ICT for Global Competitiveness and Economic Growth in Emerging Economies: Economic, Cultural, and Social Innovations for Human Capital in Transition Economies

Introduction

Emerging economies are countries or regions that are moving from developing to developed status, to a free market system, and toward a knowledge-based economy. Those emerging economies that resulted from the breakup of the Soviet Union or represented the Eastern Block are called transition economies (Kowal & Roztocki, 2013). Emerging economies have typically low standards of living, a weak industrial and commercial base, and a poor infrastructure. In contrast, advanced – developed economies have a high level of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, as well as a very significant degree of industrialization, commercial base, high standards of living, and a well-developed infrastructure (Kowal & Roztocki, 2013; Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2016).

The progress of information and communication technology (ICT) forces constant training and upgrading of professional qualifications, managing competencies and innovativeness in information systems (IS) that leads to human capital (HC) and economic growth development (Kowal et al., 2016; Kowal & Roztocki, 2013; Ludwig, Reuter, & Pipek, 2016). HC of the organization comprises employees and their professional and psychosocial characteristics such as knowledge, skills, social competencies, behavior, and innovativeness (Kowal & Jasińska-Biliczak, 2016). HC development is a key element of knowledge-based economy (Brockman & Roztocki, 2017).

Well qualified and skilled staff with high level of competency and innovativeness is the most important factor of HC and is an “engine” for organization competitiveness. The level of HC in an economy can be assessed by the Human Capital Index (HCI) (range 0–100) that measures countries’ ability to maximize and leverage their HC resources. This index evaluates learning and employment outcomes across distinct age groups, and assesses the majority of economies (World Economic Forum, 2017).

Competitiveness is a factor of economic growth that forces innovation and increases productivity (Stiglitz, 2002; Stiglitz, Sen, & Fitoussi, 2010). Productive competitiveness results from many aspects, which are indicated by the Global Competitiveness Index GCI (range 0–10). This index takes into account scores from 12 pillars such as quality of institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health, primary education enrollment rate, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, and innovation (World Forum 2017; Yunis, El-Kassar, & Tarhini, 2017).

Innovations are important factors of organizational development that support economic growth (Kowal & Jasińska-Biliczak, 2016). Innovativeness of an organization from organizational and technical processes perspective means the ability to create and implement innovations that manifest themselves in the capability to introducing new or modernized products, technology or enhanced organizational and technical processes (OECD/Eurostat, 2005, p.49). Innovations from the perspective of HC and ICT mean the capability of developing novel competences such as new ICT knowledge, skills, social and managerial competencies for businesses, governments or social community (Qureshi, 2007; Kowal & Jasińska-Biliczak, 2016). They can be measured by the Global Innovation Index (GII) (scored 0–100) that provides detailed metrics about the innovation performance of countries and economies around the world (INSEAD, 2017).

Economic growth can be understood as the increase in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy over time (Investopedia, 2017). It is usually measured as the percent rate of increase in real GDP, or real gross national income (GNI), mostly in per capita terms. Economic growth is the most important factor of human development (HD) (Kowal & Roztocki, 2013; Yakunina, & Bychkov, 2015). HD is defined as a measurement of achievements by humans through advancement of knowledge, biological changes, habit formation, or other criteria that display changes over time. Understanding HD can help a company to manage personnel, market and sell products, or negotiate international trade (Kowal & Roztocki, 2013; Business Dictionary, 2017). It can be measured by the Human Development Index (HDI).

The level of ICT development can be assessed by the ICT Development Index ICTDI (scores 0–10) that compares the level of ICT use and access across the various countries around the world (ITU, 2017). The concept of ICTDI comprises 11 ICT indicators, grouped into three factors: access, use, and skills.

It should be noted that the research body concerning ICT management in emerging economies, in relation to economic, cultural, and social innovations for HC is scarce (Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2016). We would like to narrow this gap by presenting this collection of manuscripts. However, before we move on to the presentation of the papers we would like to shed more light on different types of economies in relation to indexes presented above. Then, we will introduce studies included in this special issue.

