Constructing a Digital Economy Index (DEI) for Southern Sarawak

• Main Author: Tan, Toh Hao
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) 2021
• Subjects: HB Economic Theory
• Online Access: http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/36393/5/Tan%20Toh.pdf; http://ir.unimas.my/id/eprint/36393/

In Sarawak, there has been total of 140 digital initiatives with 54 projects are ongoing till now, however, the broadband penetration rate and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure development in Sarawak are still lagging compared to the other states in Malaysia, thus the question arises on whether Sarawak is on the right track to transform into a digitalized State. In this study, the proposed Digital Economy Index (DEI) has been constructed as an initial prototype to support the general digital development in the Southern Sarawak, which includes the divisions of Kuching, Serian and Samarahan. Then, a total of 542 respondents from the Southern Sarawak have been collected within a period of 4 months. Besides, there are 5 main constructs have been used to form the DEI, which are Environment, Usage, Readiness and Cybersecurity. Then, by using the SmartPLS 3.0, these constructs have been given the weightage based on their importance towards the digital development in Sarawak. Both arithmetic mean and geometric mean approaches have been applied to compute the overall DEI in Southern Sarawak and it is found out that the readiness construct, which in terms of infrastructure, affordability and ICT skills and education is the aspect that Sarawak need to improve. Hence, the constructed DEI for Southern Sarawak can act as a guideline for the policymakers to indicate on which factors or aspects they need to be considered in order to completely leverage ICT in their growth strategies. Keywords: Digital economy, Southern Sarawak, weightage, arithmetic mean, geometric mean