Rafał Żelazny

Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics, University of Economics in Katowice,

Katowice, Poland,

rafal.zelazny@ue.katowice.pl

MODEL OF INFORMATION SOCIETY MEASUREMENT – FRAMEWORK AND SELECTED OUTCOMES

Abstract.  An increasing role of information and knowledge in countries’ and regions’ economic development can be found in interdisciplinary conceptions of knowledge-based economy (KBE) and information society (IS). This paper tackles the issues of information society measurement. Its main goals are: presentation of an original proposal of measuring information society development and on the basis of this methodology, determining the level of IS development in one of the best economically developed Polish regions, i.e. the Silesian Voivodeship. Developing the information society has become one of the priority issues for the Silesian Voivodeship. Critical success factors (CSFs) for the development of the IS in the Silesian Voivodeship were identified. The calculated value of the regional information society index (RISI) indicates that the level of IS development in this Voivodeship is one third (0.33) of the hypothetical development pattern. Diagnosing the level of information society development is a prerequisite for efficient and effective policy development in the field of information society, both at the regional and national levels.

Received: March, 2015

1st Revision: June, 2015

Accepted: August, 2015

DOI: 10.14254/2071-789X.2015/8-3/17

JEL Classification: D8, A12, O18

Keywords: information society, measurement, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland.