An investigation into the factors influencing the adoption of B2B trading exchanges in small businesses

Figures & data

Figure 1 Research model for B2B trading exchange adoption in small business.

Table A1 List of measures and relevant references

Measures	References
‘Critical mass’ has been measured by three items	Bouchard (1993), McCusker (1993) and Lyttle (1988)
‘Vendor support’ has been measured by three items	Yap et al. (1992) and Premkumar & Roberts (1999)
‘Vendors’ were measured by nine items	Easingwood & Beard (1996), Premkumar & Roberts (1999), Frambach et al. (1998), Zmud (1983) and Nilakanta & Scamell (1990).
‘Competition’ was measured by three items	Thong & Yap (1995), Kuan & Chau (2001), and Thong (1999).
‘Government’ was measured by four items	Teo et al. (1997), Goldsmith (1990) and Premkumar & Roberts (1999)
‘Trading partners’ were measured by three items	Swatman & Swatman (1991), Kuan & Chau (2001) and Bergeron & Raymond (1997)
‘Coercion’ was measured by three items	Agarwal & Prasad (2000) and Pfeffer & Salancik (1978)
‘Awareness’ was measured by three items	Zaltman et al. (1973) and Agarwal & Prasad (2000)
‘Perceived direct benefits’ and ‘Perceived indirect benefits’ were measured by 12 and three items, respectively	Abell & Lim (1996), Tornatzky & Klein (1982), Premkumar & Roberts (1999), Kuan & Chau (2001)Purao & Campbell (1998) and Poon & Swatman (1999)
‘Organisational readiness’ was measured by six items	Saunders & Clark (1992) and Iacovou et al. (1995)
‘Organisational characteristics’ were measured by five items	Thong & Yap (1995), Premkumar & Roberts (1999), Poon & Swatman (1999) and Iacovou et al. (1995)
‘Owner/manager characteristics’ were measured by four items	Rizzoni (1991), Thong & Yap (1995) and Agarwal & Prasad (1998)
‘Organisational attitude’ was measured by three items three items	Thong & Yap (1995)
‘Intention’ was measured by three items	Thong & Yap (1995) and Agarwal & Prasad (1998)

Table 1 Item loadings

Construct	Item (Observed variables)	Loading	Construct	Item (Observed variables)	Loading
Vendors	Reducing adoption risk	0.834	Owner manager characteristics	Innovativeness	0.608
	Awareness of business	0.773		Risk attitude	0.617
	Endorsement of industry leaders	0.865		Attitude towards electronic trading	0.841
	Publishing names of important users	0.872		Age	0.278^a
	Promotion using trade magazines	0.888	Perceived direct benefit	Reduce cost	0.903
	Promotion using seminars	0.903		Reduce staff	0.858
	Promotion using trade fairs	0.884		Reduce paperwork	0.877
				Reduce clerical error	0.847
	Direct mailing	0.792		Increase turnover	0.798
	Sales people	0.845		Cost of training	0.01^a
Competition	Competitors using B2B trading exchanges	0.532		High costs of the solution	−0.265^a
	Driven by competitors	0.945		Security risk	−0.004^a
	Competitive industry	0.842		Easy to use	−0.192^a
Government	Government leadership	0.873		Compatible with business	−0.127^a
	Government as user	0.886		Complex to implement	−0.178^a
	Government direct subsidy	0.885		Integrated with other systems	−0.135^a
	Government provides low cost infrastructure	0.921	Perceived indirect benefit	Increases ability to compete	0.929
Trading partners	Influence from important business partners	0.893		Increase working relationship	0.927
	Influence from important major supplier	0.855		Status symbol	0.393^a
	Influence from important customer	0.88	Attitude	I intend to use within the next 12 months	0.949
Awareness	An important innovation	0.859		Replace current methods	0.968
	Familiar with benefits	0.682		Recommend the use	0.954
	More competitive	0.912	Intention to adopt	I intend to use within the next 12 months	0.949
Vendor support	Access to someone to make it work	0.871		Replace current methods	0.968
	Customer hotlines	0.947		Recommend the use	0.954
	External training	0.912	Coercion	Mandatory measures by government	0.631
Critical mass	Number of users	0.724		Demanded by major supplier	0.868
	Number of business partners trading	0.949		Demanded by important customer	0.836
	Number of suppliers trading	0.939	Organisation readiness	Level of financial resources	0.566
Organisation characteristics	Nature of business	0.922		Computer proficient	0.806
	Nature of product	0.868		No computer awareness	0.617
	Computer usage	0.707		Computer awareness	0.717
	Partner usage	0.516		Computer Professional	0.663
	Size	−0.218^a		Computer literate	0.316^a

^aLow loading items discarded.

