Author

  • Rosli Mohamad

    • School of Accountancy, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia
    • Malaysia

  • Noor Azizi Ismail

    • Othman Yeop Abdullah Graduate School of Business, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Malaysia
    • Malaysia

Abstract

Internet-based application (e-business) is well-recognized as a useful mean to extend business efficiency. Owing to the idiosyncratic nature of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), considerable works have been initiated to explain why firms within this sector embrace e-business. Despite extensive research to identify factors that explain the firm’s e-business practice, works are still limited to examining as to what extent the e-business assimilates into business operation. Furthermore, firms would experience varying degrees of benefits by deploying e-business. Therefore, this paper reports intensity of ebusiness usage across various business processes and its relationship with cumulative benefits. A survey of 140 SMEs has revealed the diversity of e-business usage across business processes. A cluster analysis has further proposed three distinct profiles of firms based on the intensity of their e-business usage. Finally, the empirical evidence obtained has also ascertained positive association between the intensity of e-business usage and cumulative e-business benefits. Despite limitations highlighted, this paper provides evidence on the current state of e-business usage across firm operation and its likely impact to the firm operation.

Keywords

References

  • Al-Qirim, N. A. (2007). The adoption of ecommerce communications and application technologies in small businesses in New Zealand. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 6(4), 462 – 473. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2007.02.012
  • Al-Somali, S., Gholami, R. & Clegg, B. (2010). An Investigation into the adoption of electronic business in Saudi Arabia using the Technology-Organization-Environment Framework. UK Academy for Information Systems Conference Proceedings 2010. Paper 6. Retrieved from http://aisel.aisnet.org/ukais2010/6
  • Armstrong, J. S. & Overton, T. S. (1977). Estimating non-response bias in mail surveys. Journal of Marketing Research, 14, 396-402. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/002224377701400320
  • Bharati, P. & Chaudhury, A. (2006). Studying the current status of technology adoption. Communications of the ACM, 49(10), 88 - 93. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/1164394.1164400
  • Chong, S. (2008). Success in electronic commerce implementation: A cross -country of small and mediumsized enterprises. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 21(5), 468 - 492. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/17410390810904247
  • Cragg, P. B., Tagliavini, M. & Mills, A. (2007). Evaluating the alignment of IT with business processes in SMEs. 18th Australasian Conference on Information Systems. Toowoomba, Australia.
  • Eei, K. S., Husain, W. & Mustaffa, N. (2012). Survey on the benefits and barriers of e-procurement: Malaysian SMEs perspective. International Journal on Advanced Science, Engineering and Information Technology, 2(6), 14 – 19. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18517/ijaseit.2.6.238
  • Elia, E., Lefebvre, L. A. & Lefebvre, É. (2007). Focus of B-to-B e-commerce initiatives and related benefits in manufacturing small-and medium-sized enterprises. Information Systems and ebusiness Management (ISeB), 5(1), 1 - 23. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10257-006-0035-8
  • Eriksson, L. T., Hultman, J. & Naldi, L. (2008). Small business e-commerce development in Sweden - an empirical survey. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 15(3), 555 - 570. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/14626000810892346
  • Gebauer, J. & Shaw, M. J. (2002). Introduction to the special section: Business-to-Business electronic commerce. International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 6(4), 7–17. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10864415.2002.11044250
  • Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J. & Anderson, R. E. (2010). Multivariate data analysis . New Jersey, USA: Pearson Prentice Hall.
  • Koh, C. E. & Nam, K. T. (2005). Business use of the Internet: A longitudinal study from a value chain perspective. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 105(1), 82 -95. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/02635570510575207
  • Koo, C., Song, J., Kim, Y. J. & Nam, K. (2007). Do e-business strategies matter? The antecedents and relationship with firm performance. Information Systems Frontiers, 9(2-3), 283 - 296. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-006-9008-1
  • Kraemer, K. L., Gibbs, J. & Dedrick, J. (2002). Impacts of globalization on e-commerce adoption and firm performance: A cross-country investigation . University of California. Irvine: Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations.
  • Levy, M., Powell, P. & Yetton, P. (2003, June). IS alignment in small firms: New paths through the maze? Paper presented at 11th European Conference on Information Systems . Naples, Italy.
  • Lip-Sam, T. & Hock-Eam, L. (2011). Estimating the determinants of B2B e-commerce adoption among small and medium-sized enterprises. International Journal of Business and Society , 12(1), 15 – 30.
  • Magal, S. R., Koslage, P. & Levenburg, N. M. (2008 ). Towards a stage model for e-business adoption among SMEs: Preliminary results for manufacturing and service firms . Fourteenth America's Conference on Information Systems. Toronto, Canada: 14 - 17 August.
  • Meckel, M., Walters, D., Greenwood, A. & Baugh, P. (2004). Taxonomy of e-business adoption and strategies in small and medium sized enterprises. Strategic Change, 13(5), 259 – 269. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/jsc.682
  • Mohamad, R. & Ismail, N. A. (2009). Electronic commerce adoption in SME: The trend of prior studies. Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce, 4(1), 1 – 14.
  • Molla, A. & Licker, P. S. (2004). Maturation stage of ecommerce in developing countries: A survey of South African companies. Information Technologies and International Development, 1(3), 89 – 98. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/1544752043971152
  • Nieto, M. J. & Fernandez, Z. (2006). The role of information technology in corporate strategy of small and medium enterprises. Journal of International Entrepreneur, 3, 251 – 262. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10843-006-7854-z
  • Organization for Economic Co-operation Development [OECD]. (2004). ICT, E-Business and SMEs. Paris, France: OECD Publication Services.
  • Ong, C. S. & Lin, C. T. (2011). Creating e-business value and firm performance from supply chain perspective.15th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS) 2011 (pp. 1 - 14). Brisbane, Australia: Association for Information Systems.
  • Poon, S. (2008). Future of small business e-commerce. In A. Becker (Ed.), In Electronic commerce concepts, methodologies, tools and applications, IV, 1466 - 1473. Information Science Reference. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-59904-943-4.ch166
  • Premkumar, G. (2003). A meta-analysis of research on information technology implementation in small business. Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, 13(2), 91 - 121. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327744JOCE1302_2
  • Raymond, L., Bergeron, F. & Blili, S. (2005). The assimilation of e-business in manufacturing SMEs: Determinants and effects on growth and internationalization. Electronic Markets, 15(2), 106 -118. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10196780500083761
  • Roberts, B. & Toleman, M. (2007). One-size e-business adoption model does not fit all. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, 2(3), 49 - 61. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/jtaer2030021
  • Schubert, P. & Leimstoll, U. (2007). Importance and use of information technology in small and mediumsized companies. Electronic Markets, 17(1), 38 - 55. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10196780601136799
  • Spremic, M. A. (2007). Development of e-commerce in Croatia: A survey. Information Technology for Development, 13(4), 391-409. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/itdj.20068
  • Straub, D., Hoffman, B., Weber, C. & Steinfield, C. (2002). Toward new metrics for net-enhanced organizations. Information Systems Research, 13(3), 227 - 238. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.13.3.227.80
  • Swanson, E. B. (1994). Information systems innovation among organization. Management Science, 40(9), 1069 - 1092. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.40.9.1069
  • Tallon, P. P. (2007). A process-oriented perspective on the alignment of information technology and business strategy. Journal of Management Information Systems, 24(3), 227-268. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2753/MIS0742-1222240308
  • Wilson, H., Daniel, E. & Davies, I. A. (2008). The diffusion of e-commerce in UK SMEs. Journal of Marketing Management, 24(5/6), 489 – 516. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1362/026725708X325968
  • Zhu, K. & Kraemer, K. L. (2005). Post-adoption variations in usage and value of e-business by organizations: Cross-country evidence from the retail industry. Information Systems Research, 16(1), 61 - 84. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.1050.0045
  • Zhu, K., Kraemer, K. L., Xu, S. & Dedrick, J. (2004). Information technology payoff in e-business environments: An international perspective on value creation of e-business in the financial service industry. Journal of Management Information Systems, 21(1), 17-54. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07421222.2004.11045797

