An Empirical Study of Factors Affecting S-Commerce Adoption among Micro and Small- and Medium Sized Enterprises in a sub-urban and rural economic area: Evidence from Kelantan

Abstract

Social Commerce (S-Commerce) is the new wave of e-commerce in which it is mediated by social media and social networking services in order to promote online business and shopping-related information exchange. The aim of this study is to investigate the factors affecting S-commerce adoption among micro and Small- and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in suburban and rural areas in Kelantan. This study adopts Ahmad et al. (2015) S-Commerce Adoption Model (SCAM) to examine the relationship between technology, organizational and environmental elements toward S-Commerce adoption among micro and SMEs in Kelantan. Although there are many studies on factors affecting e-commerce adoption, there is little attention given on S-Commerce adoption. Insights on factors affecting S-Commerce is crucial for Micro and SMEs’ strategic planning in widening the target market and eliminating excessive cost and wasted time. In achieving the objectives of study, a quantitative approach is used. A random sampling technique is employed and a set of quantitative analyses has been used to analyse the data. A total of 381 micro businesses and SMEs have been selected for the sampling. From the findings, the study concludes that three factors (i.e. technology context, organization context and environment context) have correlations on the inclination of S-Commerce adoption among enterprises in sub-urban and rural areas in Kelantan.