Abstract

Small firms are considered as the last mile in electronic networks of business enterprises. Since small firms lack in their resources and capabilities for IT deployment, it seems a challenging project to make them electronically linked to their trading partners. This study aims to investigate the factors that influence the intent of small firms to adopt electronic linkage to their trading partners. This study considers the context where small firms already have transaction relationships with partner firms and where their adoption of electronic linkage may influence the nature and performance of the transactional relationships. This study considers the expected value of electronic linkage and the joint actions of the trading firms as the major factors. Its research model also includes traditional factors such as influences from the industry and the trading partner, the support of CEO, and the readiness of the trading partner. Based on the survey data from more than 1000 small firms, the present study performs regression analysis and finds that all but one factor are significant in explaining the variations in the adoption intention of small firms. The exception is the joint action, which is shown to decrease the intention. Based on the results, this study offers business and policy implications that would be useful to business managers and policy makers.

Keywords

• Inter-firm Electronic Linkage;
• Small Firms;
• Expected Value;
• Joint Action