Narciso Arcas-Lario
Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena
Narciso Arcas is an Agronomical Engineer, Master in Direction and Management of International Trade, and Doctor in Business and Economics. He is currently a full-time lecturer in the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena (Spain). His principal research lines are marketing and agrifood cooperatives.
TOPIC 23-STAGE 4-MICRO
The importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for development of all spheres of society is undeniable. In terms of population and households, ICT has created a network society that provides benefits in controlling daily activities such as physical displacements and provides permanent contact in personal and professional environment. From a business standpoint, ICT facilitate the use of mechanisms for management and control of large volumes of information and can favor the proximity and interactivity in internal and external business processes.
In the entities of Social Economy, as cooperatives, created to generate jobs and solve social problems that could not be solved by other organizations, ICT operate as important tools to promote, coordinate and develop common goals of its members, strengthen their economic contribution and, in general, facilitate their participation in the management of companies. Thus, many studies have emphasized that the proper use of ICT can improve productivity and competitiveness of enterprises, increasing, on the other hand, the quality of services offered.
Among technologies, which are hardly hitting companies, are a combination of Social Media, Mobile devices, Analytics Web tools Cloud Computing, and Internet of Things. This combination of tools offer great volumes of data and the possibility of assessment of information and every data collected by computer systems. However, among these, Social Media have an increasing role and are recognized as one of the main contributors for access to information and development of business opportunities.
In this context, the aim of this study is to know the adoption level of Social Media among cooperatives, analyzing and modeling by non-linear regression, the temporal pattern of adoption to identify specific trends in the diffusion process. To this end, an empirical study is conducted using a sample of 142 cooperatives (agrifood and workers cooperatives).
Topic #23 ICT (information and communication technologies) and Co-operatives
