing safety for guests and staff and the recovery of the hotel sector by both hoteliers and academics. Yet, LAC have been slow when it comes to the development of ICT. This is shown on the NRI and the TTCI by their position on ICT infrastructure, ICT environment and business usage. Nevertheless, while their positions on the indexes are less than favourable, their scores are improving, but at a very slow rate.

Limited academic literature is available on digitalisation in LAC countries. There is no consistent data on the NRI and TTCI year to year for some of the countries examined in this study.

This study provides a comprehensive review of technological infrastructure development of countries of Latin America and Caribbean countries with an emphasis on digitalisation in a hospitality context. The chapter is a critical examination of digitalisation in the hotel sector in a post-pandemic environment.

Over the past decade or so, successive Luxembourgish governments have sought to develop the country’s information and communication technologies (ICT) sector. In this paper, the authors will aim to examine how Luxembourg’s relative position in the “Networked Readiness Index” (NRI), a key international benchmarking exercise published by the World Economic Forum, has evolved over time as these ambitions have been achieved. The paper also explores what policy initiatives could be implemented to further improve Luxembourg’s ranking in the NRI.

A longitudinal case study-based approach, drawing on secondary data and the annual publication of the NRI between 2003 and 2016, was adopted.

Luxembourg’s position in the NRI has improved from 27th in 2003, so that it now ranks among the top ten countries in the world. In particular, Luxembourg has substantially improved its position with regards to “infrastructure” and “international connectivity”. However, there are also areas, mainly linked to education, the provision of human resources and policies that allow for and stimulate entrepreneurship where further improvements appear possible.

The paper highlights the need for an overall, holistic, ICT development strategy. Such a strategy would cover not only cover infrastructural and technical aspects but also educational, social, regulatory and economic issues as well.

The paper charts the evolution over time of Luxembourg’s position in an important international ICT index and identifies its current strengths and weaknesses in terms of the different elements that constitute the NRI. This paper represents the first attempt to investigate the position of a small country, which are often overlooked in the literature, in terms of its changing position and the policies developed and enacted by a national government.

The purpose of this paper is to assess e-readiness (preparedness) of the Copperbelt University (CBU) with a view to ascertain the likelihood of the university benefiting from various opportunities unlocked by the adoption and use of ICT in advancing its core mandate of teaching, learning and collaborative research.

The study used the network readiness model emanating from the socio-technical theory, which underpins the extended technological enactment framework. Further, it employed a positivist approach and adopted a case study method coupled with methodological triangulation at data collection stage. With a 95 per cent confidence level of a possible sample frame of 2,980, the study sampled 353 respondents with a response rate of 81 per cent.

The results show that anticipated ICTs users have not leveraged available ICT infrastructure or are unaware of its existence. Further, quantitative constructs: “accessibility to ICTs” and “requisite ICTs skills” has significant impacts on e-readiness indicators and in integration of ICTs in CBU core business activities. Also, the study argues that institutional ICT policy and working environments reshape users’ perception of ICTs for teaching, learning and research.

The proposed conceptual framework only accounted for 43 per cent variance of the factors determining e-readiness of CBU.

Investigating CBU’s e-readiness will enable policy-makers to prioritise interventions needed for transforming the university into an e-ready entity favourably placed to benefit from digital opportunities. Also the emanating conceptual framework is important to theory and practice in integrating ICTs universities business value chains especially in contextually similar environments.

Studies show that internet has become a major force propelling growth in tourism sector in many countries. An appropriate diffusion of the information and communication technology (ICT) services can facilitate visibility of hotels and lodges on search sites and third-party booking websites and thus influence demand. It also helps leverage the use of social media for promotion and customer acquisition purposes. Recently, Myanmar, with impressive historical world heritage sites, is witnessing a tourist boom; more hotels are opening up and achieving competitive advantage by offering free internet connectivity to guests and locating their premises in the vicinity of an ICT infrastructure. The purpose of this paper is to investigate ICT readiness to support the lodging industry in Myanmar by focusing on one sub-index of the Network Readiness Index (NRI, a term heavily used by World Economic Forum). The paper focuses on the “Network Use” component of NRI, pertaining to the effect of the “quality of the Internet connection” available to lodges, and its association with the following dimensions: customer service: the availability of ICT services to guests, such as internet connectivity and availability of ATM in the vicinity; digital marketing: the use of social media, keeping records of guests and analyzing aggregate data to extract business insights; and business-to-business online booking: the use of online booking via major third-party intermediary websites like Expedia, Booking.com and Agoda.com.

Surveys were conducted in three major touristic cities in Myanmar: Bagan, Mandalay and the capital city, Nay Pyi Taw. A total of 101 valid questionnaires were used. Survey questions were centered around the following themes: internet connection problems, digital marketing activities, and online booking directly or via third party digital intermediary. The data are presented and interpreted by descriptive statistics and regression analysis.

Though, Myanmar is new to internet and commercial use of ICT, the awareness of the importance of leveraging social media and online booking for business development is surprisingly high in the lodging sector. On average, about 80 percent of surveyed hotels are present on the WWW through a dedicated hotel website. However, most websites lack an online booking capability. As a result, and due to a global trend, online booking through third-party intermediaries has become the dominant option for hotel booking arrangements in Myanmar. Agoda, founded in Bangkok in 2002, was found to be the number one choice for online booking intermediary in Myanmar, followed by Booking.com. Analysis of the logistic regression revealed that it was highly likely that areas around ATMs have better internet connectivity. As expected, it was also found that it is very unlikely that hotels reporting a problem in internet connectivity will be able to provide internet service to their guests. Despite the presence of problems in internet connectivity in Mandalay and Bagan cities, located away from the capital; most hotels in these cities resort to leveraging social media for promotion and customer/guest development. The analysis also revealed that cities located away from the capital are more aggressive in leverage online third-booking intermediaries.

