Rural perspectives on digital innovation: Experiences from small enterprises in the Nordic countries and Latvia

Digitalisation holds considerable potential for rural areas. It offers thepromise of overcoming geographical distance, ensuring equal access toopportunity regardless of where people live. At the same time, rural andsparsely populated areas are thought to lag behind their urban counterpartswhen it comes to the provision of digital infrastructure and the developmentof digital knowledge and skills. These urban-rural disparities areoften referred to as the digital divide and can prevent rural communitiesfrom unlocking the opportunities associated with digitalisation.