State And Extent Of Electronic Commerce Adoption Among SMEs In Kenya

Abstract

Research has shown that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are rapidly adopting the Internet and e-commerce. However, there is little systematic research into how such companies are adopting this new technology especially in developing countries. This research addresses the existing gap by seeking to understand how SMEs in Kenya are adopting e-commerce, through an exploration of their state and extent of adoption. A quantitative survey research approach was adopted in this study that provided a suitable environment whereby SME Owners or Managers responded on issues openly. A questionnaire comprising five parts, each of the first four had questions using a 5-point Likert scale, while the fifth captured the profile of the firm. The data was analyzed using frequency distributions and descriptive statistics. Some hypotheses were tested empirically. The results indicate that SMEs have an average e-commerce adoption rate of 59% with latent differences in individual ecommerce applications adoption and industry sectors. The results further shows that only 34% of the firms surveyed have attained the integration stage in adoption. The SMEs e-commerce adoption at promotion stage (13%) and provision stage (26%) sum up to give a combined adoption rate of 39% which represent the marketing function.