Title:
The Three-Quarter Moon
a
New Model for E-Commerce Adoption
Abstract: One of
economic development main drivers is technology. Technology adoption
usually
results in rapid economic growth, and rapid economic growth is usually
accompanied
by rapid structural change. It is now widely accepted by policy makers,
enterprises
and society at large that information and communications technologies
(ICT)
are at the centre of an economic and social transformation that is
affecting
all countries. E-Commerce and globalisation have combined to create a
new
economic and social landscape.
There are many drivers and barriers to E-Commerce. Most issues (Cost,
infrastructure,
time, information, legislation and regulation, etc) could be drivers or
barriers.
If a country has managed to achieve a cost reduction greater then the
investment
made in adopting the new technology then one could say that the cost
factor
is a driver rather than a barrier. The same philosophy could work with
other
aspects of E-Commerce drivers and barriers.
A new classification using drivers and barriers could be applied to
countries
and divide countries according to their technological advancement. The
new
classification groups countries into non-technologically advanced,
less-technologically
advanced and technologically advanced. This classification is driven by
four
main actors (Government, technologically advanced countries, companies
and
E-commerce users). The involvement of the fourth (E-Commerce users)
actor
is the result of the other three actors’ actions on the economy. These
three
actors comprise the three quarter moon that encourages the fourth actor
to
complete the circle of adoption.
The circle of adoption includes three stages that, in order for
E-commerce
to be adopted, must be dealt with before, while and after adoption. The
failure
of adoption may be a result of a failure of one issue or a failure of
number
of issues together. Therefore the Internet involvement formula should
help
to indicate where the problem lies.
Authors: Abdalla Hamed ,
Pat Cleary, Hilary Berger and
David Ball