Perception of Barriers to E-Commerce Adoption in SMEs in a Developed and Developing Country

Abstract

Despite the proven potential of e-commerce in the small business sector, studies have shown that larger businesses have reaped the benefits, with SME adoption remaining relatively low by comparison. This slow growth of e-commerce adoption in SMEs has been attributed to various adoption barriers that are faced by small business owners/managers. These barriers have been well documented in numerous research studies. While these studies have gone some ways to determine the nature and role of barriers to e-commerce adoption, there is a suggestion that as most have been conducted in developed economies, their value for developing economies remains in question. This article compares the perception of barriers to e-commerce adoption in a developed and a developing economy. Two hundred forty-seven non-adopters in Australia are compared to 96 non-adopters in Indonesia. The data shows that the perception of importance of barriers to e-commerce adoption differs across the two locations.