E-business tools adoption and export performance: Empirical evidence from Croatian companies

Abstract

Technology development has enabled companies of all kinds, industries, and sizes to acti vely parti cipate in internati onal business. Informati on and communicati ons technology (ICT), and especially e-business tools, are important for the internati onal acti viti es of companies. ICT empowers the company's potenti al to contribute signifi cantly to economic growth, as it plays a vital role in simplifying business processes and contributes to the improvement of the competi ti ve market presence of a company. The objecti ve of this research is to identi fy the level of e-business tools adopti on in Croati an exporti ng companies and investi gate its infl uence on their export performance. In the analysis of the level of e-business tools adopti on, a parti al OECD e-commerce maturity model was used, which measures several aspects of ICT readiness and intensity of web sites and e-commerce in exporti ng companies. Several disti nct aspects of e-business tools adopti on were examined, namely e-mail usage, internet usage in market research, promoti on, e-commerce, and e-payment possibiliti es. The export performance level was measured through three elements: the export/total business acti viti es rati o, the export/total revenue rati o and, additi onally, the existence of multi lingual offi cial websites. Our fi ndings provide enough evidence that e-business tools adopti on has a positi ve correlati on to export performance for Croati an exporters. However, it should be noted that three e-business tools adopti on factors positi vely correlate with export performance: namely (1) e-mail use for correspondence with partners/suppliers/buyers, (2) use of the internet as a promoti onal tool for foreign markets and (3) e-payment use. Two remaining e-business tools adopti on factors that were measured -(1) use of the internet as an informati on source on foreign markets/ (Eds.) buyers/suppliers and (2) online ordering/sales, did not record a significant correlation with export performance. These findings imply that there is still room for better implementation of e-business tools in Croatian exporting companies, particularly regarding market research and online ordering and sales that can contribute to better export performance. With regard to international market geographical orientation, we found significant differences in exporting companies oriented toward geographically and culturally distant markets (non-regional and non-EU markets) that have a statistically higher level of e-business tools implementation in comparison to those exporting dominantly to regional and EU markets. This illustrates the significance of e-business tools adoption for reaching and managing those distant markets that are important for a number of Croatian exporters.

The impact of industrial revolution 4.0 on international trade

“…Modern technologies and breakthrough inventions or innovations have altered the nature of production and trade enormously, both domestically and internationally (Młody, 2018;Świadek, Dzikowski, Tomaszewski, & Gorączkowska, 2019;Świadek & Gorączkowska, 2020;Gorączkowska, 2020). Thus, it shapes strategic options for managers in all sectors of national economies (Majerova, 2019;Pini, 2019), in particular promoting e-commerce and e-business (Leko Šimić, Biloš, & Mijoč, 2019). Their currently unfolding implementation -which involves the convergence of physical, digital, and biological spheres -is referred to as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).…”