White paper on creativity - ebla center

Chapter 9Table 9.2 shows the figures for thediffusion of personal computers inItalian production companies. Thisfigure supplies a useful initialapproximation of the degree ofcomputer literacy in the Italianproduction system. We immediatelynote that almost all companies own acomputer, from 95.1% for small firms(up to 50 employees) to over 99% foraverage companies (50 to 250employees) and large companies (over250 employees). There are somedifferences, however, in the percentageof employees who use the PC. Thefigure for large companies (44.3%) ishigher than that for average companies(around 38%) and small companies(33.3%). In general, the trend is for thepercentage to increase with an increasein company size. But if we consider thepercentage of employees who use theInternet, the figure is ratherdiscouraging: only around 25% in allcompanies sizes considered. As regardsgeographical distribution, in Italy therewould seem to be a clear digital divide,especially as regards the percentage ofemployees who use the Internet. Thefigure for the South and Islands isaround half that for the Northwest andCentre. In general, figures for the Southfor all three items are much lower thanthe national average.Table 9.2 – Diffusion and use of ICT in companies with at least 10 employeesCompany Size(No. Employees)Companies withpersonalcomputersEmployees usingcomputersEmployees usingcomputersconnected to theInternet10-49 95.1 33.3 24.450-99 99.2 36.7 25.1100-249 99.6 39.4 25.4250 And Over 99.6 44.3 25.0GeographicalDistributionNorthwest 97.4 42.5 28.4Northeast 96.1 35.5 22.7Centre 94.0 42.7 27.6South & Islands 93.4 25.3 14.3Italy 95.6 38.4 24.8Table 9.3 shows the percentage figuresfor companies using ICT, according totypology of use. In this case thecompany’s size unequivocally influencesthe type of communicationchannels/connections adopted for theseWHITE PAPER ON CREATIVITY 220