Small and Medium Entrepreneurs’ Perspective on E-Commerce in Eastern Province of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Even though there is a rapid development of social commerce, developing countries are still confronted by infrastructural and cultural issues related to the acceptance of e-commerce. Since Sri Lanka is a developing country, the acceptance of e-commerce by the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is still in challenge by such barriers; it is now applying models for the acceptance of new technologies by SMEs. The paper aims to discuss these types of issues. This research study is endeavoring to develop a model, with the ideas of existing models on e-commerce, which will be applied with Sri Lankan conditions. The data collected by a survey is composed with prior models in e-commerce area to investigate this study, and it has been empirically tested to recommend an innovative model. The findings of this research reveal that poor awareness of the advantages of the e-commerce and organizational issues lined with its applications are the reasons for most of the e-commerce obstacles in Sri Lanka. The findings and suggestions of this study, can be applicable to other developing countries as well. This paper is giving a better representation of Sri Lankan market. Lastly the paper deliberates probable upcoming guidelines of this research, as well as its boundaries. This research supports to the hypothetical basis of information systems and e-commerce acceptance studies through recommending and testing a pre-acceptance model for e-commerce. The acceptance of e-commerce in SMEs in Sri Lanka has not been considerably inspected. It is obvious that the SMEs in Sri Lanka play a significant role in its economies. The findings of this study demonstrate a substantial affiliation between organizational readiness and the acceptance of e-commerce and validate the positive relationship between readiness of e-commerce and its acceptance.

Keywords: E-Commerce, Acceptance, Small and Medium Enterprises, Sri Lanka