Development of e-commerce in Croatia: A survey

Abstract

The increasing popularity of e-commerce is apparent. This article addresses the main issues related to e-commerce and, in particular, presents the results of a large survey carried out in 116 Croatian companies. The objective of this survey was to investigate the current practices related to the development and implementation of e-commerce in Croatia. The results obtained indicate that the amount of investment in e-commerce projects is still very low in Croatian companies. Furthermore, it was discovered that although the potential benefits of e-commerce development were ranked very high by Croatian managers, it became apparent that the e-commerce projects were predominantly focused on the simple and static Web site development in the form of online catalogues. Furthermore, this research has revealed that the Croatian government's efforts to promote e-commerce are not producing desired results at organizational levels, and one of the contributing factors to this is relatively low awareness of top managers about the importance and potential benefits of e-commerce. The results of this study are likely to have wider implications both for the research and the practice of implementing e-commerce in the context of developing countries. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.