DEA-based ICT performance measurement system -

Abstract

Recently, the world has been witnessing a growing diffusion process of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), but we can clearly spot different levels of access, use and skills of ICT among countries as well as within them. These differences cause ICT gap; thus decision and policy makers in many countries have been applying strategies targeting to the development of ICT. Consequently, measuring and analyzing of the digital divide among countries is of top importance for managers and researchers. Their main focus is to understand the causes driving ICT adoption, which in turn boost ICT development. We developed an alternative approach for measuring ICT performance by applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) using data from the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) as a sample of 139 economies. We compared the ICT Development Index (IDI) with our DEA efficiency score and found a high correlation between the two. Our findings suggest that both indices are consistent in their measurement of ICT performance. Using our new model, improvement targets and peer groups for each country can be identified.