In recent decades digital technologies have become a pervasive element of economic and social activities, disrupting traditional business practices, ways of working, communication and social interaction patterns and generating new opportunities for productivity growth, innovation, economic development and social welfare [Word Economic Forum 2018; Vagadia 2020]. These complex dynamics are widely expressed in the scientific debate through the well-known paradigms of the «digital economy» and «digital society».

The COVID-19 pandemic acted as a catalyst for the digital transformation of businesses, industry, governments and society at large. With so much activity moving online, there has been increased demand for digital reliance among enterprises and consumers, accelerating a process of change already underway for decades. The various measures adopted worldwide to contain contagion, notably social distancing and lockdowns, constrained millions of firms to mitigate economic collapse through the shift to online transactions and the remote organisation of work activities [Bolisani et al. 2020; Gottlieb, Grobovšek and Poschke 2020]. Indeed, although teleworking options were already available before the pandemic, the outbreak boosted digital transformation processes aimed at implementing effective remote working. COVID-19 also pushed firms, including SMEs, to exploit the potential of digital technologies to improve, re-think or radically innovate their business models to avoid major losses or to turn the threats of the emerging scenario into new opportunities for value creation and higher profitability [Priyono, Moin and Putri 2020]. Broadly speaking, people’s daily routines, including consumer ¶{p. 176}behaviour, were profoundly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, as evidenced by the sharp increase recorded in virtual interactions, internet traffic and social media use for many activities, such as learning, education, entertainment and buying online [Mancl and Fraser 2020]. There is a fair consensus among researchers and practitioners that the crisis has triggered some permanent changes in the economy and society, significantly shaping the future trajectories of digitalization [Amankwah-Amoah et al. 2021]. Especially in some areas, such as teleworking, e-commerce, telehealth and digital government services, the pandemic has clearly shown the potential of digital technologies. As a result, the profound changes often connected to new strategies and planned investments have made the return to pre-COVID patterns very unlikely. Indeed, prior to the pandemic, many governments had already elaborated their digital nation strategy and put digital transformation at the centre of their policy agendas [Klievink et al. 2017].

COVID-19 has significantly raised scholarly interest in its impact on digitalization and the digital transformation of the economy and society. Indeed, much has been written since the pandemic outbreak on the effects of such a disruptive event on digital trends concerning economic activities and social life, aiming to trace the potential paths of digitalization of business, governments and social activities that are likely to characterise the post-COVID era. Although some consequences of digitalization have been foreseen and guidelines on how to exploit the potential of digital technologies have targeted businesses and governments, the existing knowledge base needs to be consolidated for in-depth understanding of how COVID-19 has affected the ongoing processes of digitalization worldwide. By going beyond mere speculation and excluding conceptual research and grey literature, notably surveys carried out by international organisations (e.g., OECD; ILO) or consulting companies (e.g., McKinsey), empirical research on this topic is still in its infancy and warrants additional scholarly attention. Moreover, available studies are also highly fragmented.

Fragmentation is also a consequence of the complex and multi-faced nature of digitalization and digital transformation. Most studies tend to focus on one or a few dimensions, aspects or facets of the digital economy and society (e.g., digital skills, digital divide; digital business models, etc.). ¶{p. 177}

What is also lacking are studies specifically addressing the digitalization trends of the Mediterranean region as a whole but also empirical research focusing on specific Mediterranean clusters, such as the EuroMed area or the Southern Med area.

With this gap in mind, the goal of this chapter is to understand – through a comparative lens – how COVID-19 affected the ongoing processes of digitalization in the nine Mediterranean countries in the informal group called EuroMed 9, namely Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia and Croatia). Indeed, this choice takes account of the fact that, within the Mediterranean region, the internal socio-economic dynamics of each EU country as well as cooperation among EuroMed nations are pivotal in shaping the broader relations and interdependences with other Med countries, notably those belonging to the Southern Med area.

Moreover, as far as digitalization is concerned, EU policies are worthy of attention, as they are moving in the direction of eliminating imbalances in the levels of current digitalization among the various countries. This lack of homogeneity is more marked among Southern European countries which are paradoxically more similar in terms of institutional models, socio-economic structure and cultural values.

To this end, we relied on longitudinal digitalization data produced by the European Union and measured through the so-called Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which is a comprehensive measure of data related to individual EU member states reflecting different dimensions of digitalization. Moreover, qualitative data (based on technical reports, working papers, official documents, etc.) related to each country included in the quantitative analysis are used to support the interpretation of results.

As underlined by Faraj, Renno and Bhardwaj [2021], beyond revealing the advantages of digitalization for firms and societies, COVID-19 has also challenged taken-for-granted expectations about it and placed some key issues at centre stage, such as uneven access to digital technologies and their unprecedented massive use for surveillance in the private and public spheres. This means that COVID-19 has added new urgency to concerns about digital gaps at various levels (e.g., firms and nations) as well as privacy and digital security. The chapter may help to develop a more ¶{p. 178}objective understanding of the effects produced by digitalization on various aspects of the economy and societies, avoiding the drift towards excessively optimistic or pessimistic perspectives.

Moreover, it will contribute to advancing the existing literature on digitalization that relies on DESI variables by focusing on a still under-researched geographical area and by overcoming the prevailing cross-sectional approach adopted by scholars.

On the practical side, the chapter yields insights into Mediterranean economies as the authors shed light on aspects that may influence the current imbalance among EuroMed countries in their level of digitalization and support the implementation of the Strategic Programme for the Digital Decade, which guides Europe’s digital transformation by setting concrete goals and targets for 2030. Since measurement of the digital socio-economic transformation can be used to monitor progress over time and compare the digital performance of Euro Med countries, our study provides insights to guide policy making towards more balanced digital development and the progressive reduction of performance gaps between more and less digitally advanced countries.

The chapter is structured as follows. In section 1 we describe the paradigm of the digital economy and society and introduce the DESI. Section 2 offers an overview of international research carried out by using the DESI or related sub-dimensions. In section 3 we describe the methods adopted to perform empirical analysis of the digitalization patterns and trends in the EuroMed area.

Section 4 contains the results of the analysis and their discussion while section 5 provides conclusions and suggests policy implications arising from the results.

Digital technologies and connectivity are rapidly reshaping our economic and social activities as they are increasingly mediated by computers, algorithms and electronic interactions. Digital technologies range from highly «intangible» or «computational» ¶{p. 179}technologies based on data processing, such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data analytics and machine learning, to those with a significant physical component, including robots, drones and additive manufacturing/3D printing [Ciarli et al. 2021].

By digital economy we mean an economy based on internet and digital technologies. It supersedes the old «information economy» since information flows change their nature from physical to digital, being transformed into bits stored in computers and transferred synchronously to any place in the world [Carlsson 2004]. Accordingly, the digital economy refers to the ongoing transformation of all economic activities by the digitalization of information [Brynjolfsson and Kahin 2000]. The backbone of the digital economy includes the physical infrastructure, technological devices to access the internet, and the applications and functionalities they offer [Dahlman et al. 2016].

The digital society is the end result of profound changes produced by digital technologies in all areas of modern society, such as living, working, education and recreation [Dufva and Dufva 2019].

Digital society and digital economy are intertwined, since a digital society is the mandatory social environment for the formation and development of the digital economy [Osipov et al. 2019].

The formation of the digital society depends on the population’s digital literacy, i.e. their level of digital skills, which is influenced by several factors, such as accessibility to higher education, quality of higher education and public financing of education [Osipov et al. 2019].