Journal Article

Electronic business adoption by European firms: a cross-country assessment of the facilitators and inhibitors

Zhu, Kevin, Kraemer, Kenneth, Xu, Sean

2003

Overview

In this study, we developed a conceptual model for studying the adoption of electronic business (e-business or EB) at the firm level, incorporating six adoption facilitators and inhibitors, based on the technology–organization–environment theoretical framework. Survey data from 3100 businesses and 7500 consumers in eight European countries were used to test the proposed adoption model. We conducted confirmatory factor analysis to assess the reliability and validity of constructs. To examine whether adoption patterns differ across different e-business environments, we divided the full sample into high EB-intensity and low EB-intensity countries. After controlling for variations of industry and country effects, the fitted logit models demonstrated four findings: (1) Technology competence, firm scope and size, consumer readiness , and competitive pressure are significant adoption drivers, while lack of trading partner readiness is a significant adoption inhibitor. (2) As EB-intensity increases, two environmental factors – consumer readiness and lack of trading partner readiness – become less important, while competitive pressure remains significant. (3) In high EB-intensity countries, e-business is no longer a phenomenon dominated by large firms; as more and more firms engage in e-business, network effect works to the advantage of small firms. (4) Firms are more cautious in adopting e-business in high EB-intensity countries – it seems to suggest that the more informed firms are less aggressive in adopting e-business, a somehow surprising result. Explanations and implications are offered.

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK,Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subject: Adoption of innovations / Business / Business and Management / Business Information Systems / Child adoption / Communication / Companies / Computer applications / Conceptual models / Electronic commerce / Electronic data interchange / Electronic money / Empirical tests / Enterprises / Environmental aspects / Europe / European Union / Hypotheses / Information systems / Information Systems and Communication Service / Innovation/Technology Management / Innovations / International / Internet / Mathematical models / Online payment / Open systems / Operations Research/Decision Theory / Organization theory / Regression analysis / Small business / Special Section Article / Studies / Technological change / Technological planning / Technology / Transactions