Uchenna Cyril Eze

Internet‐based ICT adoption: evidence from Malaysian SMEs

– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the innovative characteristics, benefits, and barriers influencing internet‐based information and communications technology (ICT) adoption among the small and medium enterprises (SMEs)., – A questionnaire‐based survey was used to collect data from 406 managers or owners of SMEs in the southern region of Malaysia., – The results suggest that internet‐based ICT adoption provides a low cost yet effective communication tool for customers. However, security continues to be a major barrier. Finding on cost as a barrier is mixed. The inferential statistics reveal that relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, observability, and security are significant factors influencing internet‐based ICT adoption., – The study focuses only on the SMEs in the southern region of Malaysia., – The findings offer valuable insights to policy makers in general and to the SMEs in particular on the significance of the measured characteristics and the associated benefits and barriers of internet‐based ICT adoption., – The study is perhaps one of the first to comprehensively address internet‐based ICT adoption among the SMEs through the use of a wide range of variables.

Internet‐based ICT adoption among SMEs: Demographic versus benefits, barriers, and adoption intention

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the demographic characteristics of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with regards to their patterns of internet‐based information and communications technology (ICT) adoption, taking into account the dimensions of ICT benefits, barriers, and subsequently adoption intention.Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire‐based survey is used to collect data from 406 managers or owners of SMEs in Malaysia.Findings – The results reveal that the SMEs would adopt internet‐based ICT regardless of years of business start‐up and internet experience. Some significant differences are spotted between manufacturing and service SMEs in terms of their demographic characteristics and internet‐based ICT benefits, barriers, and adoption intention. Both the industry types express intention to adopt internet‐based ICT, with the service‐based SMEs demonstrating greater intention.Research limitations/implications – The paper focuses only on the SMEs in the southern region ...

Key determinants of knowledge sharing in an electronics manufacturing firm in Malaysia

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that affect knowledge‐sharing attitudes in Malaysia, with emphasis on a manufacturing firm and how this attitude influences their intention to share knowledge.Design/methodology/approach – This is a survey research conducted within a manufacturing firm. The questionnaire was developed by adapting items and concepts from prior works, and by developing a new variable, kiasuism. A census sampling method was used to select participants for this research. The data derive from a case analysis in a manufacturing company in Malaysia. The analysis was based on 141 valid responses.Findings – The findings indicate that collectivism, social network, social trust, shared goal, incentive systems, kiasuism and self‐efficacy emerged significant except for individualism. A unique finding is that kiasuism emerged as proposed, which suggest that future works could focus more on this variable to highlight its impact in a firms ability to share knowledge. Overall,...

E-Business Deployment in Nigerian Financial Firms: An Empirical Analysis of Key Factors

This research provides empirical evidence on factors that influence e-business deployment among financial firms in Nigeria. It explores possible differences that exist among financial firms using in-house e-business capabilities and those that outsource their e-business capabilities. This research contributes to the few pieces of literature on e-business (EB) experiences among firms operating in Africa, particularly Nigeria. Technology-Organization-Environment [TOE] model underpins the framework and hypotheses development for this article. The independent variables are the firm, technological and environmental factors while EB use constitutes the dependent variable. The findings reveal that all the factors were significant, but that environmental factors were key determinants of EB use among the firms. In addition, this study reveals practitioners’ interests in Nigerian government agencies to maintain and enhance the existing EB legal, regulatory and security frameworks in the country. By extension, this could enable greater EB use in firms, which could improve the overall economy.

The role of moderating factors in mobile coupon adoption: an extended TAM perspective

This research represents a theoretical extension of the extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to study the consumer adoption of mobile coupons. We developed a model to test the relationship between theoretical constructs spanning technological and cognitive influence processes and their impact on Behavioural Intention. This study aims to integrate price consciousness and value consciousness into the promotional effectiveness framework. The results of the study indicate that perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use influence attitude, which in turn influences the intention to use m-coupons. Social influence and compatibility play a major role in influencing the intention to use mobile coupons. The key objective of this research paper is to study the role of value consciousness and price consciousness as moderating variable in predicting the customer intention to use mobile coupons. The high value conscious and price conscious customers indicate more interest in redeeming m-coupons than other customers. This result confirms that in the mobile technology context, traditional adoption models such as TAM could be applied but needs to be modified and extended in order to increase their prediction and explanation power.

