Understanding Country Level Adoption of E- Commerce: A Theoretical Model Including Technological, Institutional, and Cultural Factors

Abstract

This paper provides a theoretically grounded model of e-commerce adoption to explain differences in adoption rates among countries. The model extends the existing culture-policy-technology (CPT) framework to examine causal relationships between the technological, institutional, and cultural factors in order to examine country-level e-commerce adoption. Thus, interesting relationships among macro-level factors are hypothesized. The paper highlights the important of risk mitigating mechanisms or institutions to facilitate adoption of e-commerce in countries with high uncertainty avoidance. A call for empirical examination into country level adoption is answered by analyzing macro level data from 69 countries. The hypotheses are confirmed using PLS analytical procedures. The study is timely as e-commerce technology has now taken hold in several countries but its revenues in proportion to the overall total revenues remain low. The study is motivated by significant different in e-commerce adoption rates among countries. The paper makes significant contributions to literature and practice. Keywords: Country Environment, Cross-Country Studies, E-Commerce Adoption, Efficacy of Institutional Safety-Net, Government Policy, Maturity and Reach of Internet Technologies, Uncertainty Avoidance