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E-Commerce and SMEs1
E-Commerce and SMEs1
Article
E-commerce drivers and barriers and their impact
on e-customer loyalty in small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMES)
Suggested Citation: Al-Tit, Ahmad (2020) : E-commerce drivers and barriers and their impact on
e-customer loyalty in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMES), Verslas: Teorija ir praktika /
Business: Theory and Practice, ISSN 1822-4202, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University,
Vilnius, Vol. 21, Iss. 1, pp. 146-157,
https://doi.org/10.3846/btp.2020.11612
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Verslas: Teorija ir praktika / Business: Theory and Practice
ISSN 1648-0627 / eISSN 1822-4202
2020 Volume 21 Issue 1: 146–157
https://doi.org/10.3846/btp.2020.11612
Department of Business and Economics, College of Business and Economics (CBE), Qassim University,
KSA. Al Malida, Buraidah, 15452, Qassim, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Abstract. The aim of this paper is threefold: first to explore the factors that significantly and positively affect the adoption
of e-commerce in SMEs; second, to determine the factors that hinder the adoption of e-commerce in these enterprises;
and, finally, to investigate the impact of e-commerce-related factors on e-customer loyalty. Two samples were used for the
purpose of the current study, the first of which comprised 163 managers of SMEs while the second consisted of 213 cus-
tomers. Data were collected via electronic questionnaires sent to the study participants. The results identified 10 drivers of
e-commerce, which are customer preferences, e-commerce perceived value, partner readiness, e-commerce cost, technical
expertise, customer trust, employee knowledge and experience, top management support, perceived ease of use, and or-
ganizational culture, and 7 barriers to e-commerce adoption, which are employee technology knowledge, telecommunica-
tions, connectivity cost, technical expertise, technology cost, internet security, and legal barriers. Furthermore, the results
highlighted that e-commerce ethics, information quality, customer trust, user interface quality, and customer satisfaction,
respectively, are the main predictors of e-customer loyalty. Basically, organizations are called to adopt e-commerce to in-
crease their customer loyalty. However, organizations should consider the drivers of and barriers to e-commerce adoption
found in the current study.
Keywords: drivers of e-commerce adoption, barriers to e-commerce adoption, factors affecting e-customer loyalty, SMEs.
JEL Classification: M30, M31.
Raudeliūnienė et al. (2018) identified the success factors the utilization of information and communication tech-
of women’s leadership in e-commerce as personal com- nologies and related applications to support the manage-
petences, professional competences, social competences, ment, decision-making processes, and business processes.
management competences, and external factors. Another Sabaitytė et al. (2019) determined the most importance
bundle of the literature includes e-commerce-related top- internet marketing communication elements in the pur-
ics such as customer loyalty in the context of e-commerce chase phase of the e-consumer journey cycle using the
(Srinivasan, Anderson, & Ponnavolu, 2002), emotional mathematical decision tree approach. Al-Tit and Nakhleh
support, informational support, trust, social commerce (2014) explained the role of e-marketing in the devel-
constructs, and social commerce intention (Al-Tit et al., opment of Internet user attitudes. Arshad et al. (2018)
2020). The findings reported in the related works have argued that an enterprise that achieves an interactive
included a number of factors, such as entrepreneurs’ status of e-commerce can be regarded as successful in
achievement orientation, locus of control, and electronic e-commerce adoption. E-commerce adoption has been
service quality (Sebora et al., 2009). To encourage e-com- explored by numerous researchers. The most commonly
merce success, authors (e.g., Agag, 2019; Arshad et al., cited framework of e-commerce adoption is the one in-
2018; Awa, Ojiabo, & Emecheta, 2015a; Awa, Awara, & troduced by Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990), which is the
Lebari, 2015b; Rahayu & Day, 2015; Chuang et al., 2007; technology–organization–environment framework. Ac-
Corbitt, Thanasankit, & Yi, 2003; Eid, 2011; Hussein et al., cording to Awa et al. (2015a, 2015b), and Rahayu and Day
2019) have underlined many factors that improve e-com- (2015), technological factors refer to internal and external
merce adoption and application. Examples of these factors factors, such as technical compatibility, and observability.
include the availability of financial resources, top manage- Organizational factors are factors such as organizational
ment support, involvement in global production networks, culture, centralization, and human resource quality. Final-
technical expertise, and e-commerce’s perceived value and ly, environmental factors include factors concerned with
compatibility as well as the organizational culture. Other competitiveness, partners’ readiness, government support,
factors are related to the customers, like their satisfaction and socio-cultural factors.