Factors influencing internet-based information and communication technologies adoption among Malaysian small and medium enterprises

This paper aims to determine the factors influencing the adoption of internet-based Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. Based on the extended Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) model, a questionnaire-based survey was carried out to collect data from 406 managers or owners of SMEs in the southern region of Malaysia. Inferential analyses reveal that relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, observability and security are significant factors influencing internet-based ICT adoption. The findings are discussed and interpreted to provide important implications to the policy makers in general and to the SMEs in particular.

Exploring the Factors Affecting the Acceptance of Mobile Coupons in Malaysia

Distributing discount coupons through mobile phone text messages or short message service has become the latest promotional strategies of companies. Mobile coupons present an exciting new opportunity to target consumers with highly customized offers. Not much research is done on the factors influencing attitude and behavioral intention of consumers using m-coupons. The present study uses the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as the basic model to analyze the attitude and behavioral intention of consumers towards m-coupons. A number of researchers have studied user acceptance of mobile technology and services such as the mobile Internet, text messaging, contact services, mobile payment, mobile gaming and mobile parking services based on IS adoption models. They found that usefulness and ease of use are very important factors determining user acceptance of mobile technology. The results of these studies confirm that in the mobile technology context, traditional adoption models such as TAM could be applied but they need to be modified and extended in order to increase their prediction and explanation power. Results of the study shows that Perceived usefulness, attitude and Social factor influence the behavior and intention of consumers in using m-coupons.

Effects of Industry Type on ICT Adoption among Malaysian SMEs

Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has been widely regarded as an enabler to boost the competitive level of SMEs in the business arena. Notwithstanding the many efforts undertaken by governments to promote ICT adoption among SMEs across different types of industries, many of them failed to reap this benefit evenly. This problem is prevalent among the SMEs in the Asia Pacific region and Malaysia is no exception. This paper therefore investigates industry types as a moderating factor that may exert significant effects on the adoption of ICT among SMEs in Malaysia. Based on the extended Diffusion of Technology Innovation model, a questionnaire-based survey was conducted on 406 managers/owners of SMEs in the southern region of Malaysia. The findings suggest that different type of SMEs do affect the strength relationship between some predictor variables and ICT adoption intention. The findings are discussed and interpreted to provide key implications to the policy makers in general and the SMEs in particular.

The influence of total quality management, concurrent engineering and knowledge management in a semiconductor manufacturing firm

For many years, total quality management, concurrent engineering and knowledge management have won considerable attention from industrial practitioners and academia. However, few studies have been conducted on the influence of these three practices among Malaysian manufacturing firms. Hence, the objective of this study is to analyse the influence of TQM, CE and KM on engineering performance in a Malaysian semiconductor manufacturing firm. For this study, surveys were used to obtain empirical data on these three practices. The data was analysed using multiple linear regression analysis. The findings indicated that TQM, CE and KM significantly influences the firms engineering performance with the three predictors explaining up to 53.9% of the variance in engineering performance. The findings of this study are useful to managers, engineers and researchers as it provides insights on specific areas that require adequate attention to ensure effective engineering performance.

A flower analogy of e-commerce infrastructure development in Malaysia and Singapore

This paper identifies and relates important e-commerce development components using flower analogy. This paper also highlights the importance of maintenance on each component, known as maintenance culture, which is much the same way as nurturing and growing a beautiful and healthy flower. Finally, the paper evaluates the development of e-commerce in Malaysia and Singapore based on the flower analogy. The aim of this paper is to emphasize the balanced growth of each vital component to achieve successful deployment of e-commerce in developing countries.