Table 2 Internal consistencies

Latent variables	Internal consistencies	Latent variables	Internal consistencies
Vendor	0.96	Organisation characteristics	0.85
Competition	0.83	Owner/manager characteristics	0.85
Government	0.94	Perceived benefits	0.93
Trading partners	0.91	Perceived indirect benefits	0.93
Vendor support	0.94	Attitude	0.95
critical mass	0.91	Intention to adopt	0.97
Organisation readiness	0.81	Coercion	0.83
Awareness	0.86

Table A2 Correlation of latent variables & square roots of AVE

	Vendors	Competition	Govern ment	Trading partners	Awareness	Vendor support	Critical mass	Organisation readiness	Organisation characteristics	Owner manager characteristics	Perceived direct benefit	Perceived indirect benefit	Attitude	Intention to adopt	Coercion
Vendors	0.836
Competition	0.523	0.774
Government	0.468	0.621	0.894
Trading partners	0.681	0.639	0.465	0.894
Awareness	0.709	0.415	0.319	0.566	0.837
Vendor support	0.323	0.405	0.617	0.404	0.251	0.894
Critical mass	0.499	0.539	0.446	0.493	0.566	0.451	0.894
Organisation readiness	−0.094	−0.098	−0.061	−0.12	−0.188	0.015	−0.12	0.71
Organisation character	0.518	0.443	0.325	0.435	0.59	0.26	0.607	−0.182	0.774
Owner manager characteristics	0.382	0.205	0.189	0.346	0.519	0.22	0.382	−0.131	0.489	0.774
Perceived benefits	0.63	0.201	0.148	0.412	0.692	0.061	0.371	−0.303	0.514	0.434	0.837
Perceived indirect benefits	0.508	0.328	0.325	0.429	0.541	0.189	0.457	−0.11	0.463	0.327	0.598	0.95
Attitude	0.584	0.31	0.368	0.408	0.723	0.223	0.542	−0.155	0.628	0.469	0.639	0.636	0.95
Intention to adopt	0.43	0.198	0.157	0.341	0.557	0.026	0.382	−0.188	0.531	0.447	0.591	0.536	0.751	0.95
Coercion	0.468	0.446	0.439	0.579	0.446	0.377	0.359	−0.163	0.481	0.315	0.375	0.304	0.45	0.405	0.774

The shaded and bold elements in the main diagonal are the square roots of AVE.

Table 3 Tests of Hypotheses

Hypotheses	Path coefficients	t-value
H1: Vendors → awareness	0.614	7.937*
H2: Competition → awareness	0.032	0.358
H3: Government → awareness	−0.061	0.834
H4: Trading partners → awareness	0.157	1.584
H5: Coercion → attitude	0.111	1.156
H6: Awareness → perceived direct benefit	0.692	16.279*
H7: Awareness → perceived indirect benefit	0.541	6.575*
H8: Perceived direct benefit → attitude	0.25	2.483*
H9: Perceived indirect benefit → attitude	0.272	3.905*
H10: Vendor support → attitude	−0.023	0.343
H11: Critical mass → attitude	0.143	1.708*
H12: Organisation readiness → attitude	0.035	0.502
H13: Organisation characteristics → attitude	0.201	2.308*
H14: Owner manager characteristics → attitude	0.094	1.290
H15: Attitude → intention to adopt	0.751	20.788*

*P< 0.05.

R² for Intention to Adopt=0.56; R² for Attitude=0.62;

R² for Perceived Direct Benefit=0.48;

R² for Perceived Indirect Direct Benefit=0.29;

R² for Awareness=0.52.

Bouchard L (1993) Decision criteria in the adoption of EDI. In Proceedings of the Thirteenth International Conference on Information Systems pp 365–376, Orlando, Florida.

