Factors Influencing the Assimilation of E-Commerce for Small-and Medium-Sized Enterprises

This paper draws upon the theory on the contexts of technology diffuse to explain the importance of five factors- technology readiness, top management championship, organizational readiness, extent of coordination and competition intensity -in promoting heightened levels of E-commerce assimilation within an organization, we develop an integrative model to examine e-commerce assimilation for small and medium sized (SMEs) enterprises. The model features technological, organizational, and environmental contexts as prominent antecedents of e-commerce assimilation. Based on this model, we hypothesize how technology readiness, top management championship, organizational readiness, extent of coordination and competition intensity influences e-commerce assimilation at the firm level. A survey was designed based on previous research and a series of case studies conducted. The method of analysis employed was structural equation modeling based on data collected. Our empirical analysis leads to several key findings: 1) Technology readiness is the strongest factor facilitating assimilation. 2)Too much competition is not necessarily good for technology assimilation.3)The E-commerce assimilation is determined by the organizational context (top management championship, organizational readiness, extent of coordination).