Digitalisation in Regions of Latvia – Problems and Challenges

Abstract

Digital skills are defined as a basic competence, the same level as reading or writing and it is important for country to provide successful digitalisation in regions as regional development is the basis for national development. Purpose of the study is to analyse digitalisation in the regions of Latvia. The tasks of the study: 1) to analyse theoretical background of digitalisation in context of regional development; 2) to analyse existing research of digitalisation in the regions in EU; 3) to analyse problems of digitalisation in the regions of Latvia. Research methods used in preparation of this article: scientific publication and previous conducted research results analysis, analysis of Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), EU-SILC results (in 2014–2017) and results of the survey realised in Latvia at the end of 2017 and beginning of 2018 on internet shopping in cooperation with company iMarketing.lv, University of Latvia and Chamber of Trade and Commerce of Latvia (n = 2513). Data are compared with the results of other Eurozone and OECD countries. For data analysis there were used indicators of descriptive statistics (indicators of central tendency or location – arithmetic mean, mode, median), indicators of variability (indicators of dispersion – range, standard deviation and standard error of mean), cross-tabulations for regions in Latvia, for household members, for urban – rural living and analysis of variance – ANOVA are used. The results of analysis have indicated different challenges for decision makers on different levels.