Infrastructure and internet inclusiveness as determinants of e-commerce expansion

Abstract

Due to the rapidly increasing number of people around the world with Internet access, the web's global reach is affecting the growth and development of the world economy. At the macro or national level, research has been conducted to examine the growth of E-Business in Developing nations and cultural determinants of e-commerce adoption at a national level and in relation to the digital divide. In a previous study the authors focused on four particular drivers of this expansion: (1) the rapid expansion of availability of the Internet to an ever-growing number of people, (2) the increased affordability of Internet access, as technology and connection costs have plummeted, (3) the everwidening relevance of Internet resources (function, local language access, etc.) to broad swaths of the world's population, and (4) the readiness of a nation (infrastructure, cultural acceptance) to adopt E-Commerce. Results of this study showed that, among other things, the relative importance of the "Price" and "Competitive Environment" sub-components suggest that e-commerce thrives best under a regime of inexpensive Internet connectivity available from a variety of competing suppliers. The current study expands on this analysis by examining the fifty-seven directly measurable dependent variables which constitute the 3i Index to assess which variables are the most significant as determinants of e-commerce expansion.