Spectrum of e-business maturity in australian SMEs: a multiple case studies approach on the applicability of the stages of growth for e-business model

As a part of ongoing research to look at the pragmatic value of the stages of growth concept to map the progression of e-business maturity, this paper describes some of the empirical findings of a qualitative study into the progression and maturity of e-business in small and medium enterprises in Australia. In particular, the paper discusses the progression of ebusiness initiatives in three different companies at different levels of IS/IT maturity and the applicability of the stages concept in describing their progression. The cases presented in the paper clearly reveal that the IT managers and the CEO of the companies involved in the study responded favourably when using and applying the stages of growth for e-business (SOGe) model to their e-business experience and had no trouble in using the stages model to chart and identify the “evolution” of their e-business initiatives.