The Adoption of ICT: Firm-Level Evidence from Irish Manufacturing Industries

This paper examines factors driving ICT adoption at firm level. We use a novel data set including information on ICT and e-commerce in Irish manufacturing firms over the period 2001-2004 and estimate a model derived from the new technology adoption literature that relates ICT adoption indicators to two sets of factors: characteristics of firms and characteristics of the environment in which firms operate. Our research results indicate that the adoption of ICT in Irish manufacturing has been uneven across firms, industries and space. On average, other things equal, firms with more skilled workers, operating in ICT producing and ICT using industries, located in the capital city region have been relatively more successful in adopting and using ICT. To a certain extent, patterns of ICT adoption have been different for domestic and foreign-owned firms, in particular with respect to the effects of international competitive pressure and firm size.