| dc.description.abstract | This study focuses on identifying communication technology adoption behaviors to provide educational benchmarks for Texas cooperatives. A survey was conducted with questions identifying a range of variables describing adoption behavior of communication technology from the background of cooperative managers to board management policy. The survey categorized 105 different cooperatives by current technology use and management practices. Once the data were collected, a factor analysis to understand underlying relationships of variables was conducted.
The survey found that Texas cooperative managers are willing to expand on their current use of communication technology, however a clear definition of how to use new concepts as a powerful tool is needed. In terms of governance, we found that many cooperatives have no stated policies regarding the use of communication technologies. Generally, those cooperatives that had defined technology use policies were more likely to be using more forms of technology. Through a logistic and ordered logistic regression of the data, the study did not reflect our initial hypothesis that age of the respondent and the years working for a cooperative (manger characteristics) would be a significant factor in estimating Texas cooperatives? willingness to adopt new forms of communication technology and social media. However, the cooperatives? technology adoption behavior can best be explained by the data produced from descriptive cooperative information and the existence of employee communication technology policies. Likewise, cooperatives? willingness to adopt social media can best be explained by the data produced from manager attitudes and cooperatives? concerns. | en |
