Digital innovation adoption and its economic impact focused on path analysis at national level

Purpose: The advancement of technologies and their adoption affects the socio-economic growth of nations. This research is focused on how this innovation adoption path is linked to economic growth of nations since the previous IT revolution has been combined with existing industries and adding values in terms of applying intelligence through adopting digital technologies. Approach/Design/Methodology: There are two different approaches—process approach and factor approach—in innovation adoption research. Innovation diffusion research, which is one of the process approaches, is related to adoption, diffusion, and impact theories, but there are limitations in explaining the perspective of a nation other than individual and organization on the basis of previous literatures. Therefore, we build the integrative model to verify innovative growth path of nations by applying Diffusion of Innovation Theory (DoI) and Technology (T)-Organization (O)-Environment (E) framework, which can explain factors of affecting innovation. We evaluate eight hypotheses with data collected from 137 to 212 nations using international information index by credible organizations: World Economic Forum (WEF), World Bank, United Nations (UN), and International Communications Union (ITU), based on the integrative model we proposed. The path analysis using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) is performed, and the result shows that the path from technological innovation capabilities (T), human capital (O), and environment (E) is related directly to economic impact, except for the path from human capital to value chain breadth directly and indirectly. The indirect path through Information and Communication Technology (ICT) access, use, and value chain helps to understand the full impact of digital innovation. Practical implications: By verifying this relationship, we expect to give suggestions in policy perspective and in building strategy towards innovative growth of countries. Our results show that technological innovation capabilities take time to show impact in terms of economic growth than the other factors, which are human capital, and political and regulatory environment of country. The nurture of human capital directly affects to the economic growth of nations relative to other T and E factors. The political and regulatory environment support stable ICT usage, which gives impact to the economic growth of nations.