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701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Suite 200, Hershey PA 17033-1240, USA International Journal of Cases on Electronic Commerce, 2(4), 3-54, Oct-Dec 2006 3 Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com This paper appears in the publication, International Journal of Cases on Electronic Commerce, Commerce, Volume 2, Issue 4 edited by Mehdi Khosrow-Pour © 2006, Idea Group Inc.
The Role of E-Commer E-Commerce ce Adoption Adoption Among Small Businesses: An Eplorator Stud Pauline Ratnasingam, Central Missouri State University, USA
ExECUTIVE SUMMARy The small business sector is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy. Firms are becoming increasingly dependent on Internet-enabled IT solutions for their day to day operations. This study aims to examine the impact of e-commerce adoption in the agricultural industry. We examine the benets and risks small businesses experience in adopting e-commerce. Based on previous research, we categorized benets as operational, economic, and strategic benets and risks as technological, organizational, and external (or environmental) risks. The framework of benets and risks was tested via in-depth case studies in two rms. Both case study rms in this article are located in the state of Missouri in the United States. We discuss the ndings and highlight the challenges and lessons learned leading to the contributions to practice, theory, and directions for future research. Keywords: economic benets; external risks; risks; operational benets; organizational risks; small business; strategic benets; technological risks
ORGANIZATION BACKGROUND AND CASE DESCRIPTION Both case study rms in this article are located in the state of Missouri in the United States. Firm A is a seed manufacturer and seller of wild ower and bird seeds located in Kingsville. It is a family owned business with 10 employees, and the owner has been in this business for 23 years. They sell a variety of wild owers seeds including the annual mix, shade, and suns. They also supply bird seeds to regular stores and residential customers, and fulll large bids from the
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government for beautifying the land, such as the city of Blue Springs and the Tiffany Springs highway. Their main form of e-commerce applications include their business to consumer Web site implemented in 2003, e-mail, and fax. Firm B is a retail store that sells bird seeds, backyard birding supplies, accessories, and gifts located in Independence. They have four employees and use an Internet-enabled intranet system called the “Top Flight,” implemented by their head ofce located in Maryland. The system helps them track inventory and sales, and they are planning to build a business to consumer shopping cart in the near future. The owner bought over an existing franchise for the past two years and they serve the customers locally in the Independence, Lee Summit, and Blue Springs areas. Their business documents include purchase orders, invoices, and packing slips. They also use the fax and telephone extensively. Table 1 presents the background information of both rms that participated in this study. SETTING THE STAGE E-commerce provides different opportunities to small businesses, as it overcomes part of their technical, environmental, organizational, and managerial inadequacies (Bergeron, Raymond & Rivard, 2001; Hussin, King & Cragg, 2002). The U.S. economy has slowly evolved into a two-tiered structure: giant corporations and the vast number of small rms. According to Forrester Research,
Table 1. Background information of the rms Background Characteristics Firm A Type of industry Agricultural industry
Type of ownership Number of employees
Firm B Agricultural industry Family owned – bought over an existing franchise – head ofce in Maryland
Family owned 10
Type of e-commerce system Type and number of customers/business partners
B2C Regular store customers, government bid contracts, Web customers $1.5 million
Annual revenue in US$ How long have they being in 23 years business?
Mode of attracting customers
Advertise in the local newspaper, Web page
4 Intranets via IT software solutions “Top Flight” Regular customers who visit their store $400,000 2 years Advertise in the local newspaper, direct mail, Web page, and the head ofce sends out a franchise newsletter six times a year.
