Government Information Quarterly 29 (2012) 597–607

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Government Information Quarterly

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Benchmarking the digital divide using a multi-level outranking framework: Evidence

from EBRD countries of operation
Marijana Petrović a,⁎, Nataša Bojković a, Ivan Anić b, Dalibor Petrović a
a
Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, University of Belgrade, Serbia
b
Faculty of Mathematics, University of Belgrade, Serbia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Available online 27 July 2012 The paper proposes an innovative procedure for benchmarking the digital divide. The study demonstrates the
potential of an outranking approach as an alternative to the commonly used ranking models based on Composite
Keywords: Indices (CIs). To fulfill the objectives of the benchmarking process, an ELECTRE-based (ELimination Et Choix
Digital divide Traduisant la REalité; Elimination and Choice Corresponding to Reality) multi-level outranking (ELECTRE
Benchmarking MLO) method is developed. The proposed approach improves on previous methods of benchmarking the digital
Multi-level outranking
divide in two ways: by classifying countries into hierarchical levels of performance and by identifying
ELECTRE
EBRD countries
corresponding benchmarks for less successful ones. The method is applied to 29 EBRD (European Bank for Recon-
struction and Development) countries of operation. The results are visualized in the form of a relation tree, thus
providing clear insights for policy-makers regarding how countries stand relative to each other.
© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The intensive development of information communication tech-
nologies (ICTs) not only has created powerful opportunities for so-
cial and economic development, but it has also introduced new
divisions and inequalities seen as the digital divide. There are differ-
ent levels and perspectives for assessments of the digital divide
(Bertot, 2003; Billon, Marco, & Lera-Lopez, 2009; Chen & Wellman,
2004; Cilan, Bolat, & Coşkun, 2009; Norris, 2001; Sciadas, 2004,
etc.). In this paper, we focus on cross-country benchmarking the dig-
ital divide by exploring ICT readiness, intensity and ICT capability or
skills, which conforms to the OECD definition of the digital divide
(OECD 2001, p. 5).
There are two main objectives for a cross-country benchmarking
of the digital divide. The first is to examine where countries stand
relative to each other; the second is to examine the exemplars of
the best practices: these are benchmarks. It is important to stress
that there is a difference between the terms benchmarking and
benchmark. While benchmarking is a specific comparison process
(Spendolini, 1992), the term benchmark refers to a reference point
for measurement, something that serves as a best-in-class standard
(Baker, 2009; McNair & Leibried, 1994; Noce & McKeown, 2008;
Petrović, Gospić, Pejčić-Tarle, & Bogojević, 2011). Jansen, De Vries,
and Van Schaik (2010) argued that the purpose of benchmarking is
not simply the comparison itself, but that benchmarking is a means
to an end of learning from each other to improve. In keeping with
⁎ Corresponding author at: Jurija Gagarina 206/74, Belgrade, Serbia.
E-mail addresses: marijanap@sf.bg.ac.rs (M. Petrović), nbojkovic@yahoo.com
(N. Bojković), ianic@matf.bg.ac.rs (I. Anić), d.petrovic@sf.bg.ac.rs (D. Petrović).
this, the ideas behind the benchmarking of the digital divide in our
study are to understand how countries are positioned relative to
each other and to find suitable benchmark countries among the
more successful ones. The aim is not only to determine the ‘best
practice’, but also to find the ‘relevant practice’ (‘corresponding
benchmark countries’) as well.
As to practical implications of benchmarking the digital divide,
the inevitable issues are the preconditions and possibilities of pol-
icy transfer. The point is that the differences between countries
(e.g., geographical, social, economic, political, or ideological) can
call into question the contributions that the benchmarking pro-
cess can make to policy making. Moreover, learning from each
other in a policy context, has not yet been sufficiently elaborated, as is
extensively discussed in the literature (Bauer, 2010; Dolowitz, 2003;
Dolowitz & Marsh, 1996, 2000; Evans, 2004; James & Lodge, 2003;
Lundvall & Tomlinson, 2001; Rose, 1991). Bauer (2010, p. 19) made a
useful observation, stressing that experiences in other leading countries
may illustrate the “adjacent possible” of what can be accomplished
rather than provide specific executable goals for another country. In a
process of sharing experiences (or learning from each other), different
outcomes are possible; policy transfer ranges from copying to simple in-
spiration — an idea stimulating fresh thinking that helps address a pol-
icy problem in the adopting country (Evans, 2004, p. 37). In the area of
communications policy, inspiration is a frequent form of cross-national
learning (Bauer, 2010, p.11). In other words, one must be aware that
the benchmarking itself, although thoroughly addressing perfor-
mance evaluation, cannot assure the actual implementation of policy
ideas.
Our study does not explicitly explore whether an actual policy
transfer between countries can be achieved, but it does not ignore

