J 2026

Building a sustainable and innovative world in the digital age: A cross-country study

PEREZ-RICO, Cristina; Alicia FERRADAS-GONZALEZ; Carlos GARCIA-FERNANDEZ and Jiří MAZUREK

Basic information

Original name

Building a sustainable and innovative world in the digital age: A cross-country study

Authors

PEREZ-RICO, Cristina; Alicia FERRADAS-GONZALEZ; Carlos GARCIA-FERNANDEZ and Jiří MAZUREK

Edition

Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 2026, 2530-7614

Other information

Language

English

Type of outcome

Article in a journal

Field of Study

50200 5.2 Economics and Business

Country of publisher

Netherlands

Confidentiality degree

is not subject to a state or trade secret

References:

Impact factor

Impact factor: 15.500 in 2024

Marked to be transferred to RIV

Yes

Organization unit

School of Business Administration in Karvina

Keywords in English

Digitalization; GDP; SDG; Sustainability; Economic freedom; Cross-country study

Tags

International impact, Reviewed
Changed: 18/5/2026 10:28, doc. Mgr. Jiří Mazurek, Ph.D.

Abstract

In the original language

This paper investigates the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by a set of 75 countries from around the world. We apply a global digitalization index as the main explanatory (independent) variable and three additional variables: gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, Index of Economic Freedom, and population density. We apply correlation and regression analysis as a research method. Our main finding is that digitalization is generally positively correlated with sustainability and economic freedom, and negatively correlated with population density. Subsequently, we show that the situation differs for high-income countries, with GDP per capita above 20,000 USD, and low-income countries, with GDP per capita below 20,000 USD. In the former case, only digitalization is statistically significant at the 0.05 level. In the latter case, economic freedom is statistically nonsignificant, while GDP per capita, digitalization and population density are highly significant. These findings emphasize the critical role of digitalization in advancing global sustainability, and highlight variations based on economic contexts.