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e-commerce in the United States will grow at 19%, reaching $230 billion by 2008. Further, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimated that in the year 2003 there were 27 million small business tax returns. The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) denes a small business as “an independent business having fewer than 500 employees or is independently owned and not dominant in its eld of operation.” Therefore e-commerce in a small business setting is dened as “the use of Internet or Web technologies and applications to support business activities of a small rm.” The growth of small businesses in the United States is prevalent and they serve an important and integral part of the nation’s economy (Hambrick & Crozier, 1985). For example, they employ more than one-half of the U.S. private sector workforce and are responsible for about one-half of the GDP (Ibrahim, Angelidids & Parsa, 2004). In fact, SMEs employ half of all the private sector employees and generate 60-80% of new jobs annually. It was noted that SMEs play a critical role in nurturing industrial innovation, constituting 40% of highly innovative rms in the year 2002 (Bharati & Chaudhury, 2005). While it is true that small rms play an increasingly crucial role in U.S. economy, there is limited research on their success. Research suggests that although most small businesses were contracted to the Internet, the potential use of the Internet in their business was rarely explored. Similarly, previous research suggests that despite its close proximity, small businesses are more challenged than larger rms by resource constraints, such as lack of nancial capital and technical expertise, that often reduces the number and type of options available to management (Hodgetts & Kuratko, 2001). Further, SMEs are characterized by diversity, which posed to be one of the main challenges in analyzing them, as they lacked homogeneity. Small businesses are typically characterized by a at organizational hierarchy and proximity to coworkers, thereby contributing to effective communication practices (Vinten, 1999; Wickert & Herschel, 2001). The communications are typically carried out face-to-face as the need arises, rather than applying formal standard operating procedures. Hence, small businesses differ from large rms because their decision making is centralized and is mostly the responsibility of the owner. The rationale for examining the benets and risks is to provide an evolution of change and growth of the rm’s highs and lows of e-commerce adoption. For example, the benets examine factors that contribute to gains and prots, while the risks examine factors that contribute to vulnerabilities and threats. BENEFITS OF E-COMMERCE ADOPTION The interactive nature of the Web permits access to greater amounts of dynamic information and supports queries for decision making. Previous research
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42 International Journal of Cases on Electronic Commerce, 2(4), 3-54, Oct-Dec 2006
categorized benets as operational, economic, and strategic, as is discussed in the next section. Operational Benets Operational benets refer to positive opportunities and efciencies that arise from the automation of Internet-enabled IT or e-commerce applications. They include:
•
•
Improved communication efciencies from e-commerce applications via e-mail or having a Web page that provides catalog information, thereby maintaining a consistent, updated communication ow between the rm, its customers, and business partners Small businesses are able to send and receive accurate, timely information . Further, they are able to maintain a mutual access to databases, thereby permitting employees within the same rm to share both internal and external data via intranets. This leads to increased operational efciencies, as information is readily available to make effective decisions , better customer service, and increased ability to compete, thereby contributing to reduced lead-time, increased customer satisfaction, and more effective cash ow management (Pughoeft, Ramamurthy, Soo, Yasai-Ardekani & Zahedi, 2003; Senn, 2000).
Economic Benets Economic benets are derived from direct nancial gains from implementing Internet-enabled IT solutions and e-commerce applications. They include:
•
•
•
Automation of standard operational procedures, thereby providing greater internal and external control of work procedures and leading to reduced time and costs and increased sales (Premkumar, 2003). Increased productivity , as e-commerce assists small rms to increase their market scope beyond their regional borders to attract customers nationally and globally, thereby increasing their prots. Further, small businesses are able to secure their position through improved communications with other large and small rms (Pughoeft et al., 2003). Small businesses try very hard to meet their customers’ needs as they focus on high quality services that satisfy and improved customer relationships. Further, they experience fewer complaints and in the long run are able to build a trustworthy relationship with their customers and business partners, thereby creating repeat business.
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Strategic Benets Strategic benets refer to longer term gains that small businesses benet from developing closer ties with their customers and suppliers from using IT and e-commerce applications to improve their competitive position.
•
•
Smaller suppliers who adopt e-commerce have experienced strategic benets as e-commerce supports their day to day administrative functions. They have viewed e-commerce as a tool for enabling strategic planning to enhance their business and to present a modern image. Strategic benets from IT infrastructure and e-commerce applications provide resource exibility and faster responses to business needs, thereby allowing managers to spend more time on identifying new business opportunities. Other strategic benets experienced by small rms include strategic location of their store, selling diverse products, geographic expansion, and increase in potential customers.
RISKS OF E-COMMERCE ADOPTION Risks have been dened as “the possibility of an adverse outcome, and uncertainty over the occurrence, timing or magnitude of that adverse outcome” (Cavello & Merkhofer, 1994, p. 20)). Risks refer to the weaknesses in e-commerce technologies, business partner relationships, networks, and e-commerce environment. Risks, threats, or challenges are derived both internally and externally, thereby causing a potential loss and a concern to the smooth ow of the business. Risks are categorized as technological risks, organizational, and external (or environmental) risks. Technological Risks of E-Commerce Technological risks are associated with access to e-commerce or IT infrastructure leading to the hazards of not achieving the performance objectives (Das & Teng, 1996). Risks can be caused by the disclosure, destruction, and modication of e-commerce transactions, or by denial of service attacks that lead to availability problems and the violation of condential data.