(Davidavičienė, Davidavičius, & Kaušinis, 2019), trust, Gibbs et al. (2003) differentiated between business-to-
and support. Technology factors, on the other hand, in- business (B2B) e-commerce and business-to-consumer
clude technology vendors’ support, perceived ease of use, (B2C) e-commerce and indicated that B2B e-commerce is
and cost in addition to some factors like partner readiness affected by global factors while B2C e-commerce is influ-
and employee knowledge and experience. enced by local factors. In their study on the adoption of
In contrast, authors have identified numerous barriers e-commerce applications in SMEs in Spain, Ghobakhloo
to e-commerce adoption, like factors related to infrastruc- et al. (2011) identified seven factors that affect the adop-
ture and external institutional support and socio-cultural tion of e-commerce, which are the CEO’s innovativeness,
and socio-economic factors (Lawrence & Tar, 2010). Some buyer/supplier pressure, technology vendors’ support, in-
of these barriers cited by authors (e.g., Dwivedi, Lal, & formation intensity, competition, e-commerce’s perceived
Williams, 2009; Hallikainen & Laukkanen, 2018; Scupola, relative advantage, and perceived compatibility. Similar to
2009; Van Huy et al., 2012; Zaied, 2012; Almousa, 2013; other studies, not all the proposed factors were found to
Feindt, Jeffcoate, & Chappell, 2002; Rahayu & Day, 2015) exert effects on e-commerce adoption and application. For
embrace the internet connectivity cost, price sensitivity, example, the technology cost and business size were found
brand image, convenience and security, technical exper- by the same authors to have no effect on e-commerce
tise, management and employee technology knowledge, adoption. Daniel et al. (2002) explored the adoption of
technology and e-commerce applications’ cost, customer e-commerce in SMEs in the UK and identified four stages
readiness, payment systems, and legal barriers. To exam- in which enterprises are engaged to adopt e-commerce:
ine the outcomes of e-commerce adoption, such as organi- first, developing e-commerce services, followed by us-
zational performance and customer loyalty, authors (e.g., ing electronic mail to communicate with customers, us-
Eid, 2011; Hua et al., 2019; Srinivasan et al., 2002) have ing websites and developing online ordering, and finally
investigated the effect of some variables, like e-commerce starting online transactions. The authors indicated that the
characteristics, on e-customer loyalty. Following these internal factors, such as the employee turnover, number of
studies, the current study tries to detect the drivers of, bar- employees, and age of the company, have no effect on the
riers to, and positive outcomes of e-commerce adoption. adoption of e-commerce.
Furthermore, nine factors that support the adoption
1. Literature review and hypothesis development of e-commerce by SMEs in Vietnam were identified by
Van Huy et al. (2012): government support, industry
1.1. Factors affecting e-commerce adoption support, enterprise resources, enterprise size, managers’
E-commerce has been defined as an Internet application attitudes towards innovation, competition intensity, em-
used for business transactions and business relation- ployees’ knowledge of e-commerce, customer and sup-
ship maintenance (Awa et al., 2015b). The adoption of plier attitudes, and innovation compatibility. Arshad et al.
e-commerce was defined by Ghobakhloo et al. (2011) as (2018), in their study on the adoption of e-commerce by
148 A. A. Al-Tit. E-commerce drivers and barriers and their impact on e-customer loyalty in small and medium-sized...
SMEs in Malaysia, found that perceived ease of use of e- For the current study, the factors of the technologi-
commerce applications, e-commerce relative advantage, e- cal, organizational, and environmental (TOE) model de-
commerce perceived compatibility, e-commerce security, veloped by Tornatzky and Fleischer, as cited in Hussein
and top management support had significant effects on et al. (2019), were adopted as the drivers of e-commerce
the adoption of e-commerce. On the basis of responses in addition to customer and knowledge factors. That is,
collected from supply chain managers from Jordan, Al- top management support, technical expertise, perceived
saad, Mohamad, and Ismail (2018) tested an e-commerce value of e-commerce, organizational culture, customer
adoption model consisting of four factors, which were trust, customer preferences, e-commerce perceived ease
perceived as desirability, top management support, organi- of use, e-commerce cost, partner readiness, and employee
zational readiness, and competitive pressure, and found knowledge were used as exogenous constructs. Therefore,
that all these factors except organizational readiness had the following hypotheses were developed:
significant effects on the intention to adopt business-to- H1: Top management support exerts a significant effect on
business e-commerce. Gathering qualitative data on the e-commerce adoption.