0740-624X/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.giq.2012.05.008
598 M. Petrović et al. / Government Information Quarterly 29 (2012) 597–607
this issue. Namely, the position of this study is that the selection of
appropriate benchmarking partners (countries in the benchmarking
process) significantly contributes to the possibility of learning from
each other, regardless of the differences. Following both this idea
and the premise that international organizations encourage the ex-
change of ideas among their members (Rose, 1991), we decided to
focus on the EBRD's countries of operation. Since these countries
share the same policy goals and tend to have similar legislative
frameworks, they may also experience similar implementation prob-
lems. The gaps between countries' performance indicators can identi-
fy fields of action, while the EBRD can serve as an institutional
support for cross-national learning.
Regarding the methodological support for benchmarking the digital
divide, there are two questions of interest: the selection of the appropri-
ate indicators and the analytical tools suitable for their integration into
an overall score. The most common approach for performance evalua-
tion and comparison is the construction of Composite Indices (CIs)
based on international ICT data sources.
This study promotes the idea of introducing alternative analytical
support for the benchmarking of the digital divide, based on an
outranking approach. The strength of the proposed approach lies in its
ability to provide more information on the countries' current status re-
garding the digital divide, beyond a simple ranking according to ICT
adoption. By establishing hierarchical pair-wise relations between
countries, we can identify several classes (i.e., performance levels).
Based on these relations, we can also track possible corresponding
benchmarks for the outperformed countries.
The paper is organized as follows: a brief literature review is
presented in the next section. The proposed approach is described
in Section 3, and the subsequent section contains its application in a
case study. The findings and a discussion of the results, including pol-
icy implications and limitations, are the topic of Section 5, which is
followed by concluding remarks.
2. Background and context of this study
2.1. Digital divide within and between countries
The directions for research in the assessment of the digital divide
are manifold. Sciadas (2004, p. 4) distinguishes three research do-
mains of interest to policy makers: the magnitude of the digital divide,
its evolution – whether it is closing or widening over time –, and at
what speed this is occurring. Billon et al. (2009, p. 599) expanded
this list with studies on the determinants of ICT diffusion. Norris
(2001, p. 1–29) offered a tiered model of the digital divide. One of
these tiers defines the international aspect of the divide as the dis-
crepancy of ICT access between developed and developing nations,
while the other tier defines the divide in local, socioeconomic terms,
referring to the information haves and have-nots within a given
country or community. Sciadas (2004, p.4) and Chen and Wellman
(2004) distinguished two main approaches to the assessment of the
digital divide in the literature: one examines divides internal to a
country, and the other involves cross-country comparisons. Similarly,
Cilan et al. (2009, p. 99) defined two primary dimensions of the dig-
ital divide: domestic and international.
The measurement of internal country digital divides focuses on the
level of ICT access and use to highlight the gaps between groups of
people, whether these people are grouped by socio-economic status,
geographic location or other characteristics. These divides are inves-
tigated as differences in access to and use of ICT as a consequence of
wealth (e.g., James, 2009), education, and age (e.g., Gauld, Goldfinch,
& Horsburgh, 2010), gender (e.g., Jackson et al., 2008), race
(e.g., Hoffman, Novak, & Schlosser, 2000), culture (e.g., Erumban &
Jong, 2006), or rural habitats (e.g., Akca, Sayili, & Esengun, 2007).
Cross-country comparisons of the digital divide, which are in the focus
of our paper, rely on performance evaluations based on comparative
rankings. The new model of governance in the EU (“open method of
coordination”—OMC) gave an impetus to this approach by promoting
benchmarking as a policy tool (Papaioannou, 2007). The aim was to
replace the regulatory pressures with cooperation and an exchange
of experience through cross-national learning (Bauer, 2010). This
shift affected ICT policy as well, and cross-country benchmarking be-
came an indispensable part of information society Agendas in EU.
Non-EU countries (at the time) also relied on benchmarking within the
eEurope+and eSEE Initiatives. The commitment to benchmarking
the digital divide became global after a World Summit on Informa-
tion Society—WSIS. Soon after, many international organizations en-
gaged in the process of devising suitable indicators and analytical
support for tracking progress of countries towards an information
society, i.e., cross-national benchmarking of the digital divide.
2.2. Methodological challenges of benchmarking the digital divide across
countries
There are two main challenges in benchmarking countries in do-
main of the digital divide. One is to define the appropriate indicator
set that will acknowledge the multidimensionality of the digital di-
vide and extent beyond access to technology (Bertot, 2003). The
other is to find a way to use them in cross-country comparisons.
2.2.1. Indicators for the assessment of the digital divide
The selection of an adequate indicator set is a separate issue of
the digital divide assessment that is important for both policy
makers and statistical agencies (Selhofer & Mayringer, 2001).
Many efforts have been and still are being made to develop interna-
tionally comparable and reliable ICT statistics for measuring the in-
formation society.
However, the problem is that the more indicators that are used,
the lower the number of countries that can be included in the analy-
sis. Vicente and Lopez (2006) see this as a trade-off between breadth
and depth in the selection of indicators. The consequence is that
many international comparisons often use proxy indicators. For ex-
ample, the skills indicators proposed by the International Telecommu-
nications Union (ITU) in the latest publication on measuring the
information society (ITU, 2010) rely on proxy indicators such as the
Adult literacy rate. However, it can be argued that indicators on com-
puter and language skills would be much more appropriate in a policy
context (Evans & Yen, 2005; Ferro, Helbig, & Gil-Garcia, 2011).
2.2.2. Analytical support for benchmarking the digital divide across countries
The most widely used approach to measure and analyze the digital
divide is to construct a composite index using indicators. Various in-
dices have been developed by international organizations, as well as
by scholars and practitioners.
ITU launched several indices. The first one was Mobile/Internet
index, followed by Digital Access Index (DAI), Digital Opportunity
Index (DOI) and ICT Opportunity Index (ICT-OI). The most recent,
called the ICT development Index (IDI), was developed by merging
the DOI and ICT-OI. IDI and consists of 11 indicators grouped by the
three sub-indices: access, use, and skills (ITU, 2010). In addition to
the ITU, other international organizations addressed the question of
benchmarking countries based on composite indices. The UNDP de-
veloped the Technology Achievement Index (TAI); ORBICOM, the
International Network of UNESCO Chairs in Communications, pro-
posed the Infostate Index; the World Economic Forum published
the Network Readiness Index (NRI); the United Nations Conference
on Trade and Development released the ICT Diffusion Index.
Many scholars have also dealt with the question of a single ICT
index. One of the first attempts was made by Ricci (2000), who
constructed an ‘ICT adoption scale’ (ICTAS), an aggregation of ele-
mentary indicators, for digital technologies in EU countries. Selhofer
and Mayringer (2001) developed a methodology for benchmarking
 M. Petrović et al. / Government Information Quarterly 29 (2012) 597–607
the development of the information society in European countries.
They addressed the identification of different dimensions of digitali-
zation and the development of composite indices. Some methodolog-
ical limits of their study are discussed by Corrocher and Ordanini
(2002), who proposed a synthetic index of digitalization as a frame-
work for benchmarking the digital divide across countries. They
addressed the multidimensionality of the digital divide by combining
multiple socio-economic factors (markets, diffusion, infrastructures,
human resources, competitiveness, and competition) into a single
measure. To measure social inequalities in the adoption of ICT in the
EU, Selhofer and Husing (2002) developed the Digital Divide Index
(DDIX). DDIX consists of two sets of variables: independent (socio-
economic) factors (gender, age, income and education) and depen-
dent (ICT) factors (computer and internet users, both in general and
at home). Philipa, Hamdi, Lorraine, and Ruffing (2003) reviewed
and evaluated the extant works to measure ICT development using
different sources (UNDP, UNIDO, OECD, and ITU) and developed ICT
Diffusion Index. The Index combines quantitative connectivity and
access indices and qualitative variables for policy indicators. The
framework was used for a benchmarking of the diffusion of ICT
capabilities across 160–200 countries over the 1995–2001 period.
Archibugi and Coco (2004) developed the Indicator of Technological
Capabilities — ArCo that comprises indicators of three main dimen-
sions of ICT development: the creation of technology, technological
infrastructure and the development of human skills. ArCo was calcu-
lated for 162 developed and developing countries. Al-mutawkkil,
Heshmati, and Hwang (2009) combined different indicators for
telecommunications and broadcasting into the Telecommunication
Index (TI) and compared it with ArCo, the DAI and the Human Devel-
opment Index. The main argument of their study was that a paramet-
ric index approach may be preferable to non-parametric indices.
Hanafizadeh, Saghaei, and Hanafizadeh (2009) argued that the most
important factor for measuring and analyzing the divide between
countries is ICT infrastructure and access; thus, they devised an
index for the cross-country analysis of ICT infrastructure and access.
They compared their results with well-known indices such as the
DAI, the DOI, and the NRI. Emrouznejad, Cabanda, and Gholami
(2010) derived an alternative to the ICT-OI, but their only innovation
was in the domain of aggregation: they used the same indicators that
the ITU used for ICT-OI and aggregated them with the DEA (Data En-
velopment Analysis). The result was another index highly correlated
with ICT-OI.
Most, though not all, authors use composite indices in the assess-
ment of a cross-country digital divide. There are a number of studies
that exploit different techniques, such as Quantile Regression
(Dewan, Ganley, & Kraemer, 2005), Factor and Cluster analysis
(Vicente & Lopez, 2006, 2010; Trkman, Jerman-Blazic, & Turk,
2008), Multivariate Analysis of Variance (Cilan et al., 2009), and Ca-
nonical Correlation Analysis (Billon et al., 2009). However, all of
these studies were primarily focused on examining the determi-
nants and causes of the digital divide across countries. Dewan et al.
(2005) examined a panel of 40 countries from 1985 to 2001 and dis-
tinguished between the factors that are widening the divide and
those that serve to narrow the divide. Vicente and Lopez (2006)
identified two factors for the development of the information society
in EU-15: the first is related to ICT infrastructure and diffusion, and
the second is related to e-government and internet access costs. In
the later study (Vicente & López, 2010), they focused on factors of
broadband diffusion in Eastern European Countries and found that
cross-country differences can be explained by ICT investments and
market competition. Trkman et al. (2008) discovered three underly-
ing factors that can explain the differences in broadband develop-
ment between EU-25 countries in 2004: (1) enablers and means;
(2) usage of information services; and (3) the ICT sector environ-
ment. Cilan et al. (2009) examined which information society indi-
cators within the coverage of the study affected membership in the
599
EU. Billon et al. (2009) studied the relationships between several
ICTs and a set of explanatory variables, such as economic, demo-
graphic and institutional variables.
To conclude, the benchmarking of the digital divide is dominated by
the CIs approach, resulting in single numerical values for the countries'
performances. Benchmarking is a process in which countries evaluate
their performance to learn from each other. This raises an important
policy issue: how useful would ranking countries according to CIs
values be, i.e., how can these findings inform policy-makers on deliver-
ing best practices? The quantitative gaps, expressed in terms of CIs
values, do not provide enough information on substantial differences
between countries. The ranking of countries according to CIs implies
that every better-ranked country is a potential benchmark (‘relevant
practice’) for the outperformed ones, which may lead to unrealistic pol-
icy conclusions and unachievable policy targets. Conversely, alternative
approaches based on various econometric techniques, although provid-
ing better insights about countries' performances and the underlying
causality, lack guidance with regard to the exemplars of best practices.
With an increased focus on the need for revealing suitable benchmarks,
an alternative method is proposed in this study.
2.3. The purpose and scope of the study
The main objective of our study is to develop a sophisticated
benchmarking scheme that can be used as a policy tool. The study has
two main positions and, therefore, two research ‘directions’. The first is
that classifying countries into performance groups is a more sensible ap-
proach than CIs rankings (Vicente & Lopez, 2006; Wegman & Oppe,
2010). The second is that the question of what country ‘to look up to’
needs to be addressed more thoroughly, and instead of ‘learning from
the best,’ we focus on tracking corresponding benchmark countries — a
concept known as ‘stepwise benchmarking’ (Estrada, Song, Kim, Namn,
& Kang, 2009) or seeking an ‘adjacent possible’ (Bauer, 2010).
To address these questions, we developed an innovative procedure
for benchmarking the digital divide, as described in the following sec-
tion. An Empirical example is provided for the EBRD countries using
ITU indicators that constitute the IDI (an ICT development Index devel-
oped by the ITU). We selected these indicators because they are
recommended by the ITU as a result of years of work on developing
an adequate list of indicators for measuring the information society. In
addition, IDI is the latest global index for measuring the digital divide,
which made it suitable for our comparison. As we discussed above,
some of these indicators are questionable (the skills indicators), but
we did not problematize them in this research, as our main goal was
to create an alternative methodology for benchmarking the digital di-
vide and compare the results with the IDI values. To ensure comparabil-
ity, it was necessary to use the same indicator set.
3. Methodology
3.1. The outranking approach for the assessment of the digital divide
The main argument of this paper is that more comprehensive com-
parisons between countries are needed to identify meaningful refer-
ences in the benchmarking process. We decided on an outranking
approach, which has yet to be used in the field of digital divide assess-
ment. The suitability of this decision aid tool lies in the construction of
binary relationships between alternatives/countries. These relation-
ships indicate not only the dominance of one alternative over another
but also the notion of incomparability as well, which is an equally im-
portant feature.
For the purpose of benchmarking, we developed a novel
ELECTRE MLO (Electre Multi-Level Outranking) method, which of-
fers a completely new ranking scheme. Unlike the basic ELECTRE I
method (Roy, 1968), which classifies the alternatives/countries as
good or bad (core/non-core countries), the ELECTRE MLO computes
600 M. Petrović et al. / Government Information Quarterly 29 (2012) 597–607
hierarchical levels of performance. The mathematical formalization
of the ELECTRE MLO method is built into the ELECTRE program
code, and specifically designed software (“ELECTRE MLO”) was de-
veloped for the calculation.
In addition, one adaptation of the ELECTRE is introduced. Respect-
ing the fact that the skills indicators (used in this study and described
in Section 4.1) are the proxy ones, a variable Discordance index is
proposed. Specifically, the threshold value for the Discordance index
is higher for the indicators belonging to the access and use domain
and lower for the skills indicators. This means that the model favors
performance in the access and use domain which is also in accor-
dance with the ITU guidance on the importance of digital divide indi-
cators (ITU, 2010).
3.2. ELECTRE Multi-Level Outranking approach-mathematical formalization
The aim of the proposed ELECTRE MLO approach is to produce a
specific grouping of the selected countries, based on the dominance
relationships between them. The goal of the concept is not only to
create a hierarchical positioning of the countries according to their
performance levels, but to also identify those that are comparable
with respect to ICT adoption (and potential for adoption) and those
that are not. In the benchmarking process, this approach has a practi-
cal use: countries can track their corresponding benchmarks, i.e., find
‘relevant practice exemplars’ more easily. The formalization of the
idea is described in the following paragraph.
As in ELECTRE I, the outranking relations are used to obtain the
subset of the most preferable alternatives, here seen as countries
and denoted as A1, A2… An (core subset). To test the relationships
among the alternatives, Concordance and Discordance indices and
threshold values are used. The Concordance index, Cij, is defined by
C ij ¼ ∑ ωk ∑ ωk , 1 while the Discordance index, dij, is de-
= The ELECTRE MLO groups the countries into hierarchical levels, consti-
k∈K þ k∈K þ ∪K −
ij ij ij