•
•
Small businesses are concerned about their transaction security, as they can be subjected to security attacks and intrusions by hackers. The security break-ins not only result in revenue losses for businesses , but also result in projecting adverse perceptions of e-commerce security (Chellappa & Pavlou, 2001). If the use of IT is a measure of success, then actual use resulting in sales is a complete success compared to customers who browse the Web site and
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44 International Journal of Cases on Electronic Commerce, 2(4), 3-54, Oct-Dec 2006
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do not make any purchases. Hence, the challenge small businesses face in measuring the success of IT implementation is the impact it has on the business. Small businesses are ill-equipped to absorb IT investments, as they cannot afford to make expensive mistakes. Effective assimilation of Web technologies requires proper integration into their work processes (Chatterjee & Segars, 2001; Keen & McDonald, 2000). Assimilation as dened by Chatterjee, Grewal, and Sambamurthy (2002, p. 66) is the “extent to which the use of technology diffusion across organizational work processes becomes routinized in the activities associated with those processes.” Previous research in small businesses suggest that assimilation of Web technologies pose greater challenges than other types of IT, due to the differences in the dynamics of the rm’s integration (Chatterjee & Sambamurthy, 1999).
Organizational Risks Small rms have characteristically been unable to compete directly with highly concentrated industries due to the following reasons.
•
•
•
•
The lack of nancial resources is the primary reason small businesses are forced to enter the service industry, which limits them to localized clientele and circumscribed markets. Even if small businesses enter the manufacturing sector, their products are based on narrow skills (Chellappa & Pavlou, 2001). Many small businesses struggle with technology and the lack of necessary IT skills, knowledge, and expertise. Lack of complete knowledge and experience on the part of the owner/manager has led to the lack of understanding of the potential use of e-commerce applications (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Chatterjee & Segars, 2001; DeLone, 1988; Min, Song & Keebler, 2002). Some small business owners who perceive IT implementation as risky and uncertain become immobilized by indecision and hesitation, thereby ex periencing resistance to change. Even after approaching an IT investment, owners with negative or uncertain attitudes toward e-commerce adoption often have difculty in sustaining commitment throughout the implementation process, thereby reducing resources allocated to the project, inhibiting organizational changes, and preventing the use of IT to its fullest potential (Premkumar & Robert, 1999). Implementing Web technologies can be complex and offers a variety of functionalities ranging from the static presentation of context to the dynamic capture of transactions with concerns for security (Chatterjee & Sambamurthy, 1999; Chatterjee et al., 2002). Small businesses often experi-
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ence administrative complexity derived from the need for varying levels of IT skills and knowledge. Greater complexity demands a more analytical, proactive, and explicit approach (such as structured documented knowledge of the legislative procedures) to e-commerce adoption that relies less on the simple, knee-jerk reactions and intuitions of small business managers. Eternal or Environmental Risks • Previous research suggests that small businesses are threatened by the following consequences. Small businesses are vulnerable to persuasive and coercive power inuences from their larger business partners that in turn lead to functional conicts. Power is an important issue in e-commerce
Table 2. Framework of benets and risks in e-commerce adoption among small businesses Benets of E-Commerce Adoption Risks of E-Commerce Adoption opratinal bnft Tchnlgical Rik • • Operational efciency Transaction security Improved communication Difficult to measure success of IT • • efciencies implementation • • Availability of timely and Integration problems accurate information • Mutual access to databases • Sharing of internal and external data ecnmic bnft organizatinal Rik • • Reduced costs Lack of nancial resources • • Increased productivity Lack of IT/IS skills Meeting customer needs Resistance to change • • • • Improved customer Complexity costs, costs of training relationships Increased sales • • Focused on satisfying customers stratgic bnft extrnal r extrnal Rik Presents a modern image Vulnerable to persuasive and coercive • • • Identies new business power inuences leading to functional opportunities conicts Strategic location Competitors have also adopted new IT • • • Diverse products • Geographic expansion Increase in potential customers •
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46 International Journal of Cases on Electronic Commerce, 2(4), 3-54, Oct-Dec 2006
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adoption and in building trust among small businesses. Power is dened as “the capability of a rm to exert inuence on another rm to act in a prescribed manner”. Functional conicts are the result of an imbalance of power. Hart and Saunders (1997) conducted a study on EDI adoption and suggest that organizations with greater power can inuence their trading partners to adopt EDI. Their ndings indicate use of power was negatively related to the volume of EDI transactions. While electronic networks may facilitate easier exchanges, they may not necessarily lead to increases in the frequency of business-to-business transactions. Thus, power exists on two levels: (1) as a motive and (2) as a behavior. Competitive threats may increase as the new medium allows larger rms to mimic the traditional strengths of smaller rms in serving niche markets, developing customer intimacy, and exploiting local knowledge. Suddenly, a regional rm which previously may have had little local competition may be faced with new threats across the city, the nation, or the globe. Hence, e-commerce may increase competitive rivalry by reducing barriers of entry and increasing the rate of product and process innovation (Hodgetts & Kuratko, 2001).
