Discovering the determinants and predicting the degree of e-business diffusion using the decision tree method: evidence from Montenegro^*

* Narcyz Roztocki is the accepting Associate Editor for this paper.

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to analyze the impact of technical, organizational and environmental factors on the level of diffusion of electronic business in a developing country. Unlike most previous studies, the intention of this study is to determine and predict the interactive impact of these factors using decision tree (DT) method. This method automatically detects the dependence between variables and does not require any pre-defined hypotheses in relation to these dependencies. In addition, differences are also examined in the degree of influence of these factors in the context of a range of economic sectors and types of e-business. The results of the study show that the level of significance of the individually observed factors varies across different industries and types of business. The results of this study may have theoretical and practical implications for developing countries in terms of the contribution of e-business diffusion to overall socio-economic development.

KEYWORDS:

• E-business diffusion
• decision tree
• classification
• prediction
• ICT for development

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Biljana Rondović, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at Faculty of Economics – University of Montenegro. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Economics – University of Montenegro. She received her Master’s and Ph.D. from Faculty of Economics – University of Montenegro. She has over 20 years of teaching experience. Her present research interests cover the Digital economy, Electronic business and Information systems.

Ljiljana Kašćelan, Ph.D., is a Full Professor at Faculty of Economics – University of Montenegro. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics – University of Montenegro. She received her Master’s from Faculty of Electrical Engineering – University of Montenegro and her Ph.D. from Faculty of Economics – University of Montenegro. She has over 20 years of teaching experience. She has experience in developing and implementing business intelligence systems in organizations. She is active in research in the areas of data warehousing, OLAP and data mining.

Vujica Lazović, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at Faculty of Economics – University of Montenegro. He is a graduate of the Faculty Economics – University of Montenegro. He received his Master’s from Faculty of Economics – University of Belgrade, Serbia and his Ph.D. from Faculty of Economics – University of Montenegro. He has over 20 years of teaching experience and his present research interests cover the Digital Economy, Business models and Information systems.

Tamara Đuričković, Ph.D., worked as a teaching assistant at Faculty of Economics – University of Montenegro. She is a graduate of the Faculty of Economics – University of Montenegro. She received her Master’s from Faculty of Organizational Sciences – University of Belgrade, Serbia and her Ph.D. from Faculty of Economics – University of Montenegro. She is active in research in the areas of Digital Economy, Electronic Business and Information Systems.

Notes

* Narcyz Roztocki is the accepting Associate Editor for this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Ministry for Information Society and Telecommunications, Government of Montenegro [number 051-01-3304/1-16].