To read this content please select one of the options below:

Achieving economic and social sustainability through hyperconnectivity: A cross-country comparison

Marina Apaydin (Olayan School of Business, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon)
Erkan Bayraktar (College of Engineering and Technology, American University of the Middle East, Kuwait)
Mohammad Hossary (American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon)

Benchmarking: An International Journal

ISSN: 1463-5771

Article publication date: 29 November 2018

571

Abstract

Purpose

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.

Design/methodology/approach

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).

Findings

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.

Research limitations/implications

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.

Practical implications

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.

Social implications

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.

Originality/value

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.

Keywords

Citation

Apaydin, M., Bayraktar, E. and Hossary, M. (2018), "Achieving economic and social sustainability through hyperconnectivity: A cross-country comparison", Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 25 No. 9, pp. 3607-3627. https://doi.org/10.1108/BIJ-07-2017-0205

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles