Perusing E-Readiness and Digital Divide: From a Critical View

Abstract

With the advent and evolution of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in general, the Internet, in particular, throughout the world, new terms such as “information society,” “digital divide,” and “e-readiness” were added to terminologies. Due to the rapid diffusion of the Internet in different aspects of human life, these concepts have attracted many scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers. In addition to much academic research done in these fields, nearly all countries have assessed their e-readiness and compared their digital divide with that of other countries, at least once. Consequently, there have been numerous e-readiness and digital divide models oriented towards certain objectives in recent years. The findings show (1) tremendous importance of the digital divide and e-readiness and (2) their complex and multi-faceted natures. Thus, effective examination and development of digital divide and e-readiness research requires a foundation in several rich literatures. Examining the e-readiness and digital divide literature in terms of their definitions and methodologies, in the current chapter, their strengths and weaknesses were recognized. Moreover, after an extensive literature survey, an integrated model was proposed for assessing e-readiness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that can be used as the basis and standard for developing comprehensive models and frameworks in these enterprises. Finally, this chapter contributes to scarce literature on e-readiness/digital divide at micro level and creates additional pool of resources that practitioners and theorists could use to further enrich and extend their analysis of this construct.