 
fined as dij ¼ max ajk −aik =jIk j . 2 Higher values of the Concordance
−
k∈K ij
index and lower values of the Discordance index imply an acceptance
of the hypothesis that ‘Ai is better than Aj’. An alternative outranks an-
other alternative overall if its Concordance index lies above a selected
threshold value (denoted p) and its Discordance index lies below the
threshold value (denoted q) 3 For every pair of alternatives (coun-
tries), Concordance and Discordance indices can be computed, thus
forming Concordance and Discordance matrices.
To develop the ELECTRE MLO, the outranking/dominance relations
are further used to define qualitative performance levels. For this pur-
pose, an innovative procedure is devised, as described in the follow-
ing paragraph.
The logic behind the performance-level construction lies in its
specific iterative procedure, which involves the repeated identification
of preferable countries. Namely, in the first stage, the countries in the
core subset are identified. These are the first-level countries, and they
are not out-dominated. Subsequently, the countries from the core
1
Where Cij is a Concordance index for the hypothesis that ‘Ai is better than Aj’; ωk is
the weight of the kth criterion; m is the number of criteria (K1, K2…Km) and the sets Kij+,
−
Kij identify criteria where the performance score of the alternative Ai is higher (Kij+),
lower (Kij−) or equal (Kij=) to the performance score of the alternative Aj. This index dif-
fers from the Concordance index of the original ELECTRE I method. It is modified as in-
troduced by Anić and Larichev (1996) and is used here to ensure the strict order
relations between alternatives that allow the construction of ELECTRE MLO.
2
Where: dijis the Discordance index for the hypothesis that ‘Ai is better than Aj’, ajk,
aik are the respective scores of alternatives Aj and Ai with respect to criterion k, and |Ik|
is the scaled-score range of criterion k.
3
The alternative Ai outranks the alternative Aj if, for the threshold values, 0 b q b p b 1
fulfills Cij ≥p, dij ≤ q. Simultaneously, the opposite should not true, e.g., Cji ≥ p, dji ≤ q, is
not fulfilled.
subset are excluded and the method is applied again to the remaining
countries. The new core subset consists of the second-level countries.
These countries are outperformed only by some of the countries from
the first level. The procedure is repeated until the core is a non-empty
set. The number of iterations corresponds to the number of levels. The
mathematical expression of the construction of the levels is described
as follows.
The definition of the levels is inductive. The first level L1 consists of
the alternatives from the core subset. An alternative Ai that is outside
the core subset belongs to a level Lk if the condition in Eq. (1) is fulfilled.
n   o

