[...]... factors highlighted earlier (Al-Qirim & Corbitt, 2002a) A review of the technological innovation adoption literature on SMEs provides useful insights into factors influencing innovation adoption, but points to the need to introduce additional determinants of innovation adoption (Fichman, 1992) to SMEs research (Thong, 1999) Driven by the importance of introducing more potential determinants to e -commerce. .. A (1999) Tuning small business for electronic commerce: Consultants say business consulting is essential, even in e -commerce Accounting Technology, 15(11), 48-53 Al-Qirim, N (2002) A meta model of innovation adoption in small business: An electronic commerce perspective Proceedings of the 2002 Information Resources Management Association (IRMA) International Conference, Seattle, Washington (pp 1177-1181)... the preceding process depends in large part on issues pertaining to the product characteristics of these organizations, which in turn points to industry specifics (Al-Qirim & Corbitt, 2002b) Thus, addressing these perspectives could yield further insights pertaining to the ecommerce adoption and diffusion criteria in SMEs In addition to the product or industry perspective, the depth of the e -commerce. .. targeting SMEs are required Thus, researchers extending e -commerce models from large organizations and attempting to apply them to smaller businesses would risk bypassing two main perspectives highlighted above, namely, IS and ecommerce studies in small businesses This could result in misdirecting the whole research endeavor and in having divergent or fruitless results Harrison et al (1997) pointed to. .. collection combining grounded action research, surveys, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis to introduce interesting insights about e -commerce use in the value chain of the automotive industry Chapter 14 introduces the industrial district concept, a structure that can be used to manage relationships between SMEs The authors contend that the introduction of e -commerce to these industrial districts... Al-Qirim capturing the e -commerce perspective from the theoretical and the methodological point of view Addressing the preceding implications in this research could shed some light into some of the gray areas in the e -commerce research in SMEs Introduction In recent years, small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been shown to contribute significantly to national economies It was in the 1970s that... Swatman, P (1999a) An exploratory study of small business Internet commerce issues Information & Management, 35, 9-18 Poon, S., & Swatman, P (1999b) A longitudinal study of expectations in small business Internet commerce International Journal of Electronic Commerce, 3(3), 21-33 Premkumar, G., & Roberts, M (1999) Adoption of new information technologies in rural small businesses The International Journal... pointed to the laggardness of the sector in terms of adopting and using e -commerce Therefore, studying advanced ecommerce issues such as selling and buying goods and collecting payments directly over the Internet is unlikely to yield useful results, and even if they exist, these results will be limited Other e -commerce capability measures such as a change in the financial turnover since adopting e -commerce, ... behind new production processes, new forms of business organization, new scope for consumers, and new market opportunities (MOED, 2000) The open standards of the Internet bring electronic commerce/ business (e -commerce) within the reach of even the smallest firms and help to reduce the gap between large and small firms (Kalakota & Whinston, 1996; MOC, 1998) Businesses are embracing ecommerce in order to. .. electronic commerce success in small business: A meta study Proceedings of the 2002 Information Resources Management Association (IRMA) International Conference, Seattle, Washington (pp 798-802) Al-Qirim, N., & Corbitt, B (2002b) An empirical investigation of an e -commerce adoption model in small to medium-sized enterprises in New Zealand Proceedings of the 6th Pacific Asia Conference on Information . combining grounded action research, surveys, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis to introduce interesting insights about e -commerce use in the value chain of the automotive industry. Chapter. that re-engineering among small firms has not yet occurred, and points to the importance of re-engineering internal processes for firms to benefit from e -commerce. Examining firms in the context. main issues pertaining to e -Commerce, theory and methodology. This book’s timing is significant as it addresses the next step in taking e- Commerce research in small business to a further level