REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES
2.1.3 Overview of e-readiness Assessment tools
For many years, a number of e-readiness assessment tools have been developed. On the surface, each tool evaluates how ready a society or economy is to benefit from in- formation technology and electronic commerce. On closer examination, the range of tools use widely varying definitions for e-readiness and different methods for measure- ment. Hourali (2008) divided the tools into 4 categories, namely: (1) Ready-to-use tools available on the web, (2) Case studies which examine a specific country or company, (3) Third party surveys and reports which aim to rank and rate countries on various measures held to indicate e- readiness and (4) Other e-readiness assessment models as arrange in other frameworks such as digital divide reports and position papers that can be similarly used for e-readiness assessment.
For example, Harvard University’s model looks at how information and communica- tions technologies (ICTs) are currently used in a society, while APEC’s (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation) method focuses on government policies for ecommerce. The following tools are called Ready-to-Use Tools – Questionnaires (APEC- 2005).
Firstly, The Computer Systems Policy Project (CSPP - 2005) developed Guide for Liv- ing in the Networked World in 1998. This self-assessment tool is designed to help indi- viduals and communities determine how prepared they are to participate in the "Net- worked World." This tool measures the prevalence and integration of ICTs in homes, schools, businesses, health care facilities, and government offices, with an additional focus on competition among access providers, speed of access, and government policy.
Measurements are divided into five categories, namely: (1) infrastructure, (2) access,
(3) applications and services, (4) economy; and (5) "enablers" (policy, privacy, secu- rity, ubiquity). This tool provides a series of 23 questions for community members to ask about the community itself. For each question, the users choose from a set of an- swers, which represent four progressive "stages" of development. The 23 questions are divided into the five categories listed above. The assessment produces a rating that indicates which of the four progressive stages of development the community is at for each of the five categories listed above. "An overall ’score’ for the community can be estimated by simply averaging the scores across the criteria."
Secondly, the Center for International Development (CID - 2005) at Harvard University developed CID’s Readiness for the Networked World: A Guide for Developing Coun- tries in the year 2000 with the goal to systematically organize the assessment of numer- ous factors that determine the Networked Readiness of a community in the developing world." This assessment is meant to serve as a basis for further analysis and planning.
This guide measures 19 different categories, covering the availability, speed, and qual- ity of network access, use of ICTs in schools, workplace, economy, government, and everyday life, ICT policy (telecommunications and trade), ICT training programs, and diversity of organizations and relevant content online. The guide provides a grid with descriptions of four stages of advancement in each of the 19 categories (placed into five groups). Communities estimate their current stage of development in each cate- gory. The guide rates the ’stage’ a community is in for each of the 19 categories, and descriptions are given of what is required to be in a particular stage. “The Guide does not offer prescriptions for improved Readiness."
Thirdly, the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC -2000) Electronic Commerce Steering Group developed APEC’s E-Commerce Readiness Assessment in the year 2000 with its goal to "To help governments develop their own focused policies, adapted
to their specific environment, for the healthy development of e-commerce". Six cate- gories are measured for "readiness for e-commerce” including: (1) basic infrastruc- ture and technology (speed, pricing, access, market competition, industry standards, foreign investment), (2)access to network services (bandwidth, industry diversity, ex- port controls, credit card regulation), (3) use of the Internet (use in business, govern- ment, homes), (4) promotion and facilitation (industry led standards), (5) skills and hu- man resources (ICT education, workforce), and (6) positioning for the digital economy (taxes and tariffs, industry self-regulation, government regulations, consumer trust).
In this tool, participants are asked 100 multiple-choice questions grouped into the six categories listed above. The possible answers indicate progressive levels of e-readiness for a country. No overall scoring occurs. The product of the assessment is the answers to 100 questions. Countries are supposed to work on areas with less than optimal an- swers, since they are "impediments...to the deployment of e-commerce."
In addition to Ready-to-Use tools, there are some third party surveys and reports.
Firstly, McConnell International in collaboration with World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA -2000) prepared Seizing the Opportunity of Global E- Readiness in the year 2000 to assess a national economy’s e-readiness, or “capacity to participate in the global digital economy." The report measures five areas includ- ing: (1) connectivity (infrastructure, access and pricing), (2) e-leadership (government policies and regulations), (3) information security (intellectual property, privacy, elec- tronic signatures), (4) human capital (ICT education, available skilled workforce), and (5) e-business climate (competition, political and financial stability, foreign investment, financial infrastructure). The report performs a “dynamic evaluation of the relevance and accuracy of available quantitative data with an understanding of myriad cultural, institutional, and historical factors." These general ratings and their narratives can then be used as a starting point for further planning. Countries are rated in the five cate- gories listed above on a scale of one to three to (’blue,’ ’amber,’ ’red’), and extensive analysis and recommendations are given.
Secondly, The Mosaic Group created Global Diffusion of the Internet Project in the year 2005 (MQ-2005 and MG -2005) with the goal "to measure and analyze the growth of the Internet throughout the world". This tool measures the state of the Internet within a country at a particular point in time," by measuring six dimensions, namely: (1) per- vasiveness (per capita usage), (2) geographic dispersion, (3) sector absorption (usage within major sectors of the economy), (4) connectivity infrastructure, 5) organizational infrastructure (the state of the Internet service market), and (6) sophistication of use.
The report uses a combination of statistics, narrative description and comparison to explain the growth of the countries’ Internet, focusing on the six Internet statistics de- scribed above. The report also gives detailed descriptions of the political and economic factors that have affected Internet growth and usage, and forecasts future Internet de- velopment. The framework is used to describe, in depth, the relative growth of the Internet in the given countries. If the questionnaire is used, it also indicates the ’stages’
of the country’s Internet growth and usage.
