Firm-Level Adoption of Technologies in Senegal

Abstract

The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent.

Bridging the Technological Divide: Technology Adoption by Firms in Developing Countries

“…2. This chapter builds on background papers describing the FAT results for the state of Ceará, Brazil (Cirera et al 2021b), Senegal (Cirera et al 2021a), and Vietnam (Cirera et al 2021c). This chapter extended the analysis on drivers and obstacles for adoption to all 11 countries covered in this volume.…”

Firm Recovery during COVID-19: Six Stylized Facts

“…30 See García-Quevedo et al ( 2017) for a review of the impact of uncertainty and future demand on innovation, and Cirera et al (2021b) show that uncertainty about future demand is an important deterrent in the adoption of technology in Vietnam. Notes: Panel (a) is the bin scatter of the probability of investing in digital platforms controlling for size, sector, severity of the crisis and wave.…”

Operations, risk, and small firms: Field results from irrigation equipment vendors in Senegal

“…Supplier type, while used to organize chains coming from farms (e.g., farmer, buyer, miller, supermarket), is not usually applied in a nuanced way to organize firms in chains leading to farms (e.g., importer, retailer, farmer). In one sector in Senegal, small firms have a 15% probability of being aware of public support and a 4% probability of using it, which may be due to programs not meeting needs and firms in need not being targeted (Cirera et al., 2021). New varieties of support and targeting require an understanding of the supply chain.…”

“…Size also impacts access to technology. In Senegal, for example, one in four smaller firms cites demand uncertainty as a barrier to digitizing business processes (Cirera et al., 2021). We test the hypothesis that bigger firms, perhaps through more access to institutions and technology, have different supply chain risk exposure and management strategies than smaller firms.…”