Measuring the Diffusion of e‑Business in the Information Society

In this paper a review of the e-business indicators used in the last supranational benchmark- ing exercises is done. This contribution aims to bring a framework from researchers and prac - titioner in the e-business measurement field. Moreover several challenges from the e-busi- ness measurement research agenda are proposed. Basically these challenges would be resumed in (1) spreading the use of the e-business indicators (2) extending the set of e-business di- mensions covered by the indicators (3) spreading the existing methodologies among the re- search networks in order to set standards (4) integrating the advances in related scientif- ic areas like Policy Analysis and Technology Foresight in the e-business measurement field. • information and communication The e-business relevance in the Information Society development has been widely debated in academic and non-academic forums. These debates have rotated from the optimism of the end of 90's to the criticism of the last years. This criticism arises mainly from the collapse of the 'firms.com' in the middle of the new millennium's euphoria. A post hoc analysis of the collapse of the 'firms.com' put on relevance the complexity of the lack of tools for monitoring the e- business phenomena. In an effort to avoid this lack, ICT researchers and practitioners have been building a set of measures and methodologies to monitor e-business developments in the last years. In this work the authors analyse these developments. This contribution aims to bring a framework from researchers and practitioners in the e-business measurement field. In the second section, ICT measurement framework, the sample of the activities included in the review is defined. In the third section, indicators used in the ICT benchmarking activities of the sample are analysed. Finally, trends and research lines in e-business measurement are discussed.