Table 2 presents the framework of benets and risks in e-commerce adoption among small businesses. RESEARCH METHOD Case studies were chosen as an appropriate method to examine e-commerce adoption among small businesses, as it elicited subtle and rich data needed, thereby increasing our understanding of e-commerce adoption in small businesses (Yin, 1994). In this study we interviewed the managers of both rms in the agricultural industry, which is the dominant form of industry in the midwest state of Missouri in the United States of America. Hence, the places discussed in this study are all located in the United States of America. Evidence for the case studies data came from the handwritten notes taken during the interviews and the tape-recorded data. In addition, analysis of existing documents relating to e-commerce adoption, day to day interactions, operating procedures, Web sites, and internal security policies were analyzed. CASE DESCRIPTION The following statements exemplify the ndings of the three types of benets and risks experienced by both rms that participated in this study.
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Operational Benets The ndings of the operational benets experienced by the two rms below refer to the efciencies derived from the automation of Internet-enabled IT or e-commerce applications.
Firm A We send our order acknowledgements via e-mail to our customers and thus experience timely effective communications. We often refer our customers to go to our Web site to obtain detailed information about our products. This saves us a lot of time in explaining our products to the customers, and also the customers in turn receive timely and accurate information. We have a primary phone line and a long distance phone line along with a metro Kansas City line. Most of the orders from our regular customers are placed on the phone. This saves us a lot of time in trying to meet the needs of our customers, as over the years we have gotten used to the ordering pattern and usage of our regular customers. We meet with our retailers once a week. The busiest time is during winter when we sell a lot of the bird seeds. Firm B We have experienced operational efciencies via our fax and telephone. We are able to fax our orders and there is no need to get involved in telephone conversations. We save a lot of time sending out a fax rather than talking on the phone. This has freed us from the number of staff working on the transactions, as most of the product information is advertised on the Web site. Our customized IT solutions and database ‘Top Flight’ has assisted us in searching and accessing information quickly and promptly. We rely heavily on the e-mail and our customized IT solutions as it facilitated the transmission and receipt of instant information. All our employees have access to the fax, cash, credit card, and checks. Our Top Flight system registers all the sales. We have inventory numbers for each item and when we sell each item it will record the inventory number. Our home ofce provides us the database, which allows us to see at the end of the day how much was sold via cash and checks, and those charged toward the credit card. It even provides information on customer shopping patterns in terms of the timings and types of items they
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purchased. Hence, we had mutual access to the databases and shared both internal and external data. Economic Benets The ndings of the economic benets experienced by the two rms refer to the nancial gains that the rms achieved.
