The Network Society - University of Massachusetts Amherst

44 The Network Society
A comparison of the societies in transition in terms of the informational
development indicators reveals more differences than common
traits. Nevertheless, as far as investment in R&D and knowledge are
concerned, it is possible to present two different transition stages.
Thus, Italy, Brazil, 2 Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Hungary
and Slovakia are representative of a stage in which the countries invest
approximately 50% of the values of the advanced economies in R&D
and knowledge. A second group of countries—led by Greece, Poland,
Chile, Argentina and Uruguay—presents values below 0.7% of
the GDP.
Still in the context of the international comparison of development
we can also analyze the economies in transition according to two
other classification levels: the readiness of economies for an informational
development model and their growth and competitiveness rates.
In terms of the incorporation of technology into the society and
economy, The Economist’s e-readiness report for 2004 proposes an
index that measures the readiness and receptiveness of economies for
an informational development model, basing its ranking on six dimensions:
connectivity and information technologies, business environment,
business and consumer adoption, legal and policy environment,
social and cultural environment and supporting e-services.
For example, Portugal achieves good results in the “business environment,”
“business and consumer adoption” and “legal and policy environment”
dimensions, on the basis of which one can conclude that, in terms
of business infrastructure and state actions, the conditions are given for
the national economy developing in that informational context.
However, the informational model does not consist of these conditions
alone. It needs technological infrastructure conditions, specialized
support services, sufficient user numbers and also a technically
qualified workforce.
The countries and regions that lead the first half of the e-readiness
ranking, namely Scandinavia, the UK, the USA and the Netherlands,
achieve good results in all of the fields analyzed. The societies in transition
essentially show bad performances in terms of the use of the basic
telephone network, the mobile network, the Internet and the use of com-
2 For Brazil, the analysis refers only to the R&D value.