Title: Drivers of information and communication technologies adoption in Colombian services firms

Authors: María Verónica Alderete; Luis H. Gutiérrez

Addresses: Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur, Universidad Nacional del Sur, 7th floor, 12 de Octubre y San Juan, Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires, Argentina ' Department of Economics, Universidad del Rosario, Calle 12C No. 4-69, Bogotá, Colombia

Abstract: This paper analyses the determinants of ICT adoption in Colombian services firms using micro-level data. It contributes to the scant literature on the determinants of ICT adoption at firm level in emerging economies. Due to ICT heterogeneity, different econometric models are estimated to identify the drivers of ICT adoption. The results show that the factors that positively influence ICT adoption are the proportion of foreign capital, firm age, employees' education and the ICT spillovers from the corresponding service industry. Information spillovers from the service industry adopters to non-adopters are taken into account as determinants of ICT adoption. An extended version of the model explores the determinants of ICT adoption comparing large firms and SME. For some variables, such as proportion of foreign capital, firm age and employees' education, the results differ by firm size.

Keywords: ICT adoption; services; developing countries; Columbia; information and communication technology; service industry; information technology; firm size; foreign capital; firm age; employee education; ICT spillovers; large firms; SMEs; small and medium-sized enterprises.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2014.065553

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2014 Vol.17 No.4, pp.373 - 397

Published online: 31 Oct 2014 *

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