Firm-Level Evidence of ICT Adoption among SMEs of the Social Economy in Spain

Abstract

The paper analyzes the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the small and medium-size enterprises of the social economy in Spain, focusing on the ICT-related management of its organizations. Although ICT adoption is increasingly present in all areas of the so called Information Society, the perception of how and why the effective adoption of ICT takes place is relevant to the performance both of the social economy as whole and to their organizations. The authors study shows that the analyzed sample of social economy enterprises has, on the overall, a good ICT positioning in the Spanish business framework. The authors also found few differences on ICT adoption when size or geographical scope of the firms is considered. ICT adoption has been a priority of many social economy enterprises, allowing them to reach a fair level of ICT infrastructures and Internet presence. Furthermore, ICT adoption is seen as an opportunity to enhance their competitive advantage in the markets, mainly through electronic commerce. It is also an opportunity to improve internal management, taking advantage of the integration of electronic procedures.

The websites adoption in the Spanish agrifood firms

“…There are also others variables, such as the age of the firm (Thong & Yap, 1995;Balogun, 2013) or the legal status of the organization that are employed in the adoption models, e.g. in Spain, the social economy firms have a good ICT positioning in the business framework (Estapé-Dubreuil & Torreguitart-Mirada, 2014). In addition, it is believed that it could be a relationship between ICT adoption and the firm's strategic objectives (Beatty et al, 2001;Bhaskaran, 2013).…”

“…Generally, large firms have been more innovative, due to the fact they can face more complicated decisions when carrying out their operations productively and efficiently, as well as having the capital necessary for its acquisition (Estapé-Dubreuil & Torreguitart-Mirada, 2014). Additionally, the implementation of an Internet strategy requires some technical computer skills that may not be present in small companies (Henderson et al, 2005).…”

Forecasting ICT development through quantile confidence intervals

“…Hence, many studies focus on how ICT affects economy development in countries including Japan (Zuhdi, 2014), Spain (Estapé-Dubreuil & Torreguitart-Mirada, 2014), Russia (Feiguine & Solovjova, 2014), Indonesia (Zuhdi, 2015), Colombia (Gallego, Gutiérrez, & Lee, 2015), Fiji (Kumar & Singh, 2014), and the Czech Republic (Ministra & Pitnerb, 2015).…”

Web 2.0 in agribusiness companies: An explanatory model of Its background and consequences

“…Existen otras variables como la antigüedad (Thong & Yap, 1995;Balogun, 2013) o el estatus legal de la empresa que se han empleado en los modelos de adopción de TIC. En estudios realizados en España, por ejemplo, se ha observado que las entidades de la Economía Social tienen un buen posicionamiento respecto al uso de TIC (Estapé-Dubreuil & Torreguitart-Mirada, 2014). En este contexto, con la intención de explorar con mayor profundidad todos los aspectos señalados en este capítulo, a continuación, se describe la metodología del estudio empírico usada en esta investigación.…”

“…En este contexto, al intentar determinar los condicionantes de la adopción de una innovación se han utilizado comúnmente métodos econométricos como los modelos Logit o Probit. Estos métodos pretenden explicar por qué se adopta o no una tecnología, identificando, a nivel individual, los condicionantes de la adopción (Agarawal & Prasad, 1998;Tan & Teo, 2000;Beatty et al, 2001;McFarlane, 2003;Hollenstein, 2004;Vilaseca-Requena et al, 2007;Lee et al, 2010;Corrocher, 2011;Balogun, 2013;Bhaskaran, 2013;Estapé-Dubreuil & Torreguitart-Mirada, 2014;Siamagka, Christodoulides, Michaelidou & Valvi, 2015;Chang, Hung, Cheng & Wu, 2015). No obstante, presentan algunos inconvenientes si se pretende utilizar la información del momento del tiempo en que se produce la adopción.…”