adoption of e-commerce by SMEs in Nigeria, Ekanem and H2: Technical expertise exerts a significant effect on e-com-
Abiade (2018) found that internet access, an enhanced merce adoption.
banking sector, and an increase in mobile devices as well H3: The perceived value of e-commerce exerts a significant
as changes in customers’ lifestyle were the key factors that effect on e-commerce adoption.
enabled SMEs to adopt e-commerce. The perceived useful- H4: The organizational culture exerts a significant effect on
ness of e-commerce was approved by Hussein et al. (2019) e-commerce adoption.
as a significant mediator in the relationship between e- H5: Customer trust exerts a significant effect on e-com-
commerce’s relative advantage and information intensity merce adoption.
and its continued use. H6: Customer preferences exert a significant effect on
e-commerce adoption.
Table 1. Factors that affect e-commerce adoption H7: E-commerce’s perceived ease of use exerts a significant
effect on e-commerce adoption.
E-commerce adoption drivers Scholars H8: E-commerce’s cost exerts a significant effect on e-com-
Financial resources
merce adoption.
Top management support H9: Partner readiness exerts a significant effect on e-com-
Involvement in global merce adoption.
production networks Agag (2019), H10: Employee knowledge exerts a significant effect on
Potential profitability of Alsaad et al.
(2018), Al-Tit e-commerce adoption.
Organi e-commerce
zational Technical expertise and Nakhleh
factors CEO’s innovativeness (2014), Arshad 1.2. Barriers to e-commerce adoption
E-commerce perceived et al. (2018), Awa
value et al. (2015a, Despite the advantageous usage of e-commerce to achieve
E-commerce perceived 2015b), Chuang positive organizational outcomes, researchers have deter-
compatibility et al. (2007), mined that the adoption and application of e-commerce
Organizational culture Corbitt et al. can be deactivated due to several barriers, such as a lack of
(2003), Daniel
Customer preferences et al. (2002), adequate infrastructure and the absence of national infor-
Customer
Trust Dwivedi et al. mation and communication technology strategies (Law-
factors
Customer support (2009), Eid (2011), rence & Tar, 2010). Regarding the barriers to e-commerce
Information infrastructure Ekanem and adoption among SMEs in Egypt, Zaied (2012) found that
Cost Abiade (2018), technical and legal barriers, a lack of internet security,
Reliability Gefen (2000),
Technology Technology vendors’ Ghobakhloo et al. and limited use of internet banking and web portals by
factors support (2011), Gibbs those enterprises are the most pivotal barriers that hinder
Technology perceived et al. (2003), the adoption of e-commerce adoption. In fact, the author
usefulness Hallikainen identified about thirty barriers to e-commerce adoption
Perceived ease of use and Laukkanen concerning government regulations and policy, competi-
Formal rules and (2018), Hussein
et al. (2019), tiveness, cultural differences, and innovativeness as well
regulations as a lack of e-commerce advantages, a lack of financial
Environ Raudeliūnienė
Partner readiness
mental et al. (2018), resources, technical expertise, e-commerce infrastructure,
Global and local
factors Scupola (2009), and internet security. Scupola (2009) conducted a study on
competition
Socio-cultural factors Van Huy et al. Denmark and Australia and underlined some e-commerce
(2012), Wymer
Innovativeness and Regan (2005), barriers like employees’ low level of information technolo-
Employee knowledge and Al-Tit et al. gy, absence of innovativeness and managerial time, visible
Knowledge experience (2020). evaluation of e-commerce returns, and cost. Van Huy et al.
factors Information intensity
(2012) identified two factors that have negative effects on
Need for e-commerce
adoption e-commerce adoption, which were innovation complexity
and e-commerce perceived risk.
