Personas of e-commerce adoption in small businesses in New Zealand

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    43 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Focus group methodology is introduced in this article as one appropriate methodology to study the impact of technological innovation factors on e-commerce (EC) adoption in small businesses (SMEs) in New Zealand. The research results suggested two emerging issues pertaining to EC adoption in SMEs in this research. First, SMEs would not invest their scant resources on perceived risky advanced EC initiatives. In adopting simple EC technologies such as Web pages and e-mail, factors like cost and compatibility were found not hindering the adoption decision. On the other hand, the proposed drivers to adopt these simple technologies were not highly significant as such. Second, the SMEs retained a particular view about advancing their simple EC initiatives. They envisaged that advancing their EC initiatives, such as adopting full-blown and interactive Web sites, will give more weight to the impact of the different factors in this research on their adoption decisions of EC. The gulf between the current adoption and usage levels and the envisaged advanced EC initiatives seemed to be increasing further, suggesting the weakness of the EC phenomenon in SMEs in this research. The research portrays a path where such gaps could he addressed, and hence, this path should guide the SMEs in advancing their EC initiatives. Implications arising from this research with respect to theory and to practice are discussed in this research.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)18-45
    Number of pages28
    JournalJournal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations
    Volume4
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - Jan 1 2006

    Keywords

    • Advanced e-commerce
    • Focus group
    • Low e-commerce
    • New Zealand
    • SMEs

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Computer Science Applications
    • Computer Networks and Communications
    • Strategy and Management
    • Marketing

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'Personas of e-commerce adoption in small businesses in New Zealand'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this