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The purpose of this paper is to study the characteristics and impacts of information‐communication technology (ICT) investments as perceived by ICT managers.

The paper starts with an overview and a conceptualisation. The empirical part is based on a national RIS 2005 representative telephone survey (n=727) of companies in Slovenia. With respect to ICT developments the Republic of Slovenia, situated between Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia, is a typical (median) country of the European Union.

The size of ICT investments strongly determined the perception of ICT investments, but it had surprisingly little impact on its structure (i.e. hardware, software, education …). Satisfaction with ICT investments was relatively low, particular in small companies. One reason for this was the suboptimal implementation, particularly the lack of accompanying measures (e.g. education, organisational changes). The ICT investments brought considerable changes for the internal organisation and communication, but much less for the management. The clearest effect of ICT investments was the greater need to educate the employees.

More attention is needed to the accompanying managerial, communication, education and organisational measures of ICT investments, particularly in small companies.

The paper sheds light on the structure of seven components (hardware, software, telecommunications, education …) of an ICT investment (as perceived by ICT managers). Hardware is diminishing as a stand‐alone ICT component. The paper also exposes the problem of a relatively low level of satisfaction with ICT investments. It analysed the link between the size of ICT investments and the evaluation rating given by ICT managers.

Despite rapid expansion of e‐business, the research on corresponding evaluation is relatively rare. This paper studies the factors that impact how companies evaluate their e‐business projects.

Paper starts with conceptualization of factors that affect the usage of e‐business evaluation. The empirical part is based on representative telephone survey (n=755) among Slovenian companies in 2003. The causal model (LISREL) was applied on this data.

Only about one tenth of the companies with sizeable e‐business projects employs some type of formal e‐business evaluation. One reason for that might be high satisfaction with e‐business. Among formal methods return on investments and cost benefit analysis dominate. However, once a company decides to apply evaluation approach it will use more methods, usually three or four. The attitudes towards e‐business are the most important factors affecting the implementation of e‐business evaluation methods. Surprisingly little differences were noticed in respect to the size of the company, its IT infrastructure, as well as the number and variety of e‐business projects.

The attitudes of the IT management are crucial for employing evaluation of e‐business projects.

The paper revealed that the perceptions of e‐business most strongly affect the corresponding e‐business evaluation practice. On the other hand, the high occurrence of problems related to e‐business implementation has a negative impact on the introduction of evaluation methods.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of the recent (2008‐) economic crisis on information communication technology (ICT) spending. The empirical findings are discussed within a broader theoretical framework of technological trends/diffusion and economic cycles.

First, the paper introduces the innovation diffusion theory and theories of economic cycles. Next, it presents the analyses of the data from official statistics, international agencies and research companies. Finally, it summarizes the empirical findings within theoretical contexts.

In general, crises always reduce spending and therefore also ICT spending. However, focusing on the recent crisis, it affected the ICT market selectively and also much less than other sectors. In addition, the empirical findings indicate that after decades of fast ICT expansion (1971‐2000) we are now in the period of slower sectoral growth, which is in line with theories of super cycles, although, the authors also propose alternative explanations.

The impact of the economic crisis on the ICT market strongly depends on countries' economic situation and development stage. Nonetheless some ICT segments that allow cost savings, greater productivity and efficiency, have been strengthened during the latest (2008‐) economic crisis, which also pinpoints the directions for further transformation of ICT.

Despite usually reduced budgets during the crisis, managers should put increased attention to new/alternative ICT solutions (e.g. virtualization, outsourcing, cloud computing) and lowered prices of ICT products/services to increase competitiveness. The crisis can be thus an opportunity to re‐examine the contribution of ICT to productivity, workflow efficiency and introduce new methods for better exploitation of ICT capital.

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding about the transformation of ICT in economic crises. It also demonstrates that recent crises caused another microwave within the last super cycle.

The paper provides empirical insight into the link between economic situation and ICT spending in past 15 years, with special attention to the changes observed during the latest (2008‐) crisis. The analysis is also put into a broader theoretical framework, where it proposes alternative explanations supported by empirical evidences.