The paper presents a study of digital transformation at the global level, comparing the evolution of ICT spending and economic indicators, i.e., GDP per capita, employment, and labor productivity. The study aims to compare the two most recent global crises, the 2008–2009 economic crisis and the COVID-19 (2020-) pandemic crisis, while also predicting developments after the pandemic recession. The research results show that during the pandemic crisis, ICT spending declined more severely than during the previous economic downturn, although new ICTs showed more visible resilience to crisis impacts. The pandemic crisis also changed shares of traditional and new ICTs and led to four different deviations from classical diffusion, and as a result, new ICTs are expected to increase their share over all other main ICT segments by 2027.

This paper presents the research of the new technologies’ impact on information and communication technology (ICT) spending and economy. We found that new technologies drive demand for ICT on general, while individual ICT segments’ shares changed significantly due to development of the field and due to different stages of maturity process (diffusion) of individual ICT segments. New technologies also have impact on the longer-lasting growth of spending for traditional ICTs, as new technologies cannot be used and exploited without being connected to (and supported by) traditional ICTs. Moreover, considering traditional and total ICT spending, productivity of workers follows the same trend and consequently ICT spending has immediate impact on labor productivity, but this is not detected in relation to new ICTs’ spending. Gross domestic product growth also stimulates only traditional and total ICT spending, having strong positive impact on increased ICT spending in the same year.

Cyber-attacks represent a potential threat to information security. As rates of data usage and internet consumption continue to increase, cyber awareness turned to be increasingly urgent. This study focuses on the relationships between cyber security awareness, knowledge and behavior with protection tools among individuals in general and across four countries: Israel, Slovenia, Poland and Turkey in particular. Results show that internet users possess adequate cyber threat awareness but apply only minimal protective measures usually relatively common and simple ones. The study findings also show that higher cyber knowledge is connected to the level of cyber awareness, beyond the differences in respondent country or gender. In addition, awareness is also connected to protection tools, but not to information they were willing to disclose. Lastly, findings exhibit differences between the explored countries that affect the interaction between awareness, knowledge, and behaviors. Results, implications, and recommendations for effective based cyber security training programs are presented and discussed.

This paper asserts that in order to improve knowledge management, higher education institutions (HEIs) should integrate their process and data models in conjunction with the knowledge management perspective.