By:

With the advent of Internet technologies and its increasing adoption and use,
numerous businesses have explored opportunities online. However, many small
to medium enterprises (SMEs) fail to follow their larger counterparts, citing
significant barriers to e-commerce adoption. This thesis explores these barriers and the extent to which they affect micro, small, and medium enterprises.

Consolidation of the literature, and publications by government bodies and SME
associations resulted in the development of a comprehensive model that depicts
the key barriers to e-commerce adoption by SMEs. Case study investigations
have assisted in determining whether these theoretical barriers existed in
practice, and if they actually existed, the extent to which the barriers affect
e-commerce adoption in the SME. Such knowledge has been obtained by
semi-structured interviews with micro business, small business, and medium
enterprise owner/managers, and interview transcripts have been subject to
thematic analysis. To gain a broader understanding, similarities and differences between barriers of the different SME types has been noted, as well as the importance of the delineation between micro, small and medium enterprises for this topic of interest. With this knowledge, it is hoped that this leads to a greater number of successful e-commerce adoption cases by SMEs, and stimulate support schemes and initiatives that focus on combating these issues.

Findings indicate that the most prevalent barriers are sectoral barriers, internal barriers (security, lack of technical knowledge, and the lack of time and resources) and external barriers (lack of government support). Furthermore,
although interview transcripts expose common themes, there are fundamental
differences in the attitudes of micro, small and medium business
owner/managers. This indicates that the delineation of SME types is important for this topic. However, this can be confirmed with a greater number of case studies.

Stream: Change

Paper: Barriers to the Adoption of e-Commerce by Micro Businesses, Small Businesses and Medium Enterprises, The

Christine Van Toorn is a Lecturer and Director of the BIT and ISM Co-op Scholarship Programs at the School of Information Systems, Technology and Management at UNSW. Having joined the School in 1991, her commercial background is diverse and she has considerable experience across a wide variety of industries. Christine has a research masters degree from UNSW and her current research interests lie in the areas of knowledge management and decision support, with particular emphasis in relation to human computer interaction. She has over 15 years of teaching experience at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels as well as the corporate sector. Christine’s has extensive industry experience in the fields of information systems, information technology and accounting, she is a CISA and a CPA member. Her appointment as Director of the University’s exclusive and highly sought after BIT (Business Information Technology) and ISM (Information Systems and Management) Co-operative Scholarship Programs complements her vast experience both within industry and academia.