E-commerce adoption within SME's in Ghana, a tool for growth

Abstract

Electronic commerce presents small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in developing economies the opportunity to compete on a global stage. With theoretical underpinning of the technology acceptance model (TAM) and technology-organisation-environment (TOE), this study investigated e-commerce adoption among SMEs in Ghana. Managers and owners of SMEs participated in both survey (n = 152) and interview (n = 38). Partial least squares regression analysis indicates that the introduction of point of sale (POS) machines for SMEs will improve offline cashless trading, which must necessarily precede online trading for an effective payment system to exist. An increased internet penetration rate would enable nationwide e-commerce participation rather than the current skewed practice with e-commerce dominance within southern Ghana. For the private investor, there exists a market for logistics services. The Ghana postal service must, however, take the lead to serve as a blueprint as well as a source of data for private investors.