E-commerce adoption in developing countries: a case analysis of environmental and organisational inhibitors

A number of studies have been conducted on e-commerce and other technology adoption. However, most of these studies have been conducted in developed countries. Developing countries have been slow in fitting into the global digital market. This study attempts to take a comprehensive look at e-commerce development in a developing country, Botswana, which has a very good and well managed economy. The results of the study show that environmental factors affecting the adoption of e-commerce include the internet marketing factor and customer/logistic factor. Though security factor is an issue, it is not statistically significant because other factors, especially organisational such as management support, information availability and communications impact on the organisation's intention and ability to adopt e-commerce. Firm size and gender also affect the intention to and ability to adopt e-commerce.