SMEs Decision Making on E-Business Application: The Influence of Social Factor

Abstract

The adoption of e-business in small medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is somewhat limited. The e-business application by SMEs is influenced by social factors. This study aims to focus on experimentally investigate the effect of external advisor and peers to SMEs decision making on e-business application. This experimental research is done due to the fact that individuals do not make decision in isolation. The social settings surround individuals may influence their behaviour in taking choices. To do the experiment, SMEs decision making on adopting particular level of e-business technology is defined as dependent variable. Two particular social factors: external advisor and peers are defined as independent variables. The experiment confirmed that both social factors significantly affect SMEs in deciding the level of e-business technology to be adopted. However, which social aspect (external advisor or peers) which has a greater effect remains questionable. The interaction of both variables is not significantly proven either.