Understanding Adoption of Internet Technologies Among SMEs

The Internet has been viewed as a powerful tool enabling small firms to "level the playing field" when competing with larger firms. Yet, the benefits of e-business are accruing to larger, rather than smaller, firms. While numerous studies have been conducted in other countries to examine the use of the Internet by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), similar studies focused on U.S. small firms have not yet emerged. Using the Commission of the European Communities' stringent definition of SMEs, this paper identifies significantly different patterns in e-business usage among 395 micro, small, and medium-sized firms. While using the Internet to find information and to enhance the company/image brand is important for all firms, the smallest of firms attach greater importance to using the Internet for research purposes and lesser for communication reasons (i.e., e-mail). This pattern is reversed for larger (i.e., small and medium sized) firms