Assessment of the Impact of Digital Skills on the Level of Satisfaction with Digital Transformation Processes in Ukraine

Abstract

The digital transformation of the leading countries towards the neo-economy effectively uses the potential of digital competences, which remain insufficiently explored in Ukraine, but it is already clear that they are the key to the inclusive economic growth of any country, namely the post-war revival and development of Ukraine at a highly competitive level. The purpose of this study was to find the specific features of the influence of the level of digital competences (according to DigComp 2.1) on the evaluation of the prospects for building a digital economy by Ukrainian citizens, and the perception of the processes of digital transformation of the economy by stakeholders. The information base of this study included online survey data, processed using the SPSS package. Found regularities were verified using standard statistical parameters of the relationship. At the first stage, the influence of the level of digital skills on the judgments, attitudes, and expectations of respondents on the prospects of digital transformation in Ukraine and the world was found. Depending on the attitude towards the development of ICT, the archetypes of the respondents were distinguished (optimist, pragmatist, agnostic, rationalist/cautious pessimist, and sceptic). The second stage investigated the impact of digital skills on various aspects of the life of Ukrainian citizens, namely on their daily life, on them as consumers and as workers. It was found that a higher level of digital skills contributes to improving the quality of respondents’ everyday life; there is an increase in the share of respondents who use Internet resources in everyday life. The key conclusions are as follows: 1) focused efforts on the development of digital skills will contribute to an increase in the share of optimistic and pragmatic assessments of digitalisation; 2) the detected digital gap between the possession of skills and the need for them (2-3 times) actualises the implementation of policies aimed at overcoming it; 3) the awareness of the impact of the level of digital skills on the development of citizens and satisfaction with the products of the digital economy is growing; 4) the digital transformation of the economy radically changes its structure, the landscape of the labour market, and has a major impact on every citizen. Foremost, those who have an elevated level of digital skills will be able to benefit from digitalisation