Today, electronic commerce (e-commerce) has been utilised as a rapid vehicle to transform the world into an information society. In the business environment, e-commerce has made considerable inroads not only into large organisations but also the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, SMEs are not adopting e-commerce with same speed as their larger counterparts. This slow growth has been attributed to various adoption barriers, which have been well documented in numerous research studies. While several recent studies have begun examining the relationship between the perceptions of adoption barriers in developed economies, the relationship between the perceptions of these barriers has not been fully examined in developing economies. This paper examines the correlation and underlying factors of barriers to e-commerce (as perceived by SME owner/managers) in a developing economy (Indonesia). It then compares these with SME owner/manager perceptions from a developed economy (Sweden). The study showed that there are differences in the groupings and priorities of barriers to e-commerce between the two locations. Most importantly, however, was the finding that while Swedish respondents were more concerned with technical issues, the Indonesian respondents were more concerned with organisational barriers.
Despite the proven potential of e-commerce in the small business sector, studies have shown that larger businesses have reaped the benefits, with SME adoption remaining relatively low by comparison. This slow growth of e-commerce adoption in SMEs has been attributed to various adoption barriers that are faced by small business owners/managers. These barriers have been well documented in numerous research studies. While these studies have gone some ways to determine the nature and role of barriers to e-commerce adoption, there is a suggestion that as most have been conducted in developed economies, their value for developing economies remains in question. This article compares the perception of barriers to e-commerce adoption in a developed and a developing economy. Two hundred forty-seven non-adopters in Australia are compared to 96 non-adopters in Indonesia. The data shows that the perception of importance of barriers to e-commerce adoption differs across the two locations.
A number of recent studies have suggested that, for small businesses to compete with their larger counterparts in the electronic commerce environment, many are collaborating in a network arrangement. This study examines whether factors such as business size, business age, business sector or market focus are associated with decisions to collaborate in a network or remain outside such arrangements. The study showed that small businesses, with fewer than ten employees, were more likely to be part of a formal network of small businesses. The results also showed that the age of the business, the number of suppliers, the existence of a marketing strategy and the educational level of the CEO were significantly associated with decisions to become part of a formal networking arrangement.
E-learning is relatively new to the United Arab Emirates. Most tertiary institutions have allocated ICT resources to provide alternatives to the previously used teacher-centred "chalk and talk" approach to learning and teaching. However we have not yet developed a comprehensive understanding of the application of elearning methods and resources in the tertiary education sector in the UAE. This paper describes a collaborative research project which empirically investigated the perceived barriers to e-learning for students studying at tertiary institutions in the UAE using an online questionnaire. The paper analyses the associations between e-learning barriers and students' age and gender. The ease of use, usefulness and satisfaction with elearning are also examined in relation to e-learning barriers. The preliminary research findings presented here will inform faculty who are integrating technology in their teaching and the tertiary institutions encouraging the use of e-learning as an integral part of the learning environment.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.