The Perception of Barriers to E-commerce Adoption by SMEs

Abstract

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) has been utilised as a vehicle to rapidly transform the world into an information society. Yet despite the proven potential of e-commerce in the small business sector, studies have shown that it is the larger businesses that have reaped the benefits, with small/medium enterprise (SME) adoption remaining relatively low by comparison. This slow growth of e-commerce adoption by SMEs has been attributed to various adoption barriers that are faced by small business owners/managers. While many recent studies have begun examining the relationship between the perceptions of adoption barriers in developed economies, the relationship between the perceptions of these barriers has not been fully examined in developing economies. This chapter firstly presents the authors’ understanding of what defines an SME and then highlights our current understanding of the similarities and differences in barriers to e-commerce adoption by SMEs in developed and developing economies. It then describes and discusses a study which examines differences in the groupings and priorities, of barriers to adoption of e-commerce as perceived by SME owner/managers in a developing economy (Indonesia) and two developed economies (Sweden and Australia). The chapter finally describes the implications of these findings for practitioners and researchers.