A study of factors influencing the adoption of E-Commerce technology in small and medium enterprises (SMES) in the kingdom of Thailand

This thesis aims to investigate the influence of five factors (business environment, knowledge of ECT, organisation &capital, e-commerce technology, and customer behaviour (purchasing, information, ecommerce confidence, and e-commerce perceived) towards the adoption of Electronic Commerce Technology (ECT) by Thai small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The scope of the study was restricted to the retailing SMEs located in Bangkok and the surrounding areas. The study also included online customers who were studying at Rangsit University at the time of the survey was conducted. 400 SMEs and 400 online customers were involved in the survey conducted in 2007. Two sets of questionnaires were developed for gathering data from the samples: one for the SMEs and another one for the customers. 52.25% of the SMEs and 71.25% of the customers have responded to the questionnaires. Twenty hypotheses were tested for predicting influence of the factors to the ECT adoption. Ten hypotheses were developed predicting influence of the behaviour to the adoption. The predictors in SMEs side were size, business years, gender of the SMEs’ owners, ECT implementation, website ownership, domain name ownership, and planning to implement ECT. The predictors in the customer side were age, gender, e-commerce or Internet experience of the customers, and planning to do online shopping. The research findings show that most SMEs’ size was less than fifteen employees (53.77%), business years were over two years (54.27%), and gender of the SMEs’ owners were male (59.51%); most of the ev commerce customers were young female students (59.3%). The first four factors--business environment, knowledge of ECT, organisation &capital, and e-commerce technology influence the ECT adoption. The discriminant analysis produced 62 equations for proving the influence (D1-D62) The fifth factor, customer behaviour, influences the ECT adoption by the SMEs. The discriminant analysis produced 33 equations for proving the influence (D63 – D95). More significant findings: a) from the perspectives of SMEs— findings such as the availability of capital, and the readiness of suppliers to SMEs to accept ECT, and b) from the customer side—findings such as the importance of prior online brand development of SMEs, the importance of web design with respect to virtual product presentation, and confidence in the security of online transaction. These strongly influence the ECT adoption