Title: Investigating the relationship between information technology and innovation capability of economies: towards a virtual national innovation system

Authors: Amir Mohtarami

Addresses: Department of Information Technology Management, Faculty of Management and Economics, Tarbiat Modares University, Jalal Al Ahmad Street, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between information technology (IT) and innovation at the national level. For this aim, a statistical test is used to show the correlation between the IT and the innovation capability of economies, based on data-sets of about 130 countries from global ranking of countries in IT and innovation. The results show that there is a strong correlation between IT and innovation capability of economies. This is true for both developed and developing countries with a bit difference in intensity of correlation. Moreover, efforts are made to explain the potential of IT to improve national innovation systems (NIS), wherein the concept of virtual NIS (V-NIS) is introduced. My conclusion is that the IT can be used, not only as an improving tool, but also as a transforming platform that could provide more cost effective and more flexible way to enhance NIS, especially in developing countries.

Keywords: information technology; IT; innovation; national innovation system; NIS; NIS functions; virtual national innovation system; V-NIS; innovation index; network readiness index; NRI.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTLID.2017.087417

International Journal of Technological Learning, Innovation and Development, 2017 Vol.9 No.3, pp.230 - 249

Received: 01 Jul 2016
Accepted: 14 Aug 2016
Published online: 15 Oct 2017 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article