Potentials of development of digital economy - Osijek as a regional center of IT industry

Pojam „ekonomija“ odnosi se na načine prilikom kojih se društvo služi ograničenim resursima kako bi uspjelo proizvesti dobra i usluge za pojedince. Taj pojam je danas puno opširniji pa obuhvaća i „kreativnu ekonomiju“ i „internetsku ekonomiju“. Kod kreativne ekonomije naglasak je na iskorištavanju potencijala ljudskog uma i ljudskog kapitala, a ne prirodnih resursa i industrijskih čimbenika. Moderno doba interneta uvelike je utjecalo na ekonomiju i pomoću procesa digitalizacije transformiralo ju je u ono što je danas u kontekstu „četvrte industrijske revolucije“ poznato kao „digitalna ekonomija“, odnosno potpuno novi oblik ekonomije koji se u poslovanju sada služi modernim digitalnim tehnologijama. Digitalna ekonomija svakako ne bi postojala bez razvijenog IT sektora industrije, koji čine sva infrastruktura i komponente modernog računalstva. Upravo je hrvatska IT industrija, preciznije, IT industrija grada Osijeka, uz ranije spomenutu digitalnu ekonomiju unutar osječkih IT tvrtki, predmet istraživanja ovog diplomskog rada.The term "economy" refers to the ways in which society uses limited resources to successfully produce goods and services for individuals. Today, this term is much broader and includes both the "creative economy" and the "internet economy". In the creative economy, the emphasis is on exploiting the potential of the human mind and human capital, rather than natural resources and industrial factors. The modern era of the Internet has greatly influenced the economy and, through the process of digitalization, transformed it into what is known today in the context of the "fourth industrial revolution" as the "digital economy", i.e. a completely new form of economy that now uses modern digital technologies in its business. The digital economy would certainly not exist without a developed IT sector of the industry, which consists of all the infrastructure and components of modern computing. The IT industry of Croatia, more precisely, the IT industry of the city of Osijek, along with the previously mentioned digital economy within Osijek's IT companies, is the subject of research in this master thesis