Environment and Policy Factors Shaping Global E-Commerce Diffusion: A Cross-Country Comparison

By Jennifer L. Gibbs, Kenneth L. Kraemer, Jason L. Dedrick. The Information Society, 2003

438 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article examines the key global, environmental and policy factors that act as determinants of e-commerce diffusion. It is based on systematic comparison of case studies from 10 countries--Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Mexico, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States. It finds that B2B e-commerce seems to be driven by global forces, whereas B2C seems to be more of a local phenomenon. A preliminary explanation for this difference is that B2B is driven by global competition and MNCs that "push" e-commerce to their global suppliers, customers, and subsidiaries. This in turn creates pressures on local companies to adopt e-commerce to stay competitive. In contrast, B2C is "pulled" by consumer markets, which are mainly local and therefore divergent. While all consumers desire convenience and low prices, consumer preferences and values, national culture, and distribution systems differ markedly across countries and define differences in local consumer markets. These findings support the transformation perspective about globalization and its impacts. In terms of policy, the case studies suggest that enabling policies such as trade and telecommunications liberalization are likely to have the biggest impact on e-commerce, by making ICT and Internet access more affordable to firms and consumers, and increasing pressure on firms to adopt e-commerce to compete. Specific e-commerce legislation appears not to have as big an impact, although inadequate protection for both buyers and sellers in some countries suggests that mechanisms need to be developed to ensure greater confidence in doing business online.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Media Technology, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7854987fa9390804d1abd1d98e0e8f1bbc739b86

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Citations in the corpus

Barriers to e-commerce and competitive business models in developing countries: A case study (2007, background): “relationships threaten established interpersonal networks [46].”
Business-to-business adoption of eCommerce in China (2007, background): “While large firms are usually in possession of more technology, finance and human resources, which are called ‘Resource Advantages’ [84] that they can use to leverage eCommerce investment over a large revenue base [25], they also have a great disadvantage known as ‘Structural Inertia’ [84].”
A Cross-Country Investigation of the Determinants of Scope of E-commerce Use: An Institutional Approach (2004, methodology): “The two policy dimensions were derived from prior research examining national environment and policy factors (Gibbs et al. 2003; Kraemer et al. 2002).”
Open data policies, their implementation and impact: A framework for comparison (2014, background): “…Eskelinen et al. (2008) Organizational environment, social and cultural factors (e.g. consumer preferences), market environment, information infrastructure Gibbs et al. (2003), Eskelinen et al. (2008) Legislation and regulation Gibbs et al. (2003), De Bruijn et al. (2002), Eskelinen et al. (2008)”
Factors affecting e-commerce adoption among SMEs in Ghana (2016, background): “Government Support The key government initiatives (infrastructure & policy) for e-commerce diffusion Gibbs et al. (2003)”