The Influence of Enterprise Structure and Strategy on the Level of E-Commerce Deployment in Singapore Enterprises

Numerous structural and strategic advantages to enterprises have been attributed to the use of Electronic Commerce (E-commerce). We develop a theoretical framework to explain the level of e-commerce deployment in enterprises. Factors considered include enterprise structure factors (size, functional differentiation, centralization), and enterprise strategic factors (aggressiveness, proactiveness, risk seeking). We used three dependent variables to assess the level of e- commerce deployment (volume, diversity, and sophistication). We analyzed 90 responses from a survey of 250 e-commerce users. Our analysis suggests that the data provide some support for the framework. The results indicate that enterprise size explained much of the level of e-commerce deployment in enterprises, suggesting that the level of e-commerce deployment is partly a matter of resource availability and transaction volume. The results also indicate that the degree of aggressiveness, proactiveness and risk seeking orientation influence the level of e- commerce deployment in Singapore. The functional differentiation affects e- commerce diversity and e-commerce sophistication.