Downloads

Full-text downloads recorded for this article, by month.

No downloads have been recorded for this article yet. Figures appear here once readers begin downloading the full text.

How to Cite

Mohamad, R., & Ismail, N. A. (2013). The Extent of E-Business Usage and Perceived Cumulative Benefits: A Survey on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. Information Management and Business Review, 5(1), 13-19. https://doi.org/10.22610/imbr.v5i1.1023

Share this article

License

Copyright (c) 2013 Rosli Mohamad, Noor Azizi Ismail (Author)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Author (s) should affirm that the material has not been published previously. It has not been submitted and it is not under consideration by any other journal. At the same time author (s) need to execute a publication permission agreement to assume the responsibility of the submitted content and any omissions and errors therein. After submission of revised paper in the light of suggestions of the reviewers, the editorial team  edits and formats manuscripts to bring uniformity and standardization in published material.

This work will be licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) and under condition of the license, users are free to read, copy, remix, transform, redistribute, download, print, search or link to the full texts of articles and even build upon their work as long as they credit the author for the original work. Moreover, as per journal policy author (s) hold and retain copyrights without any restrictions.

Keywords

Section

Research Paper

Published in

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2013) E-Business, Retail & Cost Management View issue contents

Published

2013-01-30

Submissions

Have research to publish? Information Management and Business Review welcomes submissions.

Make a Submission