A Diffusion Theoretic Approach to Analysing E-business Up-take in Small Building Enterprises

The adoption of e-business by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in construction lags other service and product businesses within the building sector. Twenty SMEs were studied to establish the drivers and barriers to e-business adoption within construction. Empirical techniques included interviews and repertory grids for business web site assessment. Data were transcribed and analysed using cluster analyses. Preliminary results reveal that current models for e-business adoption are not effective for the small businesses as they tend to target large enterprises or from other sectors such as retail and tourism. These generic models have largely ignored the nature of the construction industry, and some modifications appear to be required. This paper proposes adoption guidelines sensitive to the nature of the industry – particularly for e-business uptake in building SMEs.