Thirdly, WITSA’s International Survey of e-Commerce that was created by The World Information Technology and Services Alliance (WITSA) conducted this survey in the year 2000 with the goal to gather "the results of an international survey of the views of information technology industry associations...on the best ways to encourage the growth of electronic commerce. The aim of the research was to determine how aware businesses and consumers are of electronic e-commerce and to identify potential action areas". The survey focused on the direct experiences of companies with e-commerce and their subjective views of what is needed to promote e-commerce. The questions cover a range of issues, including: barriers to technology, industry, the role of con- sumer trust, problems with ecommerce technology, internal business practices that support e-commerce, workforce problems, taxes, public policy issues, and resistance from consumers.
Fourthly, CIDCM’s Negotiating Net Model created by The Leland Initiative Telematics
for Africa project at the Center for International Development and Conflict Manage- ment (CIDCM - 2005) at the University of Maryland to help advance the diffusion of ICTs in developing countries, especially Africa, by helping decision-makers improve the processes of negotiation through which ICTs are diffused by governments, NGOs and the private sector. The framework measures four categories of information for each country namely: (1) Background and history – structural context (economy, education levels, existing infrastructure), political structure and culture (type of government, pol- icy making style), cultural norms (religion). (2) Key players in Internet development – responsibilities and objectives of relevant players in government, local and foreign businesses, universities, NGOs, international financial institutions, research groups.
(3) Internet development and ICT policy over time – access, regulation, competition.
(4) Negotiations between players in developing the country’s Internet - each aspect of Internet development and ICT policy is categorized into one of four stages (pre- commercial, commercial, competitive, and consolidated). Negotiation’ between play- ers is the focus of the framework – the rest is supporting information. The assessment is conducted through interviews with key actors in the relevant institutions and draws upon a range of background statistics and information as outlined above. It produces a detailed narrative describing the processes and outcomes of negotiations between key players over the phases of development, identifying major contentious issues likely to remain problematic in the future.
Fifthly, World Economic Forum in partnership with Cornell University and INSEAD has measured the drivers of the ICT revolution using the Networked Readiness In- dex since 2001. For each of the 143 economies covered, it allows areas of priority to be identified to more fully leverage ICTs for development. The networked readiness framework rests on six principles: (1) a high-quality regulatory and business environ- ment is critical to fully leverage ICTs and generate impact; (2) ICT readiness as mea- sured by ICT affordability, skills, and infrastructure is a pre-condition to generating impact; (3) fully leveraging ICTs requires a society-wide effort: the government, the
business sector, and the population at large each have a critical role to play; (4) ICT use should not be an end in itself. The impact that ICTs actually have on the economy and society is what ultimately matters; (5) the set of drivers including the environment, readiness, and usage, interact, co-evolve, and reinforce each other to form a virtuous cycle; and (6) the networked readiness framework should provide clear policy guid- ance. E-readiness has been thought of and operationalized in terms of infrastructure readiness. It is imperiously necessary to differentiate between readiness, use, impact, and enabling factors (whether internal, e.g., skills, etc, or external, e.g., policy, environ- ment, etc.). The readiness dimension contains two aspects, access and determinants of access. Access to the Internet is possible with computers and other access devices (e.g., mobile phones, PDAs, game consoles etc.); access can be differentiated among different groups of the population, and it is possible with different levels of security.
Perceived barriers of cost, security, etc., and digital literacy are social factors that deter- mine whether the Internet is actually accessed. The latter also determine the intensity of use (of e-mail and WWW services as well as of access devices) which can also be measured directly.
The ORBICOM Infostate index is one of the measurement models proposed, which is also one of the first attempts to provide a firm theoretical basis for the indexes. The recently released ORBICOM report (Sciadas 2003) attempts to offer “a global set of in- dicators (Infostate) showing how the availability of ICTs and access to networks can be a misleading indicator if it neglects people’s skills, and if ICT networks and skills com- bined (infodensity) are not matched by a measurement of what individuals, business and countries actually do with such technologies (info-use)” (Sciadas 2003). “Infoden- sity refers to the stock of ICT capital and labor, including networks and ICT skills, indicative of a country’s productive capacity and indispensable to function in an In- formation Society. Info-use refers to the uptake and consumption flows of ICTs, as well as their intensity of use”. Thus, it is the differences among countries’ Infostates that constitute the Digital Divide. Since Infostates are dynamic and ever-evolving,
the Digital Divide is a relative concept. Any progress made by developing countries must be examined against the progress made by developed ones. Both Infodensity and Info-use contribute to the Digital Divide, to networks and ICT uptake more than other components. Skills, as measured by education indicators, also contribute signifi- cantly to the divide, and this is more the case as we move from generic to more specific measurements. If anything, the lack of better measurements in this area, leads us to underestimate the extent of the divide.
The International Telecommunications Union’s “Digital Access Index (DAI) measures the overall ability of individuals in a country to access and use Information and Com- munication Technology”. DAI is comprised of eight variables organized into five cate- gories/factors: infrastructure, affordability, knowledge, quality, and usage (ITU 2003a, b). The findings of the DAI 2003 point to affordability and education as important factors in technology adoption.
Q. D. Tran and Drew, 2014 proposed a model for evaluating the readiness for e- commerce of a construction company in Vietnam. Their questionnaire using 5 Likert scale from 1-5, where (1) Strongly disagree, (2) Disagree, (3) Neutral, (4) Agree, and (5) Strongly agree to ask the key manager of an organization to just their organiza- tion. The tool used 76 e-readiness measurement items grouped into eleven constructs, which are hypothesized to predict the adoption decision of Web-based e-commerce and explain a significant part of the variance in the success level of the implementation of e-commerce technologies by individual construction enterprises. However, this tool in some contexts is described by the perception of the managers rather than describing the fact.