Robyn Lawson

Factors affecting adoption of electronic commerce technologies by SMEs: an Australian study

Using the Internet for electronic business has become an area of action for the Australian government. This paper presents research results from two regional areas, which indicate that while most manufacturing SMEs use e‐mail, very few are involved in electronic commerce activities. Major barriers are concern about security and privacy of transactions, cost of consultants, and lack of IT expertise of staff. Employing people with appropriate knowledge has been added to current training methods such as on‐the‐job training. Results from the two regional areas are found to be consistent. Comparisons between small and medium organisations highlight some differences.

SMEs in Developing Countries Face Challenges in Adopting e-commerce Technologies

Although research indicates e-commerce offers viable and practical solutions for organizations to meet challenges of a predominantly changing environment, the few available studies related to SMEs in developing countries reveal a delay or failure of SMEs in adopting e-transformation technologies. The various factors identified as causes for the reticence can be broadly classified as Internal Barriers and External Barriers. This paper presents a model for barriers to adoption of ICT and e-commerce and the results of an exploratory pilot study and survey. This research also identifies support required by SMEs in a developing country, Sri Lanka.

System Level Analysis of How Businesses Adjust to Changing Environment in the Digital Eco-System

Today, in the Information era businesses live in a dynamic environment where decisions need to be made quickly as otherwise they would not be able to survive. To investigate how businesses adjust to changing requirements in the Digital Eco-System we used the Cynefin Framework and its dimensions. Through a review of the literature, it was identified that there are two distinctive types of organisations: task-based and process-based. Although, in reality the majority of organisations these days fit somewhere in between. Furthermore, we found that organisations which are more process-based adapt to environmental changes more quickly than those that are task-based. Therefore, to be able to act quickly and make decisions in the Digital Eco-System task-based organisations are encouraged to eTransform and become process-based.