Business: Theory and Practice, 2020, 21(1): 146–157 149
Table 2. Barriers affecting e-commerce adoption H19: Internet security exerts a negative effect on e-commerce
adoption.
E-commerce adoption barriers Scholars H20: Legal barriers exert a negative effect on e-commerce
Employee technology adoption.
knowledge
Organi Lack of CEO’s
zational innovativeness
1.3. Effects of e-commerce adoption and application
barriers Lack of managerial time The positive effects of e-commerce adoption are numer-
Managerial e-commerce Agag (2019), ous. Examples include a positive economic impact (Wong,
experience Chuang et al. (2007),
2003). According to Srinivasan et al. (2002), characteristics
Infra Telecommunications Corbitt et al. (2003),
structure Connectivity cost Dwivedi et al. such as customization, contact interactivity, cultivation,
barriers Technical expertise (2009), Eid (2011), care, community, choice, and character have significant
Technology cost
Ghobakhloo et al. effects on customer e-loyalty. A study by Eid (2011) from
(2011), Gibbs et al. Saudi Arabia found that e-commerce customers’ loyalty is
Technology Internet security
(2003), Hallikainen
barriers Limited usage/ strongly affected by their satisfaction and weakly affected
and Laukkanen
bandwidth by customer trust. The author examined the following fac-
(2018), Lawrence
Legal barriers and Tar (2010), tors: information quality, user interface quality, perceived
External Lack of customer Scupola (2009), Van security, and perceived privacy. The results indicated that
barriers readiness Huy et al. (2012), the culture of Saudi Arabia, information, and user inter-
Socio- Lack of transactional Zaied (2012),
cultural trust face quality of e-commerce services are significant drivers
Almousa (2013).
barriers Social status of e-commerce satisfaction and loyalty and that customer
Language satisfaction is a significant predictor of customer loyalty.
Socio- Educational system In Lithuania, the study by Davidavičienė, Davidavičius,
economic Economic conditions and Kaušinis (2019) explained the importance of consum-
barriers Payment system ers’ perception and understanding of service quality and
e-logistic services in e-commerce satisfaction.
According to Chuang et al. (2007), there is a signifi- Specifically, some authors have investigated particular
cant impact of managerial experience on the adoption of factors, such as e-commerce ethics, of the customer-relat-
e-commerce by SMEs. In the current study, managerial ed factors. Agag (2019) explored the effect of e-commerce
experience was categorized as an organizational barrier. ethics on customers’ repurchase intention and loyalty us-
Examining the main global, policy, and environmental ing data from SMEs in Egypt and showed that customers’
factors based on systematic comparisons of case stud- perceptions of e-commerce providers’ ethics had a signifi-
ies selected from 10 countries, specifically Brazil, China, cant impact on their repurchase intention and loyalty. The
Denmark, Germany, Japan, France, Mexico, Singapore, author measured e-commerce providers’ ethics through
Taiwan, and the United States, Gibbs et al. (2003) found communication, security, non-deception, reliability,
that trade and communication liberalization had the larg-
est impact on e-commerce diffusion. Other factors related Table 3. Effects of e-commerce on other variables
to e-commerce were legislation and customer trust.
To investigate the effect of 10 barriers to e-commerce Independent
Mediating/
Dependent
adoption out of those cited in Table 2 using our data, the moderating Scholars
variable variable
variable
following hypotheses were developed:
H11: Employee technology knowledge exerts a negative effect E-commerce
on e-commerce adoption. characteristics:
customization,
H12: The CEO’s innovativeness exerts a negative effect on contact Srinivasan
e-commerce adoption. Customer
interactivity, – et al.
e-loyalty
H13: Managerial time exerts a negative effect on e-com- cultivation, care, (2002)
merce adoption. community,
choice, and
H14: Managerial e-commerce experience exerts a negative character
effect on e-commerce adoption.
Customer
H15: Telecommunications exert a negative effect on e-com- E-commerce
satisfaction E-customer Eid
merce adoption. service
Customer loyalty (2011)
characteristics
H16: The connectivity cost exerts a negative effect on e-com- trust
merce adoption. Loyalty E-commerce Organizational Hua et al.
