IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/sbusec/v21y2003i3p273-83.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Diffusion of E-Commerce Among SMEs: Theoretical Implications and Empirical Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Santarelli, Enrico
  • D'Altri, Samuele

Abstract

As a specific institution of distributive trades, e-commerce displays similarities with retail stores and mail order companies. As well as providing theoretical support for the assumption that e-commerce is a way to sell certain goods and services at prices potentially lower than those of traditional distributive channels, this paper analyses its inter-firm diffusion among a sample of firms (mostly SMEs) in Italy. The paper has three main purposes. Firstly, it challenges the view of e-commerce as a "technological revolution", by pointing out its nature as a cost-minimizing marketing channel. In particular, it shows how, under certain conditions, e-commerce is a source of transaction cost advantages analogous to those yielded by mail order business. Secondly, the paper identifies from a theoretical viewpoint the circumstances under which e-commerce sales might achieve a significant level of penetration among those SMEs that would otherwise incur high costs in organizing a proprietary distributive channel. Thirdly, it employs a unique data set of Italian manufacturing, service, and hospitality firms (nearly 90 percent of them with fewer than 100 employees) to estimate a diffusion model based on the logistic curve. According to the estimates, by the fourth quarter of 2003 nearly 50 percent of the population of firms in the geographical area surveyed will have introduced e-commerce among their marketing channels. Copyright 2003 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Suggested Citation

  • Santarelli, Enrico & D'Altri, Samuele, 2003. "The Diffusion of E-Commerce Among SMEs: Theoretical Implications and Empirical Evidence," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 21(3), pages 273-283, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:21:y:2003:i:3:p:273-83
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://journals.kluweronline.com/issn/0921-898X/contents
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Agnes L. DeFranco & Cristian Morosan & Nan Hua, 2017. "Moderating the impact of e-commerce expenses on financial performance in US upper upscale hotels," Tourism Economics, , vol. 23(2), pages 429-447, March.
    2. Khoirul Aswar & Ermawati, 2021. "E-Commerce Adoption by Small Medium Enterprises: An Extensive Literature Review," Information Management and Business Review, AMH International, vol. 12(4), pages 12-18.
    3. Eleonora Lorenzini, 2012. "Innovation and e-commerce in clusters of small firms: The case of a regional e-marketplace," DEM Working Papers Series 003, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    4. In Hyeock (Ian) Lee, 2022. "Startups, relocation, and firm performance: a transaction cost economics perspective," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 205-224, January.
    5. Annosi, Maria Carmela & Capo, Francesca & Appio, Francesco Paolo & Bedetti, Ivan, 2023. "Unveiling micro-foundations of digital transformation: Cognitive models, routines, and organizational structures in agri-food SMEs," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    6. Guo-Hua Cao & Jing Zhang, 2021. "Is a sustainable loop of economy and entrepreneurial ecosystem possible? a structural perspective," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 23(5), pages 7002-7040, May.
    7. Saridakis, George & Lai, Yanqing & Mohammed, Anne-Marie & Hansen, Jared M., 2018. "Industry characteristics, stages of E-commerce communications, and entrepreneurs and SMEs revenue growth," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 56-66.
    8. Hanas Cader & John Leatherman, 2011. "Small business survival and sample selection bias," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 155-165, September.
    9. Tinggui Chen & Lijuan Peng & Jianjun Yang & Guodong Cong & Guoping Li, 2021. "Evolutionary Game of Multi-Subjects in Live Streaming and Governance Strategies Based on Social Preference Theory during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(21), pages 1-41, October.
    10. Qamar Farooq & Peihua Fu & Yunhong Hao & Tchamy Jonathan & Yanni Zhang, 2019. "A Review of Management and Importance of E-Commerce Implementation in Service Delivery of Private Express Enterprises of China," SAGE Open, , vol. 9(1), pages 21582440188, January.
    11. Martin, Ludivine, 2009. "Understanding the implementation of e-business strategies: Evidence from Luxembourg," MPRA Paper 13645, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Jianli Gao & Abu Bakkar Siddik & Sayyed Khawar Abbas & Muhammad Hamayun & Mohammad Masukujjaman & Syed Shah Alam, 2023. "Impact of E-Commerce and Digital Marketing Adoption on the Financial and Sustainability Performance of MSMEs during the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Empirical Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-21, January.
    13. Ramanathan, Ramakrishnan & Ramanathan, Usha & Hsiao, Hsieh-Ling, 2012. "The impact of e-commerce on Taiwanese SMEs: Marketing and operations effects," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 934-943.
    14. Xiaoyu Yu & Yajie Li & Daniel Q. Chen & Xiaotong Meng & Xiangming Tao, 2019. "Entrepreneurial bricolage and online store performance in emerging economies," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 29(2), pages 167-185, June.
    15. Eleonora Lorenzini, 2014. "Innovation and e-commerce in clusters of small firms: The case of a regional e-marketplace," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 29(8), pages 771-794, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:sbusec:v:21:y:2003:i:3:p:273-83. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.