Factors Explaining ICT Diffusion: Case Study of Selected Latin American Countries

The eminent presence of globalization coupled with the advancement of information technology continues to penetrate and integrate societies and nations in a manner previously unknown. To stay competitive, most countries advocate and implement policies and amenities to encourage technological acceptance and adaptability. In this study, we investigate into the factors explaining the diffusion of ICT and its impact on economic activities. To gauge such, we examine the influence of ICT diffusion on a country’s economic orientation. Our rationale is that greater the extent of ICT adoption in societies, the greater the economic and social development. For the purpose of this study, a set of Latin American countries is studied to capture the relative effect of various social, economical, and infrastructural variables into the overall ICT level, where ICT level is proxied by the Network Readiness Index adopted from World Economic Forum. The result indicates that a country’s IT expenditure, age dependency ratio, literacy rate, and urbanization draw significant attention in explaining ICT diffusion in this region. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/icter.v3i2.2846 The International Journal on Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions 2010 03 (02) : 25 -33