H17: Technical expertise exerts a negative effect on e-com- programmes initiatives performance (2019)
merce adoption. Relationship Customer
H18: The technology cost exerts a negative effect on e-com- E-commerce quality repurchase Agag
merce adoption. ethics (trust and intention and (2019)
satisfaction) loyalty
150 A. A. Al-Tit. E-commerce drivers and barriers and their impact on e-customer loyalty in small and medium-sized...
2.3. Measures
Factors that affect the adoption of e-commerce, repre-
sented by organizational factors, customer factors, tech-
nology factors, knowledge factors, and environmental
factors, were measured using 40 items. As illustrated in
Figure 1, there were 10 sub-factors, each of which was
assessed by 4 items (Corbitt et al., 2003; Gefen, 2000;
Ghobakhloo et al., 2011; Gibbs et al., 2003; Wymer &
Regan, 2005). Figure 3. Conceptual model 3
Business: Theory and Practice, 2020, 21(1): 146–157 151
E-commerce adoption was measured on the basis of Table 4. Rotated component matrix of e-commerce drivers
the related literature using factors concerning the same
construct. Most studies that have examined e-commerce Factors and
Items SFL AVE √AVE ω
indicators
have mixed measures of e-commerce; hence, the cur-
rent study separates the items used to measure the in- 01 0.980
dependent variables and the dependent variable. In this Top 02 0.984
study, e-commerce is the dependent variable. According management 0.962 0.981 0.992
support 03 0.973
to Ghobakhloo et al. (2011), e-commerce is the utiliza-
04 0.986
tion of information and communication technologies and
related applications to support management, decision- 05 0.858
making processes, and business processes. Consequently, Technical 06 0.884
0.716 0.846 0.909
the items used to measure e-commerce adoption in this expertise 07 0.792
study covered issues associated with the adoption of e- 08 0.847
commerce applications to assist in the decision-making,
09 0.859
business, and managerial processes. Four items were used
E-commerce 10 0.892
to evaluate e-commerce adoption. perceived 0.761 0.872 0.927
The barriers that affect e-commerce adoption were value 11 0.873
measured as organizational barriers, infrastructure bar- 12 0.866
riers, technology barriers, socio-cultural barriers, and 13 0.912
socio-economic barriers. As shown in Figure 2, 10 bar- Organi 14 0.884
riers were used. Examples of these barriers include em- zational 0.784 0.885 0.936
ployee technology knowledge, technology costs, and legal culture 15 0.880
barriers. A total of 30 items were used to assess the e- 16 0.866
commerce barriers. 17 0.926
Furthermore, the e-commerce user interface and in- 18 0.964
Customer
formation quality were evaluated following Eid (2011), 0.904 0.950 0.974
trust 19 0.982
while customer satisfaction and customer trust were
measured following Kassim and Abdullah (2010). Final- 20 0.929
ly, items of e-commerce ethics were adapted from Agag 21 0.943
(2019). Overall, these accounted for 15 items. Following 22 0.959
Customer
Srinivasan et al. (2002), e-customer loyalty was measured 0.865 0.930 0.962
preferences 23 0.932
using customization and contact interactivity. Customiza-
tion was measured through 4 items related to the match 24 0.884
between customer needs and business recommendations, 25 0.919
business promotions, product orders, and e-commerce Perceived 26 0.918
service customization, while contact interactivity was as- 0.805 0.897 0.820
ease of use 27 Removed
sessed through 3 items concerning product comparisons,
28 0.853
product views, and product location. In total, 7 items were
used to appraise e-customer loyalty. 29 0.982
E-commerce 30 0.970
0.900 0.948 0.973
cost 31 0.943
3. Results
32 0.898
3.1. E-commerce drivers
33 0.950
The results shown in Table 4 describe the rotated compo- 34 0.953
Partner
nent matrix of e-commerce drivers, which was extracted readiness
0.930 0.964 0.982
35 0.983
using IBM SPSS 24.0 and AMOS 22.0.
