1. The Digitalization of the European Agri-Food Cooperative Sector. Determining Factors to Embrace Information and Communication Technologies
- Author
-
Javier Jorge-Vázquez, Mª Peana Chivite-Cebolla, and Francisco Salinas-Ramos
- Subjects
Index (economics) ,Emerging technologies ,media_common.quotation_subject ,Agriculture (General) ,agroindustrial ,Public policy ,agricultural cooperative ,Plant Science ,S1-972 ,Promotion (rank) ,Political agenda ,0502 economics and business ,050207 economics ,information and communication technology ,Industrial organization ,Digitization ,media_common ,05 social sciences ,Digital transformation ,technology adoption ,technology and competitiveness ,Information and Communications Technology ,agri-food cooperatives ,digital transformation ,Business ,Agronomy and Crop Science ,050203 business & management ,Food Science - Abstract
The digitization of the agri-food sector is a strategic priority in the political agenda of European institutions. The opportunity to improve the competitiveness and efficiency of the sector offered by new technologies comes together with its potential to face new economic and environmental challenges. This research aims to analyze the level of digitalization of the European agri-food cooperative sector from the construction of a composite synthetic index. Such an index is to be based on a diverse set of variables related to electronic commerce and the services offered through the internet. It also evaluates how European cooperatives influence the degree of technological adoption depending on their size or the wealth of the country where they carry out their activity. The empirical analytical method is thus used, through the analysis of frequencies and correlations. The results obtained reveal the existence of a suboptimal and heterogeneous degree of digitization of European agri-food cooperatives, clearly conditioned by their size and the wealth of the country where they operate. In this situation, it is recommended to promote public policies that guarantee high-performance digital connectivity, an improvement in training in digital skills and the promotion of cooperative integration processes.
- Published
- 2021
- Full Text
- View/download PDF