Selling in the era of the "Net": integration of electronic commerce in small firms

This paper reports on a research study concerning the integration of electronic commerce (EC) into the pre-sales business processes of small firms. By means of a field survey, 17 small firms were examined at the end of their first year of participation in an EC network that matches procurement bids of large governmental and private sector buyers with small firm suppliers. Similar to past research models focusing on the integration of “post-sales” electronic commerce technologies such as EDI, this study found that the factors of perceived benefits and organizational readiness to adopt EC technology influence the pre-sales integration of EC in small firms. An additional factor, characterized as “trust and cooperation,” was also associated with pre-sales EC integration. Unlike past research on the post-sales EC in small firms, external pressure due to customer coercion was not found to heavily influence pre-sales EC. In addition to presenting a refined adoption and integration model to support further research on pre-sales EC technology integration, the customersupplier life cycle framework is introduced as a managerial tool to identify integration opportunities and evaluate a firm’s EC value chain.