Inter-Country Analysis of Electronic Commerce Adoption in South Eastern Europe: Policy Recommendations for the Region

The 'digital divide' between developed and non-developed countries in terms of adoption of new technologies and particularly the Internet and electronic commerce is a heavily debated issue. In this paper we examine its manifestation in the area of south eastern Europe which is in a less advanced position compared to western Europe. We use data from 8 countries, collected from local key stakeholders such as government agencies and professional bodies. We use a framework developed by King et al. (1994) regarding institutional actions related to IT diffusion and examine the ones pursued by regional policy makers for the diffusion of electronic commerce. The data are presented by using SWOT analysis with the view to portray the situation of electronic commerce adoption in each country under investigation. A collective analysis of the research findings offers the possibility to extract the "success factors " in government intervention in supporting electronic commerce diffusion. Our aim is to provide recommendations about good practices in electronic commerce policy making in the region towards the elimination of the digital divide with western Europe.