Some Conceptual Aspects of the Multilevel Modeling for the Study of Social-Economic Phenomena

Multilevel modeling has been mainly used in education research, health studies, psychology and sociology, its application to the study of social-economic phenomena and especially to business studies is rather scarce. Hence, its application to business studies might produce interesting new insights on business performance, especially due to the micro-macro interactions, for all the stakeholders. Therefore, the research is focused on business, namely to the analysis of the Romanian ICT sector. The current paper aims at illustrating a new assessment tool for business analysis, namely the assessment of company performance through a new approach called multilevel modeling. Given the nested structured of the database comprising the Romanian companies operating in ICT industry, a multilevel random coefficient model is suggested and how it can be fitted in R software. The conclusions of the research can be used by various stakeholders, including policy makers.