Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) do not develop uniformly throughout the world. Local conditions like regulations, government protection of private investors, education level and urbanization are factors found to affect ICT diffusion rate (Guillen and Suarez, 2001; Andonova, 2006). On the other hand, new technologies like Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) are likely to affect both the telecommunications industry structure and the way organizations and governments work (Ladron and Andonova, 2006). Our discussion will consider the relationship between ICT, government policies and organizational governance offering novel venues for future research

This workshop will moderate a discussion around two central topics: (1) popular measures of institutions and (2) some methodological issues related to variable definition, the underlying assumptions and the downside of instrumental variables. Institutional proxies used by both economists (i.e. the index of secure property rights) and sociologists (i.e. the Hofstede’s cultural factors) will be discussed.