While researchers were hoping for a higher participation rate in the survey, especially in the city of Mandalay, data collection was challenging, a number of hotels/lodges denied participation. This may have some implications on the generalization of results. However, over 70 and 45 percent of hotels/lodges in the capital city and the ancient city of Bagan, respectively, had participated in the survey.

Tourism has a great potential for growth in Myanmar. This research recommends ways to achieve and sustain competitive advantage for the lodging sector, which is vital for tourism.

Though a considerable research exists on tourism and the recent advances of the ICT sector in Myanmar, the country’s readiness for the actual usage of the internet for the development of tourism has not been specifically addressed. This paper explores this with compelling research findings useful for policy makers as well as players in the tourism sector.

The article analyses the current readiness of India to transform its supply chain ecosystem to smarter systems with Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The analysis is carried out in two stages. First, the readiness of India is assessed globally, and then the rate of transformation over the years and supporting policies are analyzed to understand the transformation potential. This analysis is done across nine identified macro factors namely government support, regulations, business environment, human resource, infrastructure, innovation capability, technological advancements, cybersecurity and digital awareness. The study combines empirical data from 2010 onwards with the strategic literature published by government bodies and institutions for analysis.

Results show that India's readiness is just above the global average with a score of 0.44 on a scale of 0–1 (most ready). Government and start-up culture are found to be leading transformation factors, while digital infrastructure, regulations and cybersecurity are most lacking areas.

This study is first of its kind to the best of our knowledge. The academic literature has not reported studies assessing Industry 4.0 readiness of supply chain ecosystem using macro factors for nations.

The purpose of this study is to assess the e-readiness status of libraries in the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in terms of four dimensions – human resources, electronical infrastructure, network services and programs and enhancers of the networked world.

The study population consists of 11 libraries of the Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, including the central library and 10 faculty libraries. The data collection instrument is a questionnaire prepared by the researchers that has been designed on the basis of the “e-readiness assessment of Iranian academic libraries model”. Depending on the respondents there are three parts to the questionnaire: questionnaire for managers, staff and information and communication technology (ICT) officials. Their reliability and validity have been proved.

The libraries of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences had an average to high status in terms of “human resources” with a score of 2.32, “electronic infrastructure” with a score of 2.48, “network services and programs” with a score of 2.09 and “networked world enhancers” with a score of 2.37 out of 4. In total, these libraries had an average to high status in terms of e-readiness, with a score of 2.29.

The findings of this study can help the library administrators and officials of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences to plan improvements to the situation of ICT.

The purpose of this paper is to identify cross-country differences in socio-economic sustainability, which are operationalized as relative efficiency of economic and social impacts of hyperconnectivity (usage intensity of information and communication technologies (ICT) devices). The authors have a particular interest in the emerging economies because they enjoy outstanding growth rates and prospects for market expansion, and have undertaken significant economic reforms and, thus, should be expected to lead other two groups in the efficiency of transforming hyperconnectivity into sustainable growth.

The authors use canonical correlation analysis (CCA) to confirm the existence of a strong and significant relationship between hyperconnectivity drivers and socio-economic outcomes on a country level. The authors test the difference in efficiency of transforming hyperconnectivity into socio-economic sustainability among three groups of countries: advanced, emerging and developing nations using data envelopment analysis (DEA).

The findings indicate that indeed emerging economies were the most effective ones to use infrastructure and digital content followed by developing and advanced countries, respectively. However, relatively better affordability of technologies in the emerging countries did not produce as much socio-economic impact as compared with developing nations. Favorable legislative conditions and high individual ICT usage in advanced economies did not contribute much to socio-economic sustainability either.

One of the limitations of this study stems from the classification of the countries. World Economy Forum and International Monetary Fund resources are utilized for the economy categories, but their basis for classification of counties is rather subjective. Lack of existing comparative efficiency studies on a country level prevents effective benchmarking of the results.

Since the key vehicles of transforming technology into socio-economic impact are organizations, they should design and implement an appropriate organizational architecture which would facilitate this transformation in the emerging markets more effectively.

In a climate of increasing public accountability, governments have been increasingly urged to introduce good administrative practices and performance standards to enable efficient utilization of their resources and enhance social implications within and across countries.

Although the impact of ICT on macro-economic development has been previously studied, the efficiency of this impact was not. Using CCA as a complementary tool for DEA approach in this study constitutes a methodological contribution to existing DEA research, mostly done in the area of operations management. Using DEA on a country level is a novel approach which contributes to the realm of application of this methodology.

This study aims to study the reality and prospects of the digital economy in Algeria through annual reports and statistics that present the usefulness of digitalisation in Algerian economic sectors. Using an analytical study, we conclude that the economic sector had not experienced remarkable development in terms of digitalisation, except for a few activities in a few sectors such as health, industry and services that have experienced a gradual evolution to new information and communication technologies, which have brought added value in Algeria.