Classification of economies

In order to verify the relationships between ICT, innovations, HC, competitiveness and HD we used the following indexes: human capital development (HDI), economic growth (GNI), the development of ICT organizational and technical infrastructure (ICTDI), professional, social competences, and skills (HCI), psycho-social and economic factors of innovation (GII, GII efficiency). We considered also life expectancy in years (LE) and mean years of schooling (MSCH) as indicators of HDI.

Table 1 shows the types of economies and their representatives. We concentrated on European countries, thus advanced and emerging economies, including transition economies. The performed cluster analysis showed certain differences in comparison to World Economic Forum (2017) (World Economic Forum, 2017). It should be noted that Poland was classified as highly developed European country in relation to ICTDI, HDI, LE, MSCH, GNI in $ per capita, GII, GII Efficiency, HCI and GCI.

Table 1. Types of economies in Europe.

World Economic Forum 2017	N	Examples of economies (GCI 2016)	Our classification	N	Results of cluster analysis (K-means method on the basis of ICTDI, HDI, LE, MSCH, GNI in $ per capita, GII, GII efficiency, HCI, and GCI)
Advanced	21	Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom	Highly advanced	13	Other European
					Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Lichtenstein, Monaco
					In transition
					Poland
Advanced in transition	6	Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovak Republic, Slovenia	Advanced	15	Other European
					Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Sweden
					In transition:
					Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia,
Emerging in transition	5	Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia	Emerging in transition	5	Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, Slovakia, Montenegro
Emerging	2	Albania, Turkey	Emerging	2	Albania, Turkey
Total	34		Total	34

Source: own elaboration on the basis of World Economic Forum 2017, INSEAD 2017, ITU 2017.

Table 2 depicts ranks for the above mentioned characteristics in relation to the types of economies and correlations between indexes discussed above for countries in transition.

Table 2. Global indexes ranks in relation to types of economies in Europe and Spearman’s correlations coefficients for countries in transition.

Type of economy according to World Economic Forum 2017	ICTDI	HDI	LE	MSCH	GNI in $ per capita	GII	GII efficiency	HCI	GCI
Ranks
Emerging	5,04	0,77	76,75	8,77	14478,5	33,88	0,61	67,9	3,9
Emerging in transition	6,2	0,8	75,85	10,75	17273,71	38,32	0,65	73,98	4,25
Advanced in transition	7,14	0,86	76,77	12,28	26421,56	46,15	0,73	78,64	4,72
Advanced	7,84	0,9	81,57	11,73	42831,56	54,31	0,77	79,81	4,71
Total	7,21	0,86	79,23	11,44	32841,87	48,09	0,73	77,7	4,58
Correlations for countries in transition
ICTDI	1	0,88	0,39	0,89	0,9	0,89	0,55	0,91	0,57
HDI	0,88	1	0,61	0,88	0,95	0,85	0,44	0,9	0,5
LE	0,39	0,61	1	0,32	0,54	0,48	0,11	0,43	0,1
MSCH	0,89	0,88	0,32	1	0,87	0,71	0,36	0,83	0,55
GNI	0,9	0,95	0,54	0,87	1	0,89	0,52	0,85	0,65
GII	0,89	0,85	0,48	0,71	0,89	1	0,77	0,81	0,63
GII Efficiency	0,55	0,44	0,11	0,36	0,52	0,77	1	0,31	0,55
HCI	0,91	0,9	0,43	0,83	0,85	0,81	0,31	1	0,45
GCI	0,57	0,5	0,1	0,55	0,65	0,63	0,55	0,45	1

Source: own elaboration on the basis of World Economic Forum 2016, INSEAD 2017, ITU 2017.

It should be noted that the highest rank scores were observed in the case of advanced economies, next advanced in transition, emerging in transition, and emerging countries. There were also strong correlations between global indexes of ICTDI, HCI and HDI, GCI and GNI. Thus investments in ICT, HC, and innovations correlate strongly in transition economies with indicators of economic growth such as GNI, global competitiveness, and HD. Moreover, in transition economies can be observed a tendency to strong development of investments in ICT, HC, and high innovativeness in schooling and trainings that lead to HD. Thus, transition economies in Europe work on their competitiveness and economic growth investing in HC and ICT.

