Structural Source of the Trap of ICT Advancement - Lessons from World ICT Top Leaders

Abstract

In light of the significant consequence of the trap of dramatic advancement of information and communication technology (ICT) in the global economy, both nations and firms that have been compelling their productivity decline. This resulted in great stagnation of ICT advanced economies and therefore its structural sources were analyzed. Based on an empirical analysis tracing, the trend in marginal productivity of ICT and its subsequent prices among the top ICT leaders in the world over the last two decades correlating with the effects of ICT, two faces of ICT advancement were identified. On one side, advancement of ICT contributes to its prices increase by new functionality development, its dramatic advancement particularly centered by internet results in the decline of its prices through freebies, easy copying, and standardization. It was demonstrated that the success of ICT leaders could largely be attributed to the way in which the two faces of ICT advancement were managed by maximizing the positive face of ICT advancement. This is done by means of the effective utilization of external resources in innovation while minimizing the negative face by outsourcing price decreasing factors. All of the aforementioned points can be invaluable lessons for global sustainability in both ICT advanced and growing economies in the midst of the advancement of ICT. The significance of innovation-consumption co-emergence for harnessing the vigor of counterparts is discussed.