The results in Table 4 confirm that the items used to 36 0.971
assess the drivers of e-commerce (1–40) loaded on 10 37 0.891
Employee
factors, except item no. 27, which was removed due to knowledge 38 0.953
cross-loading. The scree plot of these factors can be seen 0.852 0.923 0.958
and 39 0.955
in Figure 4. Following Al-Tit (2016) and Rahman et al. experience
40 0.892
(2016), the average variance extracted (AVE) was em-
ployed to assess the convergent validity. It was noted that
the scale used in this study is valid, since all the values of Reliability, in the current study, was determined on the
the AVE were acceptable, that is, greater than 0.50. The basis of McDonald’s omega coefficient (ω). An important
discriminant validity, on the other hand, was rated using assumption of Cronbach’s alpha coefficient is that this
the square root of the AVE (√AVE). It was also confirmed. test is essentially tau equivalent (Al-Tit, 2016; Green &
152 A. A. Al-Tit. E-commerce drivers and barriers and their impact on e-customer loyalty in small and medium-sized...
Table 6. Rotated component matrix of e-commerce adoption Table 8. Rotated component matrix of e-customer loyalty
Figure 6. Results of the hypothesis testing (H1–H10) Figure 7. Results of the hypothesis testing (H11–H20)
0.38, CR = 7.01, P = 0.001), internet security (ß = 0.27, accepted. Therefore, the factors examined in this study
CR = 4.65, P = 0.001), telecommunications (ß = 0.18, were found to exert significant effects on e-customer loy-
CR = 3.77, P = 0.004), and legal barriers (ß = 0.11, CR = alty. In particular, e-commerce ethics was the most signifi-
2.99, P = 0.000). Furthermore, the results, as illustrated in cant factor that affects e-customer loyalty (ß = 0.38, CR =
Figure 7, showed that three variables were not found to 14.39, P = 0.000).
exert significant effects on e-commerce adoption. Those In the second order, information quality was found to
factors are a lack of CEO’s innovativeness (CEOI), lack exert a significant effect on e-customer loyalty (ß = 0.33,
of managerial time (MAT), and managerial e-commerce CR = 13.25, P = 0.002), followed by customer trust (ß =
experience (MAE). 0.31, CR = 12.36, P = 0.000), user interface quality (ß =
Concerning the factors affecting e-customer loyalty, as 0.29, CR = 11.02, P = 0.000), and customer satisfaction
postulated in hypotheses (H21–H25), the results reported (ß = 0.28, CR = 10.89, P = 0.001).
in Table 11 and Figure 8 indicate that the hypotheses were
Table 11. Results of the factors affecting e-customer loyalty
Table 10. Results of the hypotheses related to e-commerce Default paths ß C.R. P
drivers
User interface
→ 0.29 11.02 0.000
Default paths ß C.R. P quality (UIQ)
Information quality
Employee technology → 0.33 13.25 0.002
→ 0.31 6.730 0.000 (INQ)
knowledge (ETK)
Customer E-customer
Lack of CEO’s → 0.28 10.89 0.001
satisfaction (CSS) loyalty
innovativeness → 0.09 0.781 0.271
(CEOI) Customer trust
→ 0.31 12.36 0.000
(CUT)
Lack of managerial
→ 0.07 0.131 0.314 E-commerce ethics
time (MAT) → 0.38 14.39 0.000
(ETH)
Managerial
e-commerce → 0.02 1.424 0.083
experience (MAE)
E-com
Telecommunications
→ merce 0.18 3.771 0.004
Discussion and conclusions
(TEL) adoption
Connectivity cost
→ 0.46 8.184 0.000
(CNC)
Technical expertise
→ 0.38 7.013 0.001
(TEE)
Technology cost
→ 0.43 7.941 0.000
(TCC)
Internet security
→ 0.27 4.652 0.001
(INS)
Legal barriers (LGB) → 0.11 2.997 0.000
Figure 8. Results of hypothesis testing (H21–H25)
Business: Theory and Practice, 2020, 21(1): 146–157 155
The aim of this study was threefold: first, to explore the e-customer loyalty is strongly affected by customer sat-
factors that affect e-commerce adoption; second, to exam- isfaction while being weakly affected by customer trust.
ine the barriers that hinder the adoption of e-commerce in Furthermore, Agag (2019) emphasized a positive effect of
SMEs; and, third, to investigate the effect of some factors e-commerce ethics on e-customer loyalty. These results are
on e-customer loyalty. The results highlighted 10 drivers similar to the results found in the current study.
