AN ASSESSMENT ON THE INFORMATIZATION OF BRAZILIAN INDUSTRIAL COMPANIES

This paper reports on a study about the adoption and use of Information Technology by Brazilian industrial companies, related to technology infrastructure, information systems, Internet, human resources and investments. Concepts related to the subject are discussed and the results of a descriptive survey carried out in 326 small, medium and large Brazilian industries are presented. The results indicate that there are statistically significant differences among the three sizes of companies considered in the research. There are evident differences in the adoption and use of the technology and these differences seem to be related to the size of the company. These differences do not result from economic shortcomings or difficulties the companies have in accessing the investigated resources. Although the paper does not specifically address problems of policy making regarding the reduction of these differences, it presents a framework for analyzing the patterns of informatization in industrial companies, and the results themselves offer parameters for comparing IT utilization in industries in other countries.