The Level of Readiness for Electronic Governance: Comparative Analysis of Armenian and Russian Societies

Abstract

The development of electronic governance in any country is determined by cultural features, the level of education and information-communication infrastructure. The article comprehensively researches the readiness potential of Armenian and Russian societies for electronic governance. This choice is reasoned by the fact that, first of all, Russia and Armenia are members of the Eurasian Economic Union, which currently harmonizes digital transformation policies of the member-states. In this context the application of Hofstede’s model and Inglehart-Welzel’s cultural map allows to reveal that both Armenians and Russians are oriented towards struggle for survival at the expense of self-expression and strive to stability. The complex evaluation demonstrates low level for Power distance and Uncertainty. For Armenia it is 0.19 and for Russia - 0.06. This means that the level of technological conditions in a country does not necessarily lead to comprehensive technological penetration into a society. For instance, both Armenian and Russian societies have serious cultural barriers which impede the development of network interactions. The authors have calculated the readiness potential of the societies for electronic governance according to ICT access, ICT use, Government’s online service, E-participation, grand coefficient of the coverage of population with higher education, Power distance and Uncertainty avoidance for the above mentioned period. Their values are fluctuating in the range of 36.40–38.57% for Russia and 22.39–27.71% for Armenia. Thus the readiness potential of the societies for electronic governance has serious potential to develop in the future.