 Google Scholar

McCuskerTHow to get from 80% to 100% in EDIDatamation199339345

 Google Scholar

LyttleRWill you be proactive or reactive on EDI?Systems 3X and AS World198816116874

 Google Scholar

YapCSSohCPPRamanKSInformation system success factors in small businessesOmega1992205/659760910.1016/0305-0483(92)90005-R

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

PremkumarGRobertsMAdoption of new information technologies in rural small businessesOmega International Journal of Management Science199927146748410.1016/S0305-0483(98)00071-1

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

EasingwoodCBeardCNew product launch: marketing action and launch tactics for high technology productsIndustrial Marketing Management1996258710310.1016/0019-8501(95)00037-2

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

FrambachRTBarkemaHGNooteboomBWedelMAdoption of a service innovation in the business market: the influence of supplier variablesJournal of Business Research199841216117410.1016/S0148-2963(97)00005-2

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

ZmudRWThe effectiveness of external information channels in facilitating innovation within software development groupsMIS Quarterly198372435810.2307/248912

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

NilakantaSScamellRWThe effects of information sources and communication channels on the diffusion of innovation on a database development environmentManagement Science1990361244010.1287/mnsc.36.1.24

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

ThongJYLYapCSCEO characteristics, organisation characteristics, and I.T, adoption in small businessOmega International Journal of Management Science199523442944210.1016/0305-0483(95)00017-I

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

KuanKChauPA perception-based model of EDI adoption in small businesses using technology–organisation–environment frameworkInformation and Management20013850752110.1016/S0378-7206(01)00073-8

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

ThongJYLAn integrated model of information systems adoption in small businessJournal of Management Information Systems199915418721410.1080/07421222.1999.11518227

 Google Scholar

TeoTSHTanMBukWKA contingency model of internet adoption in SingaporeInternational Journal of Electronic Commerce1997229511810.1080/10864415.1997.11518310

 Google Scholar

GoldsmithREThe validity of scale to measure global innovativenessJournal of Applied Business Research199072899710.19030/jabr.v7i2.6249

 Google Scholar

SwatmanPMCSwatmanPAElectronic data interchange: organisational opportunity, not technical problemDatabases in the 1990s1991354374

 Google Scholar

BergeronERaymondLManaging EDI for corporate advantage: a longitudinal studyInformation and Management199731631933310.1016/S0378-7206(97)00007-4

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

AgarwalRPrasadJA field study of the adoption of software process innovations by information systems professionalsIEEE Transaction on Engineering Management200074329530810.1109/17.865899

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

PfefferJSalancikGRThe External Control of Organisations: A Resource Dependence Perspective1978

 Google Scholar

ZaltmanGDuncanRHolbeckJInnovations and Organisations1973

 Google Scholar

Abell W and Lim L (1996) Business use of the internet in New Zealand: an exploratory study. http://www.scu.edu/ausweb96/business/abell/paper.htm June 2004.

 Google Scholar

TornatzkyLGKleinKJInnovation characteristics and innovation adoption and implementation: a meta analysis of findingsIEEE Transactions on Engineering Management19822911284510.1109/TEM.1982.6447463

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

Purao S and Campbell B (1998) Critical concerns for small business electronic commerce: some reflections based on interviews of small business owners. In Proceedings of the Association for Information Systems Americas Conference, pp 325–327, Baltimore, MD.

 Google Scholar

PoonSSwatmanPAn exploratory study of small business internet commerce issuesInformation and Management199935191810.1016/S0378-7206(98)00079-2

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

SaundersCClarkSEDI adoption and implementation: a focus on Interorganizational linkagesInformation Resources Management Journal19925191910.4018/irmj.1992010102

 Google Scholar

IacovouCLBenbasatIDexterASElectronic data interchange and small organisations: adoption and impact of technologyMIS Quarterly199519446548510.2307/249629

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar

RizzoniATechnological innovation and small firms: a taxonomyInternational Small Business199193314210.1177/026624269100900302

 Google Scholar

AgarwalRPrasadJThe antecedents and consequences of user perceptions in information technology adoptionDecision Support Systems1998221152910.1016/S0167-9236(97)00006-7

 Web of Science ®Google Scholar