Firm A Both rms agreed that they have experienced a denite increase in productivity by implementing customized electronic applications, as it attracted new customers. We build trust by acknowledging the order to the customer via e-mail and send a follow up thank you note after the delivery of the products. In the case of the bid proposals we send the business plan either via fax, post, or by hand. Once we are notied of the approval of the proposal we then prepare a contract to do the job, which includes payment information. Most of our agreements are verbal, as we have been dealing with our business partners for fteen years. Our Web site business is not as productive as we would like it to be. For some reason our Web site looks great and it is easy to buy things, but it is not bringing in a lot of sales. I think trying to get our Web site noticed is missing and, furthermore, we sell specialized items that cater to only special groups of people. We have three types of customers. Sixty percent are regular retail store customers, 20% are derived from large contracts that come via bids (costing between $100,000 to $200,000), and another 20% are derived from our B2C Web site customers. We try to focus on satisfying our customers. Firm B We experienced reduced costs, as it takes only 30 seconds to send out a fax vs. speaking to our suppliers and business partners on the telephone. We have 40 to 50 regular customers who buy bird seeds, bird feeders, bird baths, gift items, and nature bird-related items from us. We screen our business partners by checking their Web sites refer to past reputations and referrals by their friends. We send them an invoice and give a net
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30 days to receive their payment. Further, we also offer discounts to customers who pay early. Meeting the needs of our customers is number one priority, as without it there would be no business. Hence a lot of time is spent on building trust during the initial stages of their business relationships by providing excellent customer service. We carry the goods to the customer’s vehicle after the purchase. Strategic Benets The ndings of the strategic benets experienced by the two rms refer to the long term gains that the rms planned to achieve.
Firm A We try to sell diverse products such as seeds and wild owers, and are planning to move to wild bird habitat foods for geese, turkeys, ducks, and quails. It is a new product for us and we plan to sell that in the Missouri Farmers Association rather than in a regular store. This will work as a co-op basis, where all farmers have to be members of the co-op in order to purchase our new products. We do not place much importance on the strategic location of our business, as we do not want a lot of trafc in an area that manufactures bird seeds. Our B2C shopping cart actually resulted in geographic expansion, leading to increased business opportunity as we had customers from other states. It has given us an opportunity to identify new customers that we may not be able to reach, such as in Maine, Virgina, and Rhode Island. Firm B Our main ofce controls the sales that take place on the Internet and we pay for them through our franchising fees. 99.9% of our sales come from our regular customers who visit our store and 70-80% of our business is derived from selling bird seeds to our regular customers. We are working on collecting e-mail addresses so that we can send out promotion news in order to identify new business opportunities. We would like to expand our potential customers, and we usually request our customers what other items they need and try to meet their needs. We are getting more and more younger customers’ recently and hope that they will be more attracted to online shopping vs. the older customers.
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RISKS Technological Risks The ndings of the technological risks experienced by the two rms refer to the impact of not achieving their performance objectives from implementing Internet-enabled or e-commerce applications.
Firm A We have not seen a lot of growth in our B2C Web site, although sales have doubled last year, and the reason is that it is a specialized product. We only received 32 orders on our Web site. It was difcult for us to measure success of IT implementation. Although the reports were available on number of sales and number of hits, they are not easy to access, as we lacked the necessary IT skills. We implemented Web site because we had to, not because we want to. We spent $6,000 on the Web site development for the cost that was not planned for. Furthermore, the 32 sales did not pay for the cost of implementing the Web site. Our greatest challenge is how to increase the hits to sales. Organizational Risks The ndings of the organizational risks the two rms experienced refer to the lack of internal standard operating procedures, work culture, attitudes, and behaviors of the small businesses.
Firm A Limited exibility was a concern for us, as we did face labor and nancial con straints, although it was not an urgent issue. For example, if the system went down we had to rely on the IT solution provider to x the system in order to make our systems operational again, as we lacked the necessary IT skills to maintain our B2C Web site. Hence, our resource exibility was a concern. Even when the machinery goes down and needs to be xed, it could cost us time and money, or if personnel need time off unexpectedly to have time with the family, it could slow down our process. Firm B Our employees are responsible for maintaining the cash register as they serve their customers. The owner emphasized on the importance of trust between him and his employees.
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Eternal Risks The ndings of the external risks experienced by the two rms refer to factors or events that have caused a concern to the rms.