Recognition of ICT innovation factors, as well as their economic, educational, cultural and psychosocial aspects is crucial in understanding the economic growth, competitiveness, and HD. Knowledge, skills, social competencies, innovations and their implementation in practice of IS management are important issues that require more attention from researchers. The six papers in this special issue can provide an innovative basis for future ICT-related research in economic, educational and psychosocial context, both in emerging and developed countries. We hope that our special issue will inspire more researchers to conduct investigations into these important topics.

Papers in this issue

We start with the manuscript “How do Attitudes Toward Globalization Influence Human Functioning?” by Alicja Senejko, Zbigniew Łoś, Magdalena Żurko, and Dorota Chmielewska-Łuczak that gives a big picture of relationships between the current challenge of humanities – globalization and its psychological consequences. This manuscript provides an innovative view on these relationships and narrows the gap concerning research on attitudes toward globalized world and their connections with information system management.

Then, we move on to the next vital issue of today’s world: population ageing. In the first manuscript, “Information and Communication Technology in Active and Healthy Ageing: Exploring Risks from Multi-Generation Perspective”, Ewa Soja investigates the demographic, social, and health-related consequences of ICT applications in supporting elderly people. The second paper in this area, “Exploring Root Problems in Enterprise System Adoption from an Employee Age Perspective: A People-Process-Technology Framework”, by Ewa Soja and Piotr Soja sheds light on ageing in relation to HC. Findings of this manuscript reveal a new perspective on an enterprise system implementation process and could help managers to fully reap the benefits from the diversified workforce.

Next, we remain in the area of enterprise management and present the paper “Business Intelligence in Facility Management: Determinants and Benchmarking Scenarios for Improving Energy Efficiency” by Bartlomiej Gawin and Bartosz Marcinkowski, who developed an innovative benchmarking scenarios for facility management. The paper is followed by the manuscript “Modeling Organizational and Locational Structure in Enterprise Content Management System Adoptions: Experience from a Large Polish Medical Company” by Jan Trąbka, who developed innovative methods for enterprise modeling.

Finally, “Flexibilizing and Customizing Education using Inverted Classroom Model” by Manuela Engel, Matthias Heinz, and Ralph Sonntag discusses innovative methods of learning that might improve the possibility for human capital development.

Acknowledgments

The manuscripts included in this special issue are extended versions of abstracts or papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on ICT Management for Global Competitiveness and Economic Growth in Emerging Economies (ICTM 2016) in Wroclaw, Poland, November 7–8, 2016 (Kowal et al., 2016). We would like to express our gratitude to the conference participants for their wide-ranging discussions and feedback that supported greatly papers development.

We thank Janice Sipior, the ISM Editor-in-Chief, for her support and professional guidance. We would like to express our gratitude to the special issue editorial board members who shared their expertise and reviewed the manuscripts submitted to our special issue: João Barata, CISUC, Department of Informatics Engineering, University of Coimbra, Portugal; Lasse Berntzen, University College of Southeast, Norway; Wojciech Bożejko, Wrocław University of Technology, Poland; Dimitris Karagiannis, University of Vienna, Austria; Alicja Keplinger, University of Wrocław, Poland; Bartosz Marcinkowski, University of Gdańsk, Poland; Janusz Martan, Wrocław University of Technology, Poland; Juho Mäkiö, University of Applied Sciences Emden/Leer, Germany; Paulo Rupino da Cunha, CISUC, Department of Informatics Engineering, University of Coimbra, Portugal; Krzysztof Gurba, Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Poland; Devendra Potnis, University of Tennessee at Knoxville, USA; Alicja Senejko, University of Wrocław, Poland; Piotr Soja, Cracow University of Economics, Poland; Ralph Sonntag, Dresden University of Applied Sciences, Germany; Janusz Stal, Cracow University of Economics, Poland; Jan Trąbka, Cracow University of Economics, Poland.