Measuring E-commerce Adoption in Enterprises in Shaanxi in China

摘要

Purpose - This study aims to gain an in-depth understanding of e-commerce adoption in enterprises in Shaanxi and unveil some concealed issues. Design/methodology - Phase I: Based on studying related surveys of domestic and foreign organizations, new metrics for measuring e-commerce is presented in enterprises, covering models related to readiness, usage intensity, and impact of e-commerce according to OECD model design principle, where readiness is measured from infrastructure, human capital, driver and obstacle, and usage intensity from dealings, security and potential, and impact from electronic-performed business processes; Phase Ⅱ: With the help of our government, a questionnaire survey was conducted in Shaanxi, and near 300 enterprises participated in during 2004 to 2005, including 30% of large and medium-sized enterprises (LMEs) located in 11 cities and regions in Shaanxi; Phase Ⅲ: 15 responding enterprises were interviewed to inquire about B2B e-commerce platforms: Phase Ⅳ: data analyses are performed by qualitative quantitative approach. Findings first, certain foundation is ready for e-commerce but there are much differences among different-sized enterprises or different sectors, and main barriers lies with inability to adopt the technologies or lack of in-home technical expertise: second, e-commerce usage intensity is poor though most of enterprises implement e-commerce activities, and e-commerce has an impact on each department in enterprises but complex e-commerce initiatives are less relatively; and third, from interviews, we found that B2B e-commerce is the major in enterprises and all the interviewees showed great interests in B2B e-commerce platforms especially exported-oriented ones. Conclusions - The study is more comprehensive because of the improved metrics based on an integrative approach. The level of e-commerce adoption in enterprises in Shaanxi is close to that in developed areas: and Internet application in enterprises is making the transition to e-commerce from information management; and export-oriented e-commerce development is at the initial stage of high-speed growth and corresponding platform construction should be a development direction in the near future.