Factors Influencing Micro-enterprises’ Information Technology Adoption

Little empirical research has been conducted to examine information technology (IT) interventions for micro -enterprises. IT interventions that lack theoretical and empirical foundations with regard to their design and approach may lead to poorly designed programs and haphazard implementation schemes that do not account for various contextual challenges faced by micro-enterprises, resulting in projects which fail to meet their objectives. Hence, a need to understand critical components of an effective IT intervention for microenterprises is compelling. For this, we need to understand significant factors that would influence microenterprises’ IT adoption. The purpose of the study is to theoretically and empirically investigate significant factors that would be related to micro-enterprises’ IT adoption and that may need to be taken into consideration in designing and implementing an IT intervention for micro-enterprises to effectively enable or facilitate micro-enterprises’ IT adoption. If effectively adopted, IT may contribute to micro-enterprise development (business growth) through increased business productivity. The growth of micro-enterprises would then contribute to stabilizing or boosting local and national economies through creating jobs. Through a quantitative analysis of potential factors, the research addresses the following research question: What are the significant factors that would influence micro-enterprises’ IT adoption, and how could they be modeled in a way to better explain micro-enterprises’ IT adoption? The research question is answered by identifying potential constructs (or factors) through a literature review and preliminary field research and then by conducting a cross-sectional survey and analyzing collected data through structural equation modeling