Author: Aleksandra Aldona Skorupinska
Programme: Doctoral Programme on the Information and Knowledge Society
Language: English
Supervisor: Dr Joan Torrent Sellens
Faculty / Institute: Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3)
Key words: ICT, Central and Eastern European countries (CEE), labour productivity, complementarities
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Abstract:
This thesis is written in the form of a manuscript of five scientific journal papers and presents one of the first pieces of evidence of the relation between information and communication technologies (ICT) and productivity in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (hereinafter CEE). The macroeconomic part of the thesis analyses the process of transition towards the knowledge economy in CEE countries and reveals a considerable gap between CEE and Western European countries, especially in terms of human capital, infrastructure, innovation capacity and quality of institutions. The microeconomic part of the thesis is presented in three papers. The first paper presents the evidence of the direct and indirect relationships between productivity and ICT, and confirms the importance of the co-innovation productivity sources (complementarities with ICT investment) from Eastern European manufacturing companies. The second paper analyses the differences in main productivity drivers (innovation, internationalization and human capital) between German and Polish companies. The third paper analyses the importance of the co-innovation productivity sources using recent data from Polish companies.