max t  ∃Aj ∈Lt Ai ≺Aj ¼ k−1 ð1Þ
In other words, an alternative (country) Ai will appear at the level
k if there is an alternative Aj at the k-1 level such that Ai ≺ Aj while
such an alternative does not exist at the previous (higher) levels.
This improvement to the outranking relations, (i.e., the introduc-
tion of the levels in a qualitative way) has several advantages over
the classical determination of the levels based on a quantitative
evaluation.
First, the proposed concept avoids the concerns about classifica-
tion to a certain level in situations where the index values (or other
quantitative measures) are close.
Another significant feature is related to the improvement of an al-
ternative. In a quantitative evaluation, the knowledge about what al-
ternatives perform better does not allow decision-makers to select a
path to follow. Specifically, although an alternative Aj may perform
better then Ai, it may be that Ai is still dramatically better according
to a certain number of criteria, i.e., these alternatives have overly dif-
ferent development paths; hence, they are incomparable.
tuting a relation tree. The obtained relation tree allows decision-makers
to observe any alternative (country) that is not in the core and identify
possible paths on a route to the core. In the benchmarking process, this
is an efficient way to obtain potential development policies from which
the decision-maker can choose.
4. An empirical study—EBRD countries of operation
Our empirical study covers 29 EBRD countries of operation. The
EBRD is a financial institution established with the mission of provid-
ing assistance in the transition towards an open, market-oriented
economy. Affiliation with the EBRD is a basis for cooperation on issues
of common interest such as ICT development. These countries jointly
participate in cross-country studies and projects financed by the
EBRD. Moreover, the latest EBRD report on telecommunications
(EBRD, 2008) calls for the sharing of experience between countries
at different performance levels.
4.1. Indicator set
For the purpose of this study, the most recent set of indicators
recommended for benchmarking the digital divide is adopted.
These are also the indicators that were used to construct the ICT De-
velopment Index—IDI (ITU, 2010). The indicator set consists of 11 indi-
cators covering: ICT access (Fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants—FTL;
Mobile cellular telephone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants—MCS; In-
ternational internet bandwidth (bit/s) per internet user—IIB; Proportion
of households with a computer—PHC; Proportion of households with internet
access at home-PHI); ICT use (internet users per 100 inhabitants—IU;
Fixed broadband internet subscribers per 100 inhabitants—FBB; Mobile
broadband subscriptions per 100 inhabitants—MBB); and skills (Adult liter-
acy rate—ALR; Gross secondary enrolment ratio—GSE; Gross tertiary enrol-
ment ratio—GTE). The indicators and their raw values for our sample of
 M. Petrović et al. / Government Information Quarterly 29 (2012) 597–607 601

Table 1
Indicators and row values for EBRD countries of operation.

Country Abr. FTL MCS IIB PHC PHI IU FBB MBB GSE GTE ALR

Albania ALB 10.90 99.90 1956 12.00 8.80 23.90 2.00 0.00 82.00 36.70 99.00
Armenia ARM 20.30 100.00 1257 9.50 6.10 6.20 0.20 0.00 88.10 36.00 99.50
Azerbaijan AZE 15.00 75.00 4189 14.60 13.90 28.00 0.70 0.00 105.60 15.80 99.50
Belarus BLR 38.40 84.00 2332 28.50 15.60 32.10 4.90 0.00 89.30 70.60 99.70
Bosnia and Herzeg. BIH 27.30 84.30 1778 28.30 12.60 34.70 5.00 0.00 90.20 34.30 96.70
Bulgaria BGR 28.80 138.30 108,449 28.60 25.30 34.90 11.10 16.80 107.10 51.90 98.30
Croatia HRV 42.50 133.00 31,488 52.90 45.30 50.60 11.90 20.70 94.90 49.60 98.70
Czech Republic CZE 21.90 133.50 35,146 52.40 45.90 58.40 17.10 13.10 94.90 59.30 99.00
Estonia EST 37.10 188.20 191,418 59.60 58.10 66.20 23.70 14.90 100.40 65.60 99.80
Georgia GEO 14.30 64.00 5358 15.40 3.00 23.80 2.20 9.50 90.00 34.30 99.50
Hungary HUN 30.90 122.10 10,216 58.80 48.40 58.70 17.50 15.50 96.00 72.80 98.90
Kazakhstan KAZ 22.30 96.10 6444 18.40 17.00 11.00 4.30 0.00 92.00 46.90 99.60
Kyrgyzstan KGZ 9.10 62.70 702 2.50 2.00 15.70 0.10 0.00 86.00 44.30 99.60
Latvia LVA 28.50 98.90 16,692 56.70 52.80 60.60 8.90 6.40 119.20 69.60 99.80
Lithuania LTU 23.60 151.20 17,927 52.00 50.90 55.00 17.80 3.50 98.50 79.20 99.70
Moldova MDA 30.70 66.70 6087 8.00 6.00 23.40 3.20 5.20 83.10 39.90 99.20
Mongolia MNG 6.20 37.80 994 14.00 2.90 12.50 0.60 3.00 95.10 49.80 97.30
Montenegro MNE 27.26a 118.10 2679 20.00 16.70 47.20 10.00 8.30 88.10 29.80 97.00
Poland POL 25.50 115.30 9352 58.90 47.60 49.00 12.60 15.80 99.20 68.80 99.30
Romania ROM 23.60 114.50 31,640 37.80 30.40 29.00 11.70 21.60 88.00 65.80 97.60
Russia RUS 31.80 141.10 4712 40.00 30.00 32.00 6.60 0.60 82.30 77.10 99.50
Serbia SRB 31.40 97.80 10,037 35.80 27.60 33.50 4.60 7.60 88.50 47.80 97.00
Slovak Republic SVK 20.30 102.20 42,492 63.20 58.30 66.00 11.20 10.50 93.70 54.70 99.00
Slovenia SVN 50.10 102.00 18,963 65.10 58.90 55.90 21.20 26.30 91.10 89.80 99.70
Tajikistan TJK 4.20 53.70 516 2.00 0.10 8.80 0.10 0.70 84.40 20.20 99.60
TFYR Macedonia TFRM 22.40 122.60 8472 45.60 29.40 41.50 8.90 0.50 84.30 37.60 97.00
Turkmenistan TKM 9.50 22.50 3414 7.00 4.00 1.50 0.10 0.00 102.30 21.70 99.50
Ukraine UKR 28.70 121.10 5477 21.20 10.30 10.60 3.50 1.80 94.40 79.40 99.70
Uzbekistan UZB 6.80 46.80 334 3.20 0.90 9.10 0.20 0.50 104.90 9.20 96.90
a
Data provided by Montenegro's Agency for Electronic Communications and Postal Services. (ITU offered estimated value — ITU, 2010, p104).

countries are presented in Table 1. All data refer to 2008, which is the lat-
est available at the time of this writing.
Based on the indicator values, the performance scores are assigned,
applying a nine-step scoring scale (Table 2). The application of a finer/
expanded scale of scores decreases the values of the discordance indi-
ces, leading to more dominance relations, as discussed in Bojković,
Anić, and Pejčić-Tarle (2010). The scores are determined in relation to
the ideal value, i.e., the empirical maximum determined by the ITU
(ITU, 2010, p. 97). Thus, a more objective status of the countries is
obtained than if a relative maximum had been adopted. The countries
that perform closer to the ideal values will have higher scores.
4.2. Weights and thresholds
According to the relevance of the indicators, as determined by the
ITU, the access and use indicator groups are equally weighted, while
skills are weighted less. Within the groups, the indicators are equally
weighted (Table 2). The value of the concordance threshold reflects
the decision-maker's risk aversion. This means that a country may
claim to be better performing if it outperforms another one on a num-
ber of criteria of sufficient importance. In our example, the value of
the threshold p was set at 0.80, which is the sum of the criteria
weights reflecting the desired sufficient importance. In other words,
only if the sum of the criteria weights, where one country performs
better than another, is greater than 80% of the total weight of all of
the criteria can dominance be declared. A lower value of the parame-
ter p means that the decision-maker is willing to accept greater risk
when asserting that a country is preferable.
The discordance threshold value, parameter q, was set at 0.50. This
parameter determines the tolerance of inferior performance. A coun-
try will not be considered as ‘better performing’ if, under any criteria
where a country's performance level is worse, the difference in scores
is five or more.
5. Results and discussion
Based on the Concordance and Discordance indices (see Appendix A)
and on threshold values, and following the level construction procedure
(described in Section 3.2.), the relation tree is obtained and presented
(Fig. 1)4. Countries are graphically interpreted as nodes. There are two
main constituent elements of the relation tree: hierarchical levels and
dominance relations. As shown by the relation tree, the selected coun-
tries are classified into eight different levels, i.e., performance groups, or-
ganized in a descending manner (the first level consists of the best
performing countries — Estonia and Slovenia). The dominance relations
are illustrated as arrows. An arrow directed towards a country (node)
indicates that this country is dominated. Where there are no arrows
connecting nodes at nearby levels, the alternatives (countries) are in-
comparable. The practical significance (meaning) of this feature will be
discussed in greater depth in the paragraph that follows.
5.1. The relation tree as a benchmarking support tool
From a benchmarking perspective, the performance levels
(presented on the relation tree; see Fig. 1) interpret the relative
ranks of the countries, and the arrows indicate the corresponding
benchmark countries. ELECTRE MLO distinguishes the countries
from a nearby, better-performing level that dominates the observed
one and thus helps the countries that are on the lower hierarchical
levels to find their corresponding benchmarks. The benchmark coun-
tries drawn from the nearby performance level are those with the
4
This figure was designed to be suitable for both color reproduction on the Web
(free of charge) and in print, as well as for color reproduction on the Web and grayscale
in print.
602 M. Petrović et al. / Government Information Quarterly 29 (2012) 597–607

Table 2
Criteria and alternatives with associated scores.

