E‐Commerce Diffusion in Small Island Countries: The Influence of Institutions in Barbados

This paper concerns the role of institutions in promoting the diffusion of e‐commerce. Using institutional theory as a framework of analysis, the paper evaluates institutional interventions over a six‐year period in Barbados and how that impacted on the national environment for e‐commerce. The paper explicates the institutional powers of influence and regulation in the context of the ideologies of market supply and demand for e‐commerce. It concludes that at the early stage of e‐commerce diffusion both public and external institutions play key roles in creating conducive conditions and in providing the impetus necessary for the spread of e‐commerce respectively. However, the sustainability of e‐commerce depends on ”bottom‐up” entrepreneurial mobilization to maintain the momentum for growth “top‐down” interventions create.