E-Commerce Adoption in Small Businesses: Cases from New Zealand

Abstract

Electronic commerce (EC) adoption in small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is confronted with diferent diflculties. This is due to reasons relating to the SME's structure and to their surrounding environment. This research is interested in identifying factors influencing EC adoption and success in SMEs. A review of the technological innovation adoption (TIA) research in SMEs provides useful insights into factors influencing adoption. Thus, this research attempted to achieve two main objectives. Initially, this research examined the prior TIA factors in order to check for their relevance to EC adoption research in SMEs and accordingly, developed an adoption framework made of fiifteen factors. Secondly, this research attempted to examine the impact of the developed framework on EC adoption in three New Zealand (NZ) SMEs. The research findings and the emerging implications suggested the weakness of the EC phenomenon in NZ SMEs and pointed to a unique perspective concerning the adoption context of the cases. These issues are discussed in this research raising diferent theoretical, methodological and professional contributions and implications.

Factors influencing BIM adoption in emerging markets – the case of India

“…A literature review of ICT adoption was conducted to identify the constructs within TOE framework,. Al-Qirim (2007) found the relationship between complexity, compatibility, top-management support, and innovation adoption to be significant. This is true, while it found that the relationship between Information Systems (IS) expertise, trialability and innovation adoption as insignificant, a belief in congruence with other studies (Mirchandani and Motwani 2001;Huang et al 2008).…”

An empirical investigation of business‐to‐business e‐commerce adoption and its impact on SMEs competitive advantage: The case of Egyptian manufacturing SMEs

“…Furthermore, many other studies found that relative advantages had also a positive and significant impact on e‐commerce adoption (Abou‐Shouk, Megicks, & Lim, ; El‐Gohary, ; Ghobakhloo et al, ). Moreover, Al‐Qirim ( ) found that technological innovation factors such as relative advantage, complexity and compatibility as well as organizational factors and individual factors affect the adoption of e‐commerce among SMEs in New Zealand.…”

“…There are also a number of studies that proved that the enterprise size is one of the factors that lead to the adoption of new technologies. The studies of: El‐Gohary ( ), Al‐Qirim ( ), Lal ( ), and Lertwongsatien and Wongpinunwatana ( ) are examples of such studies. El‐Gohary ( ), for example, found that firm size had a significant and positive effect on e‐marketing adoption by Egyptian small tourism organizations.…”

Adoption of BIM by architectural firms in India: technology–organization–environment perspective

“…The internal/external technologies connected to the firm describe the technological context; the descriptive attributes of the firm describe the organizational context and environmental characteristics include the industry, competitors, suppliers and government (Jain, Le, Lin, & Cheng, 2011). Our research examines the influence of complexity, compatibility, and trialability in technological context (Doolin & Al Haj Ali, 2008;Lin & Lin, 2008;Mirchandani & Motwani, 2001;Premkumar & Roberts, 1999;Ramdani, Kawalek, & Lorenzo, 2009;Roberts & Pick, 2004;Srinivasan, Lilien, & Rangaswamy, 2002;Zhu, Kraemer, & Xu, 2003); top management support, perceived financial cost and BIM expertise in organizational context (Al-Qirim, 2007;Balocco, Mogre, & Toletti, 2009;Doolin & Al Haj Ali, 2008;Grover, 1993;Huang, Janz, & Frolick, 2008;Kuan & Chau, 2001;Lin & Lin, 2008;Moore & Benbasat, 1991;Premkumar & Roberts, 1999;Zhu & Kraemer, 2005); and client requirements and trade partner readiness in environmental context (Al-Qirim, 2007;Doolin & Al Haj Ali, 2008;Lin & Lin, 2008;Premkumar & Roberts, 1999;Ramdani et al, 2009;Zhu et al, 2003) Adoption and Figure 2: TOE Framework (Tornatzky & Fleischer, 1990) In the current research, TOE framework has been used for investigating the factors affecting BIM adoption among architectural firms in India. As BIM processes require organization wide adoption (including adoption in the project delivery network) and as this research focuses on studying the BIM adoption among architecture firms (and not individuals) an organizational-level adoption theory is deemed suitable for the current research.…”