FTL MCS IIB PHC PHI IU FBB MBB GSE GTE ALR

w 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 2 2 2
w* 0.105 0.105 0.105 0.105 0.105 0.105 0.105 0.105 0.053 0.053 0.053
Ik 1–9 1–9 1–9 1–9 1–9 1–9 1–9 1–9 1–18 1–18 1–18
|Ik| 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 18 18 18
ALB 2 6 1 2 1 3 1 1 8 4 9
ARM 4 6 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 4 9
AZE 3 4 1 2 2 3 1 1 9 2 9
BLR 6 5 1 3 2 3 1 1 9 7 9
BIH 5 5 1 3 2 4 1 1 9 4 9
BGR 5 8 9 3 3 4 2 2 9 5 9
HRV 7 8 3 5 5 5 2 2 9 5 9
CZE 4 8 4 5 5 6 3 2 9 6 9
EST 6 9 9 6 6 6 4 2 9 6 9
GEO 3 4 1 2 1 3 1 1 9 4 9
HUN 5 7 1 6 5 6 3 2 9 7 9
KAZ 4 6 1 2 2 1 1 1 9 5 9
KGZ 2 4 1 1 1 2 1 1 8 4 9
LVA 5 6 2 6 5 6 2 1 9 7 9
LTU 4 9 2 5 5 5 3 1 9 8 9
MDA 5 4 1 1 1 3 1 1 8 4 9
MNG 1 3 1 2 1 2 1 1 9 5 9
MNE 5 7 1 2 2 5 2 1 8 3 9
POL 4 7 1 6 5 5 2 2 9 7 9
ROM 4 7 3 4 3 3 2 2 8 6 9
RUS 5 8 1 4 3 3 1 1 8 7 9
SRB 5 6 1 4 3 4 1 1 8 5 9
SVK 4 6 4 6 6 6 2 1 9 5 9
SVN 8 6 2 6 6 6 4 3 9 9 9
TJK 1 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 2 9
TFRM 4 7 1 5 3 4 2 1 8 4 9
TKM 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 9 2 9
UKR 5 7 1 2 1 1 1 1 9 8 9
UZB 2 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 9 1 9
*
Normalized weight of the kth criterion (w).

smallest performance gap compared to the outperformed one; hence
the epithet ‘corresponding.’ For example, Serbia may aspire to the
performance of Poland because a dominance relation exists between
them. Some countries can choose among several corresponding
benchmarks (for instance, Kyrgyzstan may consider four countries:
Albania, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldavia).
An important issue of interest is the incomparability relations be-
tween countries at adjacent hierarchical performance levels (where
there are no arrows connecting nodes, i.e., no dominance relations
between the countries). In these cases, there is not enough evidence
to assign dominance. To illustrate this, let us, for example, look at
Poland — a third-level country. There are a total of seven countries
at the adjacent level above. The method favors Hungary as the bench-
mark (BM) because, analytically, only the Hungarian Concordance
index is above the threshold. This is not the case for the remaining six
countries because they have worse performance than Poland in at
least one digital divide criterion, and thus, they are not eligible to be de-
clared suitable BMs. However, this need not be interpreted so strictly.
The very fact that these countries are positioned at the level above im-
plies that they need not be a priori rejected. In certain circumstances,
they can be the subject of further consideration (for example, if the
decision-maker is not exclusive about the threshold value for the Con-
cordance index). However, the method highlights Hungary as the first
choice for Poland to look up to.

5.1.1. ELECTRE MLO vs. IDI rankings

Another subject of interest is an examination of the correspon-
dence of the obtained results with the IDI rankings. In general,
there is a significant degree of correspondence between hierarchical
status and quantitatively expressed performance — the IDI values
(Table 3).
Nevertheless, some differences between the IDI and ELECTRE MLO
performance evaluations can be noted from Table 3. The first is when
the IDI ranks do not match the ELECTRE MLO performance level
(Poland and Romania are lower than expected, according to the IDI;
see Table 3). This may be a result of a country having unbalanced per-
formance. In that case, the ELECTRE MLO will give more respect to the
Fig. 1. Relation tree. pronounced poor performance on a particular indicator. In the IDI
 M. Petrović et al. / Government Information Quarterly 29 (2012) 597–607 603

