Paul S. Licker

eCommerce adoption in developing countries: a model and instrument

Several studies of eCommerce in developing countries have emphasized the influence of contextual impediments related to economic, technological, legal, and financial infrastructure as major determinants of eCommerce adoption. Despite operating under such constraints, some organizations in developing countries are pursuing the eCommerce agenda while others are not. However, our understanding of what drives eCommerce among businesses in developing countries is limited by the absence of rigorous research that covers issues beyond contextual imperatives. This paper discusses a holistic and theoretically constructed model that identifies the relevant contextual and organizational factors that might affect eCommerce adoption in developing countries. It provides a research-ready instrument whose properties were validated in a survey of 150 businesses from South Africa. The instrument can be used as a decision tool to locate, measure, and manage some of the risk of adopting eCommerce. Implications of the study are outlined; they indicate a need to consider eCommerce, micro, meso, and macro issues in understanding the adoption of eCommerce in developing countries.

Perceived E-Readiness Factors in E-Commerce Adoption: An Empirical Investigation in a Developing Country

This study explores the factors that affect e-commerce adoption in a developing country. It proposes a research model, based on perceived organizational e-readiness (POER) and perceived environmental e-readiness (PEER), that encompasses innovational, managerial, organizational, and environmental characteristics as determinants of e-commerce adoption and institutionalization. Based on survey data from 150 businesses in South Africa, it finds that initial e-commerce adoption is explained more by POER than by PEER, but PEER factors and POER commitment and governance variables explain the extent of institutionalization of e-commerce. The model links e-readiness to e-commerce adoption and suggests that a combination of PEER and POER factors affect e-commerce adoption. By implication, a multilevel model is essential to explicate the diffusion of e-commerce in developing countries. The results indicate that firms in developing countries should pay attention to both organizational and environmental considerations when making e-commerce adoption decisions. They also imply that investment in infrastructure development by governments and other agencies should go hand-in-hand with schemes for business development and managerial improvement at the organizational level.

Exploring Differences in Internet Adoption and Usage between Historically Advantaged and Disadvantaged Groups in South Africa

Abstract Theories of technology adoption and usage behaviour have generally been crafted and tested in developed countries. This study therefore aimed to extend knowledge by examining Internet adoption and usage behaviour in a developing country (South Africa). Differences in Internet adoption between those from a group previously advantaged by apartheid and those from a group previously disadvantaged were speciJically examined. For the previously advantaged, Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Enjoyment, and Long-term Consequences of Use were found to influence Internet adoption. For the previously disadvantaged, the main influence was Perceived Usefulness, with Perceived Ease of Use having an indirect effect through Perceived Usefulness. DtfSerences in Internet experience and exposure to technology largely explained the observed results as a result of varying socio-economic backgrounds between the majorities in the two groups. The implications of these findings in respect of the digital divide are discussed.

E-Commerce diffusion in small island countries: The influence of institutions in Barbados

This paper concerns the role of institutions in promoting the diffusion of e‐commerce. Using institutional theory as a framework of analysis, the paper evaluates institutional interventions over a six‐year period in Barbados and how that impacted on the national environment for e‐commerce. The paper explicates the institutional powers of influence and regulation in the context of the ideologies of market supply and demand for e‐commerce. It concludes that at the early stage of e‐commerce diffusion both public and external institutions play key roles in creating conducive conditions and in providing the impetus necessary for the spread of e‐commerce respectively. However, the sustainability of e‐commerce depends on ”bottom‐up” entrepreneurial mobilization to maintain the momentum for growth “top‐down” interventions create.

Maturation Stage of eCommerce in Developing Countries: A Survey of South African Companies

There is a paucity of empirical data on the level of diffusion of eCommerce technologies and business activities enabled by these technologies in businesses in developing countries. This study investigates the implementation and plans of a range of e-enabling hard and soft technologies: electronically performed business functions and the overall maturity of eCommerce usage. The authors surveyed 150 South African businesses. The findings reveal the dominance of communication aspects, but not the transaction aspects, of eCommerce. The implementation of integrated eCommerce solutions and security-enabling applications is very limited. Implementation plans of eCommerce revolve around extending communication technologies and enabling upward movement along the value chain, particularly marketing and procurement activities. By establishing benchmarks, the study contributes to our understanding of developments of eCommerce in developing countries.

Organizational IT Maturity (OITM): A Measure of Organizational Readiness and Effectiveness to Obtain Value from Its Information Technology

Enterprises often assign little strategic value to IT and resist additional investment. CIOs find that profitable IT deployment is blocked. The business/IT misalignment may stem from the lack of IT use maturity within the enterprise. In this article, the authors concentrate on what has to be done on the enterprise side to enable this maturation with an approach that isolates and describes useful factors that enable a business to become more mature with respect to IT.

The Japanese approach: a better way to manage programmers?

With a turnover rate among computer programmers of 25%-50% per year, its time somebody came up with a better way to manage computer professionals. One approach that holds promise is to create a Japanese-style Theory Z atmosphere in the firm, stressing lifetime employment, non-specialized career paths, collective decision-making, and other holistic matters.

A Gift from the Gods? Components of Information Technology Fatalism, Determinism in Several Cultures

Introduction When you think of information systems, do you think of them as “natural”, “god-given” or the work of the devil? Do you think of them as a source of good things for society and the world or as a source of trouble? Do you think that information systems’ growth and seeming pervasiveness is spurred by our inherent human talents or by specific economic and social forces? For those of us teaching and doing research in information systems/technology these are salient questions not merely because students come to us from a variety of backgrounds and arrive with fresh prejudices at the start of each academic term. In fact, we play a strong role in creating and maintaining these beliefs through our teaching and research. No doubt an overwhelming majority of us see information technology as a natural extension of human creativity, a (n eventual) source of good things for society, heavily spiced with a range of problems, and at least in the case of E-commerce a potent social and economic force. It’s important that we understand in a critical sense where our beliefs are coming from so that we don’t run the risk of alienating many in our primary constituencies (students and colleagues). It’s no joke that many in business believe this primary tenet, a corollary of Systemantics (Gall, 1986): “If you see someone coming at you with the obvious intention of doing good, run away as quickly as possible”. This paper explores a complex of beliefs held about the causal relationships among information technology and aspects of society. It begins with an analysis of these relationships as special cases of those with technology in general. It then details research performed in Thailand and South Africa and plans to extend the research to other countries such as the USA among undergraduate business students. The implications that the findings would have for instruction, cross-cultural application of information technology and marketing are then discussed. The paper ends with additional research questions to be explored.

Dimensions of expert system management

Abstract Expert systems have both technical as well as managerial aspects. In consideration of the challenge of expert system development, especially where failures are concerned, most of the attention has focused on technical matters. This article broadens the discussion to include managerial activities. These activities involve the expert system itself, the organization, the people involved, and the knowledge captured. An analytic framework involving these four concepts and their interaction is proposed for examining expert system failures.

Application stewardship: a user responsibility approach to post-implementation application performance

This paper makes the argument that an important mediating influence on the value of the usage of an information systems application is a set of activities called application stewardship. These activities, when performed effectively, tend to increase the value of applications in the hands of users and, when performed organization-wide, increase the orientation of the organization with respect to its usage of IT resources, including information itself, thereby reducing the gap between IT and its internal clients. The paper provides the rationale for extending application responsibility to the user side and lays out the definition of application stewardship and its relationship to delivering value in the hands of users. We develop a theoretical framework showing where stewardship activities enhance value in the hands of users, including a model of the forces tending to enhance or diminish stewardship effectiveness. The paper finishes by integrating the idea of application stewardship with the concept of organizational IT orientation.