Perceived strategic value and adoption of electronic commerce: an empirical study of small and medium sized businesses

Abstract

By combining two independent research streams, we examine the strategic value and adoption of electronic commerce (e-commerce) as perceived by top managers in small and medium sized enterprises (SME). We propose a research model that posits three factors that have been found to be influential in previous research in the perception of strategic value of other information technologies. Inspired by the technology acceptance model of Davis (1989) and other relevant research in the area, we also identify four factors that we believe will influence e-commerce adoption. We hypothesize a causal link between the perceived strategic value of e-commerce and e-commerce adoption. To validate the research model, we collected data from top managers/owners of SME via an Internet survey. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the factors utilized in this study while canonical correlation analysis was employed to validate the causal link between the two main constructs of this study.