Table 3 approach (Wegman & Oppe, 2010; Bauer, 2010), as it suggests

IDI values and obtained performance levels for EBRD countries of operation. looking for corresponding benchmarks on an adjacent upper level.
Level based on ELECTRE MLO Country IDI value This kind of relation cannot be detected with linear order, CI based,
benchmarking. In other words, unlike conventional quantitative
I EST 6.46
SLO 6.41 methods of ranking, in ELECTRE MLO, a country that is at a higher
II HUN 5.64 level is not necessarily a suitable benchmark country (a ‘good prac-
LTU 5.55 tice’ exemplar) for countries at lower levels. However, it is up to
HRV 5.53
policy-makers to decide how high to set the desired outcomes
CZE 5.45
SVK 5.38 (i.e., what development path to follow).
LVA 5.28
BGR 4.87 5.1.2. Setting a development strategy — an evolutionary vs. a
III POL 5.29 revolutionary development path
RUS 4.57
An important implication for planners and practitioners is that each
IV ROM 4.73
MNE 4.54a relation between countries can point to a development option. We can
TFRM 4.32 observe that countries differ in the number of income/outcome oriented
SRB 4.23 relations, and therefore in possible development options. The essence of
BLR 4.07
the hierarchical preorder is to establish gradual development paths. This
UKR 3.87
V BIH 3.65 means that policy-makers may learn from the countries at the adjacent,
KAZ 3.47 better level of performance (this can be seen as an ‘evolutionary’ devel-
VI MDA 3.37 opment path). However, depending on the extant circumstances (coun-
GEO 3.22 tries' development strategies and priorities), the decision-maker may
AZE 3.18
opt for more ambitious goals, i.e., a ‘revolutionary’ development path.
ALB 3.12
ARM 2.94 This is done by looking for corresponding benchmark countries on the
VII MNG 2.71 higher levels (to skip some intermediate levels).
KGZ 2.65 If we again take Poland as an illustrative example, we can see
VIII TKM 2.38
that Hungary, as its corresponding benchmark, achieves better
TJK 2.25
UZB 2.25
performance in three of eleven criteria (in the domains of Fixed tele-
a
phone lines, Internet users and Fixed broadband internet sub-
The comparability of ELECTRE MLO and IDI for Montenegro is restricted because,
instead of estimated value for FTL used by the ITU, we used data from National Regula-
scribers), while they have similar (equally rated) performance in all
tory Authority of MNE. of the other criteria. However, we may also consider countries from
the top level as potential BMs for Poland. In terms of the number of
better performing domains, both Slovenia and Estonia record signifi-
cantly better performance than Poland. Moreover, unlike Hungary,
which has slightly better indicator values, the top-level countries
rankings, this observation might be neglected as a result of a compen- have significantly better performance in most of the digital divide
satory effect. Hence, a country that in the ‘International internet band- domains.
width (IIB)’ domain only achieves only 9352 Kbit/s of an ideal This leads us to the question of a suitable BM. Namely, the method
reference value of 100,000 Kbit/s, for example, would not be better does not explicitly favor top-level countries (those that are better in
ranked than a country that surpasses this value (as in the case of most/all indicators) to be suitable BMs for any lower-level ones. Rather,
Poland relative to Bulgaria). From a policy perspective, this is impor- it promotes stepwise improvements from following a suggested path —
tant because IIB is a precondition for the advanced services of the in- the ‘stepwise benchmarking’ concept (as invited in Section 2.3). Howev-
formation society (e.g., e‐learning, Haßler & Jackson, 2010). er, the policy-maker still may choose how to set the development strat-
Another important difference is the way that ELECTRE MLO treats egy; a policy-maker can choose between more ambitious and more
a case where a country exhibits specific development patterns, such achievable policy goals.
as pronounced good performance on some indicator. In this case, a
country may be highly ranked, but not dominate others. An example 5.2. Practical implications of the study
is Bulgaria, which is highly positioned (by both ELECTRE MLO and
IDI), but cannot serve as a corresponding benchmark for any country In general, this research contributes to the classification of a se-
from the third level. This is because Bulgaria shows less balanced lected group of countries (the EBRD) into hierarchical levels of perfor-
performance among the chosen indicators — high scores for mobile mance. Hence, this study provides an additional assessment that may
penetration and internet bandwidth and low scores in the broad- complement other evaluations in the digital divide domain (such as
band domain. Furthermore, in 2008, Bulgaria showed a significant variety of composite indices).
increase in the value of its internet bandwidth indicator. Therefore, We will reveal more specific practical implications of this research
it is advisable to investigate its performance in previous years, by examining one of the lowest-level countries, Tajikistan. First,
using the same procedure. This may eliminate the misleading effects policy-makers or other stakeholders from Tajikistan can gain insights
of time cut analysis and unexpected trend volatility. All of this brings about the country's position relative to its policy (EBRD) and regional
Bulgaria into question as a benchmark country i.e., a ‘good practice’ partners (Commonwealth of Independent States); they can monitor
exemplar. both the country's actual performance and its progress. Thereupon,
To summarize, the results from ELECTRE MLO show that a better policy makers from Tajikistan may decide to attempt to match the
performing country is one that achieves better performance in a suf- achievements of some of the neighboring countries (in terms of per-
ficient number of criteria and achieves a more balanced performance, formance), such as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia or Kyrgyz-
meaning that a better performing country would not have markedly stan. According to the IDI ranking, all of these countries are higher
worse performance on any criteria. In this way, the method respects ranked and thus represent possible benchmarks for Tajikistan. Our re-
the multi-dimensional nature of the digital divide (DD). Moreover, search, however, eliminates the countries with performances that are
ELECTRE MLO addresses the issue of benchmark countries more thor- not definitively better, in this case, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (the
oughly. It practically operationalizes the “learning from the similar” same elimination principle is applied among countries at the adjacent
604 M. Petrović et al. / Government Information Quarterly 29 (2012) 597–607
performance level as shown in the discussion on Poland). Thus, a
policy-maker from Tajikistan receives a ‘finer’ selection of potential
benchmark countries. Nevertheless, as is the case with the practical
implications of benchmarking, the final choice depends on the prefer-
ences of policy-makers. For example, in the case of Tajikistan, the
policy-makers still may prefer to exchange experience with
Kyrgyzstan rather than with Mongolia because Kyrgyzstan is a neigh-
boring country and a member of Commonwealth of Independent
States like Tajikistan, and it is also more similar with regard to popu-
lation and some economic indicators. Finally, for the less developed
countries, the obtained performance levels may be seen as a measure
of ambition in pursuing policy goals; policy-makers can gradually in-
crease policy targets (“climbing up the relation tree level by level”) or
skip some levels and attempt to achieve more.
5.3. Theoretical implications and the added value of the ELECTRE MLO
The main contribution that this research makes to the body of
knowledge in the field of DD is a novel method (ELECTRE MLO)
that offers an entirely new ranking scheme suitable for the purposes
of BM. Unlike other studies concerning alternatives for globally
recommended indices, which resulted in additional index-based
rankings (such as Emrouznejad et al., 2010; Hanafizadeh et al.,
2009), ELECTRE MLO is the only alternative approach that deeply ad-
dresses the comparability between countries and reveals corresponding
BMs. The question is what makes this method a “decent” alternative to
commonly used CIs approach.
In comparing this method to CIs, it is necessary to point out that
in both cases we observe a certain disadvantage. Namely, a country
that registers high/top results for just one or two indicators may
be relatively highly ranked. This is due to a compensative effect
that occurs in the construction of the index. This appears in our
approach as well. But unlike the CIs, the ELECTRE MLO provides ad-
ditional pair-wise relations between countries at nearby hierarchi-
cal levels. These relations ultimately reveal countries that act as
‘outliers’ in this way. Technically speaking, our method does not
favor these countries as the ones to look up to. Thus, the method re-
spects the multidimensionality of digital divide phenomena and
allows that countries that show not only better but also more bal-
anced performance are seen as preferable. This is the significant dif-
ference from the existing approaches used in benchmarking the
digital divide.
The method is applied to the EBRD's countries of operation, but it
can be used as a practical tool elsewhere, with the recommendation
that it should be an internationally coordinated group of countries
(benchmarking partners). The supporting software for the proposed
ELECTRE MLO is flexible enough to accept more indicators/criteria.
This method provides a policy-maker from any country an alternative
to a number of existing indices to assess the digital divide.
5.4. Limitations of the study and future research
Some limitations of the study need to be discussed to understand
its scope of application and generalization.
ELECTRE MLO can indicate how well a country is doing relative to
others, but not relative to a theoretical maximum. This specially affects
the top rated countries, in this case Estonia and Slovenia, as the method
does not provide the big picture on their position, i.e., how well they
stand globally.
Some software constraints should also be mentioned. If many
countries are involved, or if many countries share the same perfor-
mance level, the relation tree may not be sufficiently visible. This re-
quires further development of the software package. The other
solution is to develop new formats to visualize the results. This
could be the subject of further research.
Finally, policy makers must be aware of the fact that every math-
ematical modeling of complex policy issues (such as the digital di-
vide) is a kind of simplification, and therefore the results must be
considered with caution. Additionally, the ELECTRE MLO operates
with arbitrarily imposed significance threshold values, based on
user preferences. If the value of the threshold p increases (meaning
stricter conditions to declare the dominance of one country over an-
other), then some countries will appear at the adjacent level above
and vice versa. For example, if p is set to 0.85, the first two levels
remain the same, but some lower-level countries (e.g. Romania,
Montenegro and Ukraine) will “climb” to the next level. Increasing
the other threshold (q), which reflects tolerance of inferior perfor-
mance, may induce new dominance relations. For example, if q is
set to 0.7, Croatia will outperform Bulgaria and “move it off” from
the second level, while other levels remain the same. To conclude,
the relation tree is to some extent affected by the decision-makers'
preferences. Therefore, another topic for future development of the
ELECTRE MLO method could be the determination of sensitivity
ranges for the concordance and discordance thresholds in which
the hierarchical status of the countries remains unchanged.
6. Conclusion
The issues pertaining to benchmarking the digital divide are man-
ifold, including its scope, the selection of a representative set of indi-
cators and supporting analytical tools, and the integration of the
results into a policy analysis.
To give more respect to both benchmarking itself and the
multidimensionality of the digital divide, a new analytical tool is
developed as an alternative to commonly used CIs. The aim is to
go beyond searching for a mythical ‘best practice’ and to discover
the ‘relevant practice’ for achieving countries' own distinct
objectives.
The suggested procedure enables the following: 1) the classifica-
tion of countries into performance groups arranged in hierarchical
levels and 2) the identification of corresponding benchmarks for
outperformed countries. Unlike the CI methodology, where the coun-
tries are put into classes according to arbitrarily imposed limit values,
in our approach, an eliminatory iterative procedure is proposed to
specify hierarchical levels of performance.
The methodology is applied to EBRD countries of operation.
According to selected digital divide indicators, the most preferred
countries (Estonia and Slovenia) are distinguished. The remaining
countries are also classified according to their performances into
seven more levels, constituting a relation tree. The results are com-
pared with IDI values, and a fair degree of similarity has been
detected. In this sense (i.e., in terms of performance evaluation),
both CIs and an outranking approach are valid. However, the pro-
posed approach deeply addresses the comparability between coun-
tries and refines the selection of suitable BM countries for the
outperformed ones. The outcome, in the form of a relation tree,
allows policy-makers to identify development options by looking
for benchmark countries on the higher hierarchical levels.
The new ranking scheme provided by the proposed ELECTRE
MLO, gives more meaningful signposts for policy-makers, thus mak-
ing this approach a worthy alternative to the existing procedures for
benchmarking the digital divide.
Acknowledgment
This paper is part of the “Critical infrastructure management for
sustainable development in postal, communication and railway
sector of Republic of Serbia” project, funded by the Ministry of
Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia, Project number:
TR36022.
Appendix A. Concordance and discordance matrices

Table A1
Concordance index.

