Deakin home > Deakin University Library > Deakin Research Online > Small firm e-business adoption : a critical analysis of theory
Openly accessible

Small firm e-business adoption : a critical analysis of theory

Parker, Craig and Castleman, Tanya 2009, Small firm e-business adoption : a critical analysis of theory, Journal of enterprise information management, vol. 22, no. 1/2, pp. 167-182.

Attached Files (Some files may be inaccessible until you login with your Deakin Research Online credentials)
Name Description MIMEType Size Downloads
parker-smallfirm-2009-pp.pdf Author's post print application/pdf 120.28KB 612

Title Small firm e-business adoption : a critical analysis of theory
Author(s) Parker, Craig
Castleman, Tanya
Journal name Journal of enterprise information management
Volume number 22
Issue number 1/2
Start page 167
End page 182
Publisher Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Place of publication Bradford, England
Publication date 2009
ISSN 1741-0398
1758-7409
Keyword(s) business development
business planning
small to medium-sized enterprises
decision making
electronic commerce
Summary Purpose – The paper critiques a range of theories and evaluates their ability to provide a lens for explaining the idiosyncratic nature of small firms and their e-business adoption decisions.

Design/methodology/approach – This literature review firstly summarises the existing research evidence that shows that small firms are idiosyncratic when it comes to e-business adoption. It then critiques theories commonly used in the literature in this field to examine the extent to which they take this small firm idiosyncrasy into account when explaining e-business adoption decisions.

Findings – The critical analysis shows that no commonly-used theory adequately explains small firm adoption of e-business because each omits important aspects of small firm idiosyncrasy. The analysis suggests that an integrated theoretical framework is needed. Preliminary ideas on this framework are provided.

Originality/value – Existing research generally applies a small number of selected theories and formulates research models of adoption factors. However, there is no systematic analysis of theories in this field and no consensus about theoretical frameworks. This paper addresses this limitation of the literature by critically evaluating the commonly used theories in terms of their individual suitability as lenses for explaining small firm e-business adoption.
Notes The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/1741-0398.htm
Language eng
Field of Research 150314 Small Business Management
Socio Economic Objective 970108 Expanding Knowledge in the Information and Computing Sciences
HERDC Research category C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal
HERDC collection year 2009
Copyright notice ©2009, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Persistent URL http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30020783

Connect to link resolver
 
Unless expressly stated otherwise, the copyright for items in Deakin Research Online is owned by the author, with all rights reserved.

Every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that permission has been obtained for items included in DRO. If you believe that your rights have been infringed by this repository, please contact drosupport@deakin.edu.au.

Versions
Version Filter Type
Citation counts: Scopus Citation Count Cited 12 times in Scopus
Access Statistics: 510 Abstract Views, 612 File Downloads  -  Detailed Statistics
Created: Fri, 30 Oct 2009, 15:12:39 EST by Katrina Fleming