The Adoption of E-commerce in SMEs: The Role of Strategic Alliances

The past decade has seen a ?push? by governments for small businesses to adopt and use e-commerce technologies. Part of many of these government initiatives has been for small businesses to form clusters or strategic alliances prior to adopting e-commerce so that they can compete with larger businesses. This study compares the adoption of e-commerce by small businesses that are part of an alliance with those that are not connected to any form of alliance. Two locations were investigated, Sweden and Australia. The results, which should be useful both to small business owner/managers and relevant government agencies, show that while differences do exist, they are far from universal.