M. Petrović et al. / Government Information Quarterly 29 (2012) 597–607

ALB ARM AZE BLR BIH BGR HRV CZE EST GEO HUN KAZ KGZ LVA LTU MDA MNG MNE POL ROM RUS SRB SVK SVN TJK TFRM TKM UKR UZB

ALB 0.67 0.38 0.20 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.40 0.00 0.25 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.67 0.75 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.88 0.25 0.88
ARM 0.33 0.42 0.17 0.18 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.44 0.00 0.00 0.67 0.00 0.00 0.33 0.40 0.08 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.83 0.00 0.83
AZE 0.63 0.58 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.67 0.00 0.29 0.90 0.00 0.00 0.63 0.89 0.10 0.00 0.06 0.10 0.08 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.07 1.00 0.44 1.00
BLR 0.80 0.83 1.00 0.60 0.20 0.06 0.18 0.07 1.00 0.14 0.78 1.00 0.14 0.13 1.00 1.00 0.50 0.14 0.25 0.33 0.33 0.20 0.00 1.00 0.29 1.00 0.73 1.00
BIH 0.82 0.82 1.00 0.40 0.00 0.00 0.12 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.67 1.00 0.00 0.13 1.00 0.91 0.40 0.13 0.28 0.30 0.13 0.13 0.00 1.00 0.27 1.00 0.67 1.00
BGR 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.80 1.00 0.20 0.31 0.00 1.00 0.31 1.00 1.00 0.46 0.35 1.00 1.00 0.86 0.46 0.75 0.75 0.82 0.57 0.24 1.00 0.83 1.00 0.93 1.00
HRV 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.94 1.00 0.80 0.22 0.13 1.00 0.46 1.00 1.00 0.62 0.55 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.67 0.92 0.94 1.00 0.43 0.24 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.94 1.00
CZE 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.82 0.88 0.69 0.78 0.00 1.00 0.44 1.00 1.00 0.62 0.67 0.89 1.00 0.89 0.73 1.00 0.81 0.89 0.64 0.27 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.82 1.00
EST 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.93 1.00 1.00 0.87 1.00 1.00 0.91 1.00 1.00 0.92 0.93 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.92 1.00 0.94 1.00 1.00 0.44 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.94 1.00
GEO 0.60 0.56 0.33 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.22 1.00 0.00 0.00 0.60 0.86 0.17 0.00 0.06 0.10 0.08 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.08 1.00 0.29 1.00
HUN 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.86 1.00 0.69 0.54 0.56 0.09 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.75 0.62 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.86 0.85 1.00 0.69 0.15 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.91 1.00
KAZ 0.75 1.00 0.71 0.22 0.33 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.78 0.00 0.83 0.00 0.00 0.67 0.75 0.20 0.00 0.06 0.08 0.11 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.17 1.00 0.29 1.00
KGZ 0.00 0.33 0.10 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.17 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.50 0.08 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.00 0.83 0.20 0.83
LVA 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.86 1.00 0.54 0.38 0.38 0.08 1.00 0.25 1.00 1.00 0.55 1.00 1.00 0.83 0.60 0.63 0.85 1.00 0.43 0.00 1.00 0.86 1.00 0.77 1.00
LTU 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.87 0.87 0.65 0.45 0.33 0.07 1.00 0.38 1.00 1.00 0.45 0.88 1.00 0.86 0.64 0.75 0.88 0.88 0.38 0.13 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.86 1.00
MDA 0.33 0.67 0.38 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.40 0.00 0.33 1.00 0.00 0.13 0.60 0.09 0.13 0.13 0.00 0.00 0.13 0.00 1.00 0.17 0.88 0.25 0.88
MNG 0.25 0.60 0.11 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.14 0.00 0.25 0.50 0.00 0.00 0.40 0.17 0.00 0.06 0.08 0.09 0.00 0.00 1.00 0.14 0.78 0.29 0.71
MNE 0.91 0.92 0.90 0.50 0.60 0.14 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.83 0.00 0.80 0.92 0.17 0.14 0.91 0.83 0.20 0.31 0.36 0.55 0.29 0.11 1.00 0.44 0.93 0.75 0.93
POL 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.86 0.87 0.54 0.33 0.27 0.08 1.00 0.00 1.00 1.00 0.40 0.36 0.88 1.00 0.80 0.80 0.73 0.88 0.45 0.13 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.77 1.00
ROM 1.00 1.00 0.94 0.75 0.72 0.25 0.08 0.00 0.00 0.94 0.14 0.94 1.00 0.38 0.25 0.87 0.94 0.69 0.20 0.55 0.69 0.36 0.22 1.00 0.56 0.94 0.75 0.94
RUS 1.00 1.00 0.90 0.67 0.70 0.25 0.06 0.19 0.06 0.90 0.15 0.92 1.00 0.15 0.13 1.00 0.92 0.64 0.27 0.45 0.60 0.31 0.11 1.00 0.45 0.92 0.80 0.92
SRB 1.00 1.00 0.92 0.67 0.88 0.18 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.92 0.00 0.89 1.00 0.00 0.13 1.00 0.91 0.45 0.13 0.31 0.40 0.15 0.00 1.00 0.33 0.92 0.60 0.92
SVK 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.80 0.87 0.43 0.57 0.36 0.00 1.00 0.31 1.00 1.00 0.57 0.62 0.88 1.00 0.71 0.55 0.64 0.69 0.85 0.22 1.00 0.83 1.00 0.67 1.00
SVN 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.76 0.76 0.73 0.56 1.00 0.85 1.00 1.00 1.00 0.87 1.00 1.00 0.89 0.87 0.78 0.89 1.00 0.78 1.00 0.89 1.00 0.88 1.00
TJK 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.40 0.00 0.25
TFRM 1.00 1.00 0.93 0.71 0.73 0.17 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.92 0.00 0.83 1.00 0.14 0.00 0.83 0.86 0.56 0.00 0.44 0.55 0.67 0.17 0.11 1.00 0.93 0.67 0.93
TKM 0.13 0.17 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.17 0.00 0.00 0.13 0.22 0.07 0.00 0.06 0.08 0.08 0.00 0.00 0.60 0.07 0.00 0.33
UKR 0.75 1.00 0.56 0.27 0.33 0.07 0.06 0.18 0.06 0.71 0.09 0.71 0.80 0.23 0.14 0.75 0.71 0.25 0.23 0.25 0.20 0.40 0.33 0.12 1.00 0.33 1.00 1.00
UZB 0.13 0.17 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.17 0.00 0.00 0.13 0.29 0.07 0.00 0.06 0.08 0.08 0.00 0.00 0.75 0.07 0.67 0.00

605
 606
Table A2
Discordance index.

