The Adoption of E-commerce in SMEs

The past decade has seen a 'push' by governments for small businesses to adopt and use e-commerce technologies. Part of many of these government initiatives has been for small businesses to form clusters or strategic alliances prior to adopting e-commerce so that they can compete with larger businesses.This study compares the adoption of e-commerce by small businesses that are part of an alliance with those that are not connected to any form of alliance. Two locations were investigated Sweden and Aus­tralia. The results which should be useful both to small business ow­ner/managers and relevant government agencies show that while differences do exist they are far from universal.