Entre complexité et diversité des exploitations et des formes organisationnelles : analyse de l’adoption du couple outil-usage du numérique des maraîchers antillais

This research focuses on the determinants of the adoption process of digital tools. More precisely, we study this adoption conditional on its use. As West Indian market gardeners use digital tools very little in their farming activities, they represent a particularly interesting population to consider. The theoretical originality of our approach consists in taking into account different levels of analysis to understand the adoption process of a digital tool. The first level concerns the adoption of an innovation through the resource-based view theory. The second level considers the adoption of a digital tool through the degree of farms' complexity. Finally, the third level focuses on understanding the adoption of a tool conditional on its use. The empirical originality lies in the construction of a database of 400 West Indian producers in order to assess each level of analysis. The methodological originality is to couple a factorial analysis to identify the tool-use pairs of digital tools with a bivariate probit modelling focused on two main uses: acquisition of production skills and marketing support. Our results show that digital tools, whatever their use, are used by producers who are not part of networks or whose complex production and marketing practices require a specific response that these networks cannot always provide.