PROJECT INTERNET CATALONIA (PIC)

The main aim of the research project The Network Company in Catalonia: ICT, Productivity, Competitiveness, Salaries and Performance in Catalonia’s Companies is to show that the consolidation of a new strategic, organisational and business activity model, linked to investment and the use of ICT (ie, the network company), significantly alters performance patterns where business results are concerned, particularly productivity, competitiveness, workers’ wages and profit. We have empirically tested our working hypotheses using data from a survey conducted on a representative sample of 2,038 Catalan companies. With regard to the impact of investment and the use of ICT, there are no signs of a direct relationship between digital innovation processes and the operating results of Catalan companies. Indeed, we have had to segment Catalonia’s productive fabric in search of those organisations with digital technology co-innovation and organisation processes, and frequent and intensive use of knowledge in order to find any significant impact on the main business results. This has been the case because the Catalan economy presently has a two-tier productive structure. On one hand, in the majority of the productive fabric (around 80%), where there is a low degree of ICT use, the level of qualifications of the workforce could clearly be improved, productive and organisational structures are inflexible and involve little in the way of autonomy or scope for workers to make decisions, and innovative processes are still infrequent. This group of companies has an extensive growth model; ie, its prospects for long-term expansion are based on an upturn in its factors, especially that of low-skilled workers. It is for this very reason that the rate of growth in productivity in Catalonia is at such worrying levels and, in a context of competition dominated by globalisation, what makes the problems of competitiveness so important. On the other hand, a smaller group of companies (around 20%) bases its potential for growth on the interaction of human capital, the reorientation of production and the organisation of work, and a constant dynamic of innovation, in terms of digital technology in particular, but also with respect to the management of human resources. It is this group of companies, a much smaller group than the former, but with much greater potential for growth in the long term, where positive evolution in terms of efficiency, competitiveness, salaries and the performance of our productive fabric can be identified.

Research directors
Dr Jordi Vilaseca i Requena, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3
Dr Joan Torrent i Sellens, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3

Research team and authorial team of the research report
Josep Maria Batalla i Busquets, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3
Carlos F. Cabañero Pisa, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3
Dr David Castillo i Merino, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3
Dr Rosa Colomé i Perales, lecturer at the ESCI International Business School (UPF)
Ángel Díaz Chao, SEPI Foundation and researcher at the IN3
Pilar Ficapal i Cusí, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3
Dr Lluís Garay Tamajon, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3
Dr Ana Isabel Jiménez Zarco, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3
Dr Josep Lladós i Masllorens, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3
Dr María Jesús Martínez Argüelles, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3
Dr Antoni Meseguer i Artola, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3
Carmen Pacheco Bernal, lecturer at the UOC
Dolors Plana Erta, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3
Dr Inma Rodríguez Ardura, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3
Dr Joan Torrent i Sellens, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3
Dr Jordi Vilaseca i Requena, lecturer at the UOC and researcher at the IN3

With the support of:

In collaboration with:
The DEP Institute
IDESCAT (Catalan Institute of Statistics)
CIDEM (Centre for Business Innovation and Development)

Research started in:
April, 2002

Research report completed in:
April, 2007

Published in:
October, 2007