Electronic Readiness Assessment of Rural and Agricultural Cooperative's Managers and Specialists in the Province of Ilam

E-readiness is the ability of an organization to successfully adopt, use and benefit from ICTs such as e-commerce. The importance of ICTs, which assist organizations in management decision-making, succeeding and gaining competitive advantages, has already been underscored. The goal of this research was to assess e-readiness of rural and agricultural cooperative's managers and specialistsin province of Ilam. Based on target goal, this study was an applied research, while based on data collection it was a descriptive-correlative method. The statistical population of study included managers and experts of rural and agricultural cooperatives; out of which115 respondents were selected using stratified samplings. Data were collected using researcher-made questionnaires and Digital Literacy version of Washington University. Content validity of the questionnaire was tested by a panel of experts. Cronbach’s alpha was used to estimate reliability of the questionnaire, the low range of it was 0.9 and the high range of it was 0.98. Findings revealed that the mean application of ICTs by managers and specialists was 2.19, lower than the average value. Variables of familiarity with the Web, Web2 and social pressure explained around 55% of the variance of ICTs application. Thus, we suggest that managers and specialists should be provided with computer training courses and Internet workshops as well as the necessary social preconditions for successful application of ICTs in such units.