Title: Factors affecting the adoption of e-commerce in SMEs in Kenya

Authors: Jimmy Macharia

Addresses: School of Business, United States International University, P.O. Box 14634-00800, Nairobi, Kenya

Abstract: Research has shown that Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are rapidly adopting the electronic commerce (e-commerce), to enable them to compete on par with their larger counterparts. Previous studies have indicated that significant benefits are achieved by those SMEs that adopt and use e-commerce in their organisations. However, such benefits have not been realised in SMEs in developing economies like Kenya owing to the slow adoption of e-commerce. Consequently, this paper establishes that there exists a positive relationship between costs of e-commerce implementation, Information Technology (IT) skills and training, with e-commerce adoption by SMEs.

Keywords: SMEs; small and medium-sized enterprises; e-commerce adoption; IT skills; training; technology intelligence; information technology; Kenya; electronic commerce.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTIP.2009.029377

International Journal of Technology Intelligence and Planning, 2009 Vol.5 No.4, pp.386 - 401

Published online: 28 Nov 2009 *

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