Firm A We do get demands from our large contracts at times, as we are required to meet the benchmark which has specic terms. The demands from our regular business partners were not a concern, as we maintained a long term relationship with our business partners. Our regular customers have been trading with us for the past 10-15 years. Firm B Some of our suppliers are set up where we can order through the Internet, but we have not set up our store Web site yet. We are planning to implement a B2C shopping cart in the near future. Although our competitors have also adopted new IT solutions, it is not much a concern to us because we sell a variety of backyard items besides bird seeds. CURRENT CHALLENGES/PROBLEMS FACING THE ORGANIZATIONS Small businesses often have fewer levels of management, are more centralized, and have less power vs. customers and competitors compared to their larger counterparts. Small businesses need to overcome rigidities, external locus of control, a sense of incapacity and foibles of the manager’s personality as only then will IT innovation and exibility become possible. Therefore, the manager’s personality can play a very important role in the success of the business. There is a demand for proactiveness and risk taking that are the two crucial components of e-commerce adoption that correlate with the relative performance of the rm. Previous research suggests that owners with positive attitudes toward e-commerce adoption were found to be more likely to implement them. It is no longer an option for small businesses to ignore the Internet and to take a “wait and see” attitude. Many small businesses have not even had much time to browse the Web. If they are doing well, they are quite likely to have the attitude of “if it’s not broken, don’t x it,” in which case they would not be interested in the technology that may appear at best to be unproven. The result of this is only a few small businesses have yet developed any active involvement in e-commerce.
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Challenges that small businesses experience pointed toward their limitations in selecting an effective corporate strategy. For example, a study argues three major strategic options open to rms: cost leadership, market differentiation, and focus. It is argued that small businesses experience difculty in attaining cost leadership and market differentiation, as they need to be derived from economies of scale, which large rms can afford. Hence, the focus is on IT innovation, as they do well where their strategy involves IT innovation, high quality, or novel design. They are in an excellent position to adapt quickly and stay in close contact with a selected group of business partners and customers. The rms agreed that it is important for small businesses to take it in small bites. Small businesses often make the mistake of tying up a lot of money on stocks and modern up-to-date IT equipments that can cost a lot and overkill their expenses. Hence, it is better to invest in IT as the need arises rather than overkill them. In this study we explored and examined a benet-risk framework for e-commerce adoption among small businesses. Benets that impact small rms were categorized as operational, economical, and strategic benets, and risks were categorized as technological, organizational, and external risks. Although the study is limited by its sample size, thereby making it difcult to generalize, we were still able to derive some interesting ndings. The ndings suggest that small rms do not have the resources to make signicant mistakes, so they are concerned about adopting e-commerce applications, as that could directly impact their bottom line. They continue to desire more internal control over operations, as they are mostly single owner or family owned businesses. Further, small businesses still have a low level of IT knowledge, skills, and expertise. On the other hand, small businesses recognize the need to be exible when adopting e-commerce applications. Future research aims to test this framework extensively with small rms across a cross-section of different industries. Doing so will yield meaningful generalizations and will contribute to a generic framework of benets and risks. REFERENCES Alavi, M., & Leidner, D. E. (2001). Review: Knowledge management and knowledge management systems: Conceptual foundations and research issues. MIS Quarterly, 25(1), 107-136. Bergeron, F., Raymond, L., & Rivard, S. (2001). Fit in strategic information technology management research: An empirical comparison of perspectives. Omega, 29(2), 125-142. Bharati, P., & Chaudhury, A. (2005). Assimilation and adoption of IT in manufacturing SMEs: A value-chain perspective, managing modern organizations with information technology. Proceedings of the IRMA Conference.
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Pauline Ratnasingham is an assistant professor of MIS, Department of Computer Information Systems, Harmon School of Business Administration, Central Missouri State University (CMSU), Warrensburg, Missouri. Before joining CMSU, she was an assistant professor at the School of Business Administration, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont. She received her PhD titled “Inter-organizational Trust in Business to Business Electronic Commerce” from Erasmus University, Rotterdam School of Management, The Netherlands in 2001. She lectured on topics such as; project management, management of information systems, and electronic commerce in Australia, New Zealand, Europe and America. She is an associate member of the Association of Information Systems, and is a member of the Information Resources Management Association and Academy of Management. Her research interests include business risk management; Internet based B2B E-Commerce, small business e-commerce adoption, security in knowledge management, organizational behavior and trust. She is a recipient of a National Science Foundation Grant and has published several articles related to this area in national and international conferences, refereed journals and chapters in books. Her biography is also published in the 58th Edition of Marquis Who’s Who — Who’s Who in America.
Copyright © 2006, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited.