What is it about?

The aim of this research is to contribute to the analysis of the digital transformation of the economy, paying special attention to Social Economy and, in particular, to the agri-food cooperative sector in Spain as a strategic sector of the country's productive model. Specifically, our main objective is to present an exploratory study on the use that agri-food cooperatives make of new information and communication technologies in two different aspects: Internet presence and web services offered. In light of the results obtained, an inter-territorial and inter-sectorial comparative study is posed as a complementary objective that allows: i) to characterize the degree of maturity of the digitalisation process of the cooperatives under study; ii) to determine their relative positioning within the Spanish business sector; and iii) to identify any conditioning factors that can exert a greater influence on the degree of digital transformation of agri-food cooperative.

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Why is it important?

Nowadays it is an irrefutable fact that economy digitalisation is changing the traditional methods and balances of the current economic and social organisation model. In this context, the incorporation of new digital technologies in the company plays an undeniable competitive role in its strategic business policy. Agri-food cooperatives cannot ignore this opportunity and must face the digital transformation process not only to survive, but mainly to grow in a particularly changing and competitive market.

Perspectives

Regarding conclusions, after contrasting the formulated hypotheses, it is verified that the digitalisation degree of the agri-food cooperatives is relatively far, in general terms, from the average digitalisation level observed in all Spanish companies, presenting some “delay” in the digital transformation process. Nevertheless, this deficit position does not appear homogeneous in all sub-sectors that make up the agri-food sector. On the contrary, it is verified that both the activity sub-sector and the organisational dimension are determining factors in the digital transformation process of agri-food cooperatives. Thus, the results obtained reveal that cooperatives with a greater dimension are characterised by presenting a greater digitalisation degree in terms of website development, internet presence, e-commerce and web services offered. Likewise, the dairy, olive oil, wine and meat industries present a global level of digitalisation greater than the rest of the agri-food sub-sectors. Finally, it has not been identified that the territory where the cooperatives carry out their activity exerts any influence on a greater or lesser degree of business digitalisation.

Phd. Javier Jorge-Vázquez
Universidad Catolica de Avila

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This page is a summary of: La transformación digital en el sector cooperativo agroalimentario español: situación y perspectivas, CIRIEC-España revista de economía pública social y cooperativa, April 2019, Universitat de Valencia,
DOI: 10.7203/ciriec-e.95.13002.
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