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The findings, released on Monday at the World Economic Forum, are from a new report from Harvard University's Center for International Development, "The Global Information Technology Report 2001-2002: Readiness for the Networked World."
Not surprisingly the report ranked the United States, Northern European countries and Singapore as the world leaders in what it calls "networked readiness," or the preparedness of countries to participate in the networked world. Those rating highest are countries with the most highly developed information & communications technologies (ICTs) and the greatest potential to exploit those technologies.
Ireland managed to break into the top 20 in the overall ranking of the 75 nations assessed, placing 19th, just ahead of Korea and Japan.
A country's overall ranking was tallied according to ratings in certain sub-categories that address factors like information infrastructure, ICT policy, e-government and general infrastructure. In their report the researchers strongly urged countries to examine these underlying factors that compose their overall rating.
Ireland's relatively high ranking was boosted by the strength of the local software industry, which brought the country a high ranking of 13. But Ireland put in a bad performance categories like information infrastructure, ICT policy and worst of all general infrastructure, where it dropped to 30th place.
Ireland, Israel and India were all cited as countries where the local software and services industries have outpaced the development of local infrastructure, and researchers said Ireland "fared poorly" in the overall index relative to its income level.
"Our analysis suggests that the ability of a country to be successful in the networked world depends not only on its income level, but also on key enabling factors such as telecommunications policy, the business climate and the educational system," the report's managing editor Geoffrey Kirkman of Harvard University said in a statement.
The researchers drew their data from sources including the World Bank and the International Telecommunications Union and from more than 4,500 questionnaire responses from business and government leaders in the 75 countries.
In addition to the networked readiness index, the report also contains 75 in-depth country profiles and chapters from analysts like McKinsey & Co and MIT's Media Lab on topics including telecommunications reform.
The full report is expected to be published at the end of March from Oxford University Press, and sample chapters are available on-line at http://www.cid.harvard.edu/cr/gitrr_030202.html
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