The Relationship between E-Commerce Adoption and Organizational Culture

Research has suggested that gaining a competitive advantage requires users of technology to be early adopters and that higher levels of e-commerce adoption are associated with increased levels of organizational performance. While e-commerce has been studied in detail, the importance of organizational culture in the level of e-commerce adoption has not been explored in depth. Organizational culture can be a limiting factor on the acceptance of technological change and has been linked with organizational performance. Organizational cultures with an emphasis on external orientation and flexible structure, " adhocracies, " are typified by leaders who are innovators and risk takers. An argument can be made that a culture promoting innovation and risk acceptance would provide needed support for higher levels of adoption of new technologies. This paper proposes a research framework for exploring the proposition that organizations exhibiting higher levels of an adhocracy culture orientation will also exhibit higher levels of e-commerce adoption.