ICT consolidate in European firms despite the economic crisis
Resumen
The aims of this study are twofold, first to know if ICT has increased in European firms' despite the recent economic crisis and second, to know the differences between businesses ICT’ implementation by firm size. The focus of the investigation is on ICT use of firms of the EU-29 Member States comparing a crisis period with an increasing economic period, using statistical information from EUROSTAT. The data was analysed with a multiple regression model and a nonparametric correlation coefficient, Kendall's tau. The results show that businesses consider ICT as a key component of their strategy because despite of the crisis, ICT indicators have increased in almost all European countries. The results also indicate that crisis began to affect to eCommerce from 2007 due mainly to the fall of consumer. Finally, related to firm size small firms improved their implementation of information technologies more than large ones but large firms are more active regarding eCommerce.
Resumen
Esta investigación trata por un lado de saber si el uso de TIC se ha incrementado en las empresas europeas a pesar de la reciente crisis económica y por otro lado, se pretende analizar las diferencias existentes entre las empresas europeas en cuanto al grado de implementación de TIC en función de su tamaño. Se estudia el uso de TIC en las empresas de los 29 Estados miembros de la UE comparando el periodo de crisis y el periodo de crecimiento posterior. Los datos se analizaron con un modelo de regresión múltiple y un coeficiente de correlación no paramétrico, tau de Kendall. Los resultados muestran que las empresas consideran las TIC como un componente clave de su estrategia, porque a pesar de la crisis, todos los indicadores TIC han aumentado en la mayor parte de los países europeos. Los resultados también indican que la crisis comenzó a afectar al comercio electrónico a partir de 2007 debido principalmente a la caída del consumo. Por último, en relación con el tamaño de las empresas, las de menor tamaño mejoraron su implementación de tecnologías de la información más que las grandes, aunque éstas son más activas en el uso del comercio electrónico.
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Copyright (c) 2020 Raquel Pérez-Estébanez, Elena Urquía-Grande, Manuela Cañizares-Espada
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