Big Data and Digital Expertise: Analytics Puzzles for Food Industry Entrepreneurs

Abstract

This chapter aims to analyze how digital entrepreneurship is developed in the food industry of the European Union, comparing digital skills and big data indicators in all enterprises and the food industry. Using Eurostat Digital Economy and Society database, the authors obtained data between 2016 and 2020 – including the indicators: information and communications technology (ICT) specialists and ICT training to digital skills, and smart devices, geolocation, and social media to big data assessment. Furthermore, we compared all enterprises with those that manufacture beverages, food, and tobacco products. The authors identified that the food sector is still behind the other sectors regarding digitalization. Consequently, this research contributes to understanding entrepreneurs’ digital skills and how them relate to the use of big data in the food industry. Moreover, it also allows identifying the digital indicators of the food industry as less innovative than other industry digital indicators.

Citation

Dias, C. and Rocha, R.G. (2023), "Big Data and Digital Expertise: Analytics Puzzles for Food Industry Entrepreneurs", Ferreira, J.J. and Murphy, P.J. (Ed.) Bleeding-Edge Entrepreneurship: Digitalization, Blockchains, Space, the Ocean, and Artificial Intelligence (Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship Research, Vol. 16), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 19-30. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2040-724620230000016003