Title: Exploring the Constraints to the
Evolution
of Electronic Business: The Portuguese Reality
Abstract: It
is imperative
for an organization to identify potential constraints to e-business in
order
to minimize the risk derived from its e-business initiative. Hence, in
this paper, we have used a maturity stage model (Stages Of Growth
Model for e-business – SOGe) to identify the maturity stage of the
biggest
Portuguese enterprises and to report the findings of a study that
sought
to explore a range of constraints that the literature suggests
influences
e-business evolution, so that organizations could be better equipped in
anticipating
any difficulties while in progress through their e-business
initiatives.
Questionnaires were applied to investigate the research problem. It was
administered
to 1000 managing directors of the biggest (according to the amount of
business)
Portuguese enterprises. Results suggest that Portuguese enterprises had
a
positive evolution between 2005 and 2007, and that, in lower maturity
stages,
the constraints are more significant.
Authors: Elisabete
Paulo Morais, José Adriano Pires, and Ramiro Gonçalves