of e-commerce adoption, which were customer prefer- On the basis of the current results, it was concluded
ences, e-commerce perceived value, partner readiness, that e-commerce adoption can be enhanced using several
e-commerce cost, technical expertise, customer trust, em- factors. An organization that intends to adopt e-commerce
ployee knowledge and experience, top management sup- should consider several factors concerning the charac-
port, perceived ease of use, and organizational culture. teristics of the management of the organization, like top
In fact, the factors investigated in this study as drivers management support, employees’ knowledge and experi-
of e-commerce adoption were chosen from related works; ence, the technology cost and experience, and e-commerce
therefore, numerous studies have found similar results to perceived value, ease of use, and cost in addition to other
those of the current study. Awa et al. (2015a), referring factors, such as partners’ readiness and organizational cul-
to Tornatzky and Fleischer’s (1990) e-commerce adop- ture. A final important note is that customer trust and
tion framework, identified technological factors, organi- satisfaction are key factors of e-commerce adoption. Be-
zational factors, and environmental factors as key drivers yond that, a lack of these factors, in addition to other fac-
of e-commerce adoption. In agreement with them, the tors, such as internet security and legal regulations, are
current study found that organizational factors, like the considered to be significant barriers to e-commerce adop-
organizational culture, and environmental factors, such as tion. Eventually, when adopting e-commerce, a focus on
partner readiness, are significant predictors of e-commerce variables like customer trust and satisfaction, information
adoption. The factors found in the current study echoed quality, user interface quality, and e-commerce ethics is
those of previous studies, including e-commerce perceived important to guide the organization to maintain customer
value (Ghobakhloo et al., 2011), employee knowledge of e- loyalty in the context of e-commerce business.
commerce (Van Huy et al., 2012), perceived ease of use of
e-commerce applications, e-commerce relative advantage, Limitations and recommendations
e-commerce perceived compatibility, e-commerce securi-
ty, top management support (Arshad et al., 2018), internet Despite the literature review presented in this study, not
access (Ekanem & Abiade, 2018), and perceived usefulness all dimensions that have an effect on e-commerce adop-
of e-commerce (Hussein et al., 2019). On the other hand, tion were considered. In a study by Hallikainen and Lauk-
some scholars have found, in contrast to our results, that kanen (2018) on e-commerce trust using a sample consist-
some factors, such as technology cost, have no influence ing of customers from China and Finland, the national
on e-commerce adoption (Ghobakhloo et al., 2011). culture was found to play a significant role as a predictor
Concerning the barriers to e-commerce adoption, the of perceived trust in e-commerce stores. Therefore, it is
results highlighted seven barriers to e-commerce adoption, recommended that more factors with a potential effect
which are employee technology knowledge, telecommuni- on e-commerce adoption should be examined. Kahraman
cations, connectivity cost, technical expertise, technology et al. (2019) carried out a study on Turkish online consum-
cost, internet security, and legal barriers. Differently, the ers and found that their behaviours are affected by their
CEO’s innovativeness, managerial time, and managerial e- demographic characteristics. In the current study, the de-
commerce experience have no influence on e-commerce mographic characteristics of local customers were not ex-
as barriers to this construct. Prior works on e-commerce amined; therefore, it is suggested that future studies con-
barriers have elucidated some barriers, like the absence sider such factors. Agag’s (2019) model of e-commerce’s
of communication technology strategies (Lawrence & Tar, impact on customer repurchase intention and loyalty
2010; Sabaitytė et al., 2019), technical and legal barriers, through relationship quality contains three control vari-
a lack of internet security (Zaied, 2012), employees’ low ables, which are firm age, firm size, and firm–customer
level of information technology, absence of innovativeness relationship length. Firm characteristics were not studied
and managerial time, visible evaluation of e-commerce in this paper. Therefore, future research on e-commerce
returns, cost (Scupola, 2009), and e-commerce perceived effects should consider firm characteristics.
risk (Van Huy et al., 2012).
Regarding the factors that affect e-customer loyalty, Acknowledgements
the results showed that the endogenous construct is influ-
enced by e-commerce ethics, information quality, custom- The author would like to thank all who participated in
er trust, user interface quality, and customer satisfaction, this research.
respectively, which are the main predictors of e-customer
loyalty. Srinivasan et al. (2002) found that e-customer loy- Disclosure statement
alty is affected by characteristics such as customization,
contact interactivity, cultivation, care, community, choice, The author does not have any conflict of interest.
and character. Additionally, Eid (2011) concluded that
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