ALB ARM AZE BLR BIH BGR HRV CZE EST GEO HUN KAZ KGZ LVA LTU MDA MNG MNE POL ROM RUS SRB SVK SVN TJK TFRM TKM UKR UZB

ALB 0.22 0.11 0.44 0.33 0.89 0.56 0.44 0.89 0.11 0.44 0.22 0.00 0.44 0.44 0.33 0.06 0.33 0.44 0.22 0.33 0.33 0.56 0.67 0.00 0.33 0.06 0.33 0.06
ARM 0.22 0.22 0.22 0.33 0.89 0.44 0.56 0.89 0.22 0.56 0.11 0.11 0.56 0.44 0.22 0.11 0.44 0.56 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.56 0.56 0.00 0.44 0.06 0.22 0.06

M. Petrović et al. / Government Information Quarterly 29 (2012) 597–607

AZE 0.22 0.22 0.33 0.22 0.89 0.44 0.44 0.89 0.11 0.44 0.22 0.11 0.44 0.56 0.22 0.17 0.33 0.44 0.33 0.44 0.22 0.44 0.56 0.00 0.33 0.00 0.33 0.00
BLR 0.11 0.11 0.00 0.11 0.89 0.33 0.33 0.89 0.00 0.33 0.11 0.00 0.33 0.44 0.00 0.00 0.22 0.33 0.22 0.33 0.11 0.44 0.44 0.00 0.22 0.00 0.22 0.00
BIH 0.11 0.11 0.00 0.17 0.89 0.33 0.33 0.89 0.00 0.33 0.11 0.00 0.33 0.44 0.00 0.06 0.22 0.33 0.22 0.33 0.11 0.44 0.44 0.00 0.22 0.00 0.22 0.00
BGR 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.22 0.22 0.33 0.00 0.33 0.00 0.00 0.33 0.22 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.33 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.33 0.33 0.00 0.22 0.00 0.17 0.00
HRV 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.67 0.11 0.67 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.17 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.06 0.11 0.00 0.11 0.22 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.17 0.00
CZE 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.22 0.11 0.56 0.33 0.56 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.00 0.11 0.11 0.00 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.44 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.00
EST 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.00 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.22 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.00
GEO 0.22 0.22 0.11 0.33 0.22 0.89 0.44 0.44 0.89 0.44 0.22 0.00 0.44 0.56 0.22 0.06 0.33 0.44 0.33 0.44 0.22 0.56 0.56 0.00 0.33 0.00 0.33 0.00
HUN 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.89 0.22 0.33 0.89 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.22 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.22 0.11 0.00 0.33 0.33 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.00
KAZ 0.22 0.00 0.22 0.22 0.33 0.89 0.44 0.56 0.89 0.22 0.56 0.11 0.56 0.44 0.22 0.11 0.44 0.44 0.22 0.22 0.33 0.56 0.56 0.00 0.33 0.00 0.17 0.00
KGZ 0.22 0.22 0.11 0.44 0.33 0.89 0.56 0.44 0.89 0.11 0.56 0.22 0.56 0.56 0.33 0.11 0.33 0.56 0.33 0.44 0.33 0.56 0.67 0.00 0.44 0.06 0.33 0.06
LVA 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.78 0.22 0.22 0.78 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.33 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.22 0.00 0.22 0.33 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.11 0.00
LTU 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.22 0.11 0.78 0.33 0.22 0.78 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.11 0.00 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.22 0.44 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.00
MDA 0.22 0.22 0.11 0.22 0.22 0.89 0.44 0.44 0.89 0.11 0.56 0.22 0.00 0.56 0.56 0.11 0.33 0.56 0.33 0.44 0.33 0.56 0.56 0.00 0.44 0.06 0.33 0.06
MNG 0.33 0.33 0.22 0.56 0.44 0.89 0.67 0.56 0.89 0.22 0.44 0.33 0.11 0.44 0.67 0.44 0.44 0.44 0.44 0.56 0.44 0.56 0.78 0.00 0.44 0.11 0.44 0.11
MNE 0.06 0.06 0.06 0.22 0.11 0.89 0.33 0.33 0.89 0.06 0.44 0.11 0.06 0.44 0.33 0.06 0.11 0.44 0.22 0.22 0.22 0.44 0.44 0.00 0.33 0.06 0.28 0.06
POL 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.22 0.11 0.89 0.33 0.33 0.89 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.22 0.11 0.00 0.11 0.22 0.11 0.11 0.33 0.44 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.00
ROM 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.22 0.11 0.67 0.33 0.33 0.67 0.06 0.33 0.06 0.00 0.33 0.22 0.11 0.06 0.22 0.22 0.11 0.11 0.33 0.44 0.00 0.11 0.06 0.11 0.06
RUS 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.11 0.11 0.89 0.22 0.33 0.89 0.06 0.33 0.06 0.00 0.33 0.22 0.00 0.06 0.22 0.22 0.22 0.11 0.33 0.33 0.00 0.11 0.06 0.06 0.06
SRB 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.11 0.06 0.89 0.22 0.33 0.89 0.06 0.22 0.06 0.00 0.22 0.33 0.00 0.06 0.11 0.22 0.22 0.22 0.33 0.33 0.00 0.11 0.06 0.17 0.06
SVK 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.22 0.11 0.56 0.33 0.22 0.56 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.33 0.11 0.00 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.22 0.11 0.44 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.17 0.00
SVN 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.78 0.22 0.22 0.78 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.33 0.00 0.00 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.22 0.00 0.22 0.00 0.11 0.00 0.11 0.00
TJK 0.33 0.33 0.22 0.56 0.44 0.89 0.67 0.56 0.89 0.22 0.56 0.33 0.11 0.56 0.67 0.44 0.17 0.44 0.56 0.44 0.56 0.44 0.56 0.78 0.44 0.11 0.44 0.11
TFRM 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.22 0.11 0.89 0.33 0.33 0.89 0.06 0.22 0.06 0.00 0.22 0.22 0.11 0.06 0.11 0.22 0.22 0.17 0.11 0.33 0.44 0.00 0.06 0.22 0.06
TKM 0.44 0.44 0.22 0.44 0.33 0.89 0.67 0.67 0.89 0.22 0.56 0.44 0.22 0.56 0.78 0.33 0.17 0.56 0.56 0.56 0.67 0.44 0.56 0.67 0.11 0.56 0.56 0.11
UKR 0.22 0.00 0.22 0.22 0.33 0.89 0.44 0.56 0.89 0.22 0.56 0.11 0.11 0.56 0.44 0.22 0.11 0.44 0.44 0.22 0.22 0.33 0.56 0.56 0.00 0.33 0.00 0.00
UZB 0.33 0.33 0.22 0.44 0.33 0.89 0.56 0.56 0.89 0.22 0.56 0.33 0.17 0.56 0.67 0.33 0.22 0.44 0.56 0.44 0.56 0.33 0.56 0.67 0.06 0.44 0.06 0.44
 M. Petrović et al. / Government Information Quarterly 29 (2012) 597–607
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Dr Marijana Petrović is an assistant professor in the Department of Management,
Organization and Economy, Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, at the Univer-
sity of Belgrade, Serbia. She is the author or coauthor of a number of scientific papers.
Her research area is quality management and policy in transport and communications,
especially policy modeling in telecommunications.
Dr Nataša Bojković is an assistant professor with the Faculty of Transport and Traffic
Engineering, at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. She is the author or coauthor of a
number of papers in peer-reviewed international and national journals, including in-
vited papers as well as conference proceedings. Her research area is management
and policy in transport and communications, especially cross-national comparisons.
Dr Ivan Anić is teaching and research assistant in mathematical analysis in the Faculty
of Mathematics at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. His area of research is multi-
criteria decision making with applications. He specially deals with outranking methods
and supporting software solutions. He has published a number of scientific papers in
this area and in mathematical analysis.
Dalibor Petrović is a Ph.D. candidate and teaching and research assistant in the
Department of the Social Sciences of Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering at
the University of Belgrade, Serbia. He holds a Master's degree in Sociology, University
of Belgrade. Since the beginning of his academic career, he has been interested in the
study of the social aspects of internet use and is the author of the first sociological
study about the social aspects of internet use in Serbia titled “Internet and new forms
of sociability”.