Innovation as the Backbone of Sustainable Development Goals

Abstract

This paper focuses on the achievement of one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Social Economy enterprises. Specifically, this research studies which are the conditioning factors for the active use of ICT (technological innovation) in the second-degree of olive oil cooperativism in Spain. The reason for the importance of this sector is that it currently leads world oil production. Moreover, second-degree cooperativism overcomes one of the problems frequently pointed out by the literature on the olive sector, namely the lack of concentration and integration of supply. In order to achieve the objective established in this research study, the fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) methodological technique has been used. The results obtained indicate that the degree of technological innovation is favored by the intensity of cooperative integration, diversification within the company, orientation towards the final market (packaged sales), ICT training of employees, the commercial importance of the foreign sector and the supply of ecological products.