ICT for Global Competitiveness and Economic Growth in Emerging Economies: Economic, Cultural, and Social Innovations for Human Capital in Transition Economies

Emerging economies are countries or regions that are moving from developing to developed status, to a free market system, and toward a knowledge-based economy. Those emerging economies that resulted from the breakup of the Soviet Union or represented the Eastern Block are called transition economies (Kowal & Roztocki, 2013). Emerging economies have typically low standards of living, a weak industrial and commercial base, and a poor infrastructure. In contrast, advanced – developed economies have a high level of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, as well as a very significant degree of industrialization, commercial base, high standards of living, and a well-developed infrastructure (Kowal & Roztocki, 2013; Roztocki & Weistroffer, 2016). The progress of information and communication technology (ICT) forces constant training and upgrading of professional qualifications, managing competencies and innovativeness in information systems (IS) that leads to human capital (HC) and economic growth development (Kowal et al., 2016; Kowal & Roztocki, 2013; Ludwig, Reuter, & Pipek, 2016). HC of the organization comprises employees and their professional and psychosocial characteristics such as knowledge, skills, social competencies, behavior, and innovativeness (Kowal & Jasińska-Biliczak, 2016). HC development is a key element of knowledgebased economy (Brockman & Roztocki, 2017). Well qualified and skilled staff with high level of competency and innovativeness is the most important factor of HC and is an “engine” for organization competitiveness. The level of HC in an economy can be assessed by the Human Capital Index (HCI) (range 0–100) that measures countries’ ability to maximize and leverage their HC resources. This index evaluates learning and employment outcomes across distinct age groups, and assesses the majority of economies (World Economic Forum, 2017). Competitiveness is a factor of economic growth that forces innovation and increases productivity (Stiglitz, 2002; Stiglitz, Sen, & Fitoussi, 2010). Productive competitiveness results frommany aspects, which are indicated by the Global Competitiveness Index GCI (range 0–10). This index takes into account scores from 12 pillars such as quality of institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic environment, health, primary education enrollment rate, goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, financial market development, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication, and innovation (World Forum 2017; Yunis, El-Kassar, & Tarhini, 2017). Innovations are important factors of organizational development that support economic growth (Kowal & Jasińska-Biliczak, 2016). Innovativeness of an organization from organizational and technical processes perspective means the ability to create and implement innovations that manifest themselves in the capability to introducing new or modernized products, technology or enhanced organizational and technical processes (OECD/Eurostat, 2005, p.49). Innovations from the perspective of HC and ICT mean the capability of developing novel competences such as new ICT knowledge, skills, social and managerial competencies for businesses, governments or social community (Qureshi, 2007; Kowal & Jasińska-Biliczak, 2016). They can be measured by the Global Innovation Index (GII) (scored 0–100) that provides detailed metrics about the innovation performance of countries and economies around the world (INSEAD, 2017). Economic growth can be understood as the increase in the inflation-adjusted market value of the goods and services produced by an economy over time (Investopedia, 2017). It is usually measured as the percent rate of increase in real GDP, or real gross national income