The Impact Of Strategic Behaviour Of Smes On E-Commerce Adoption And Customer Responsiveness

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to deepen understanding of the operations strategy of SMEs by examining the extent to which the strategic behaviour of SMEs (using Miles and Snow’s typology) influences their customer responsiveness and adoption of e-commerce. Little empirical findings exist on the relationship between strategic behaviour of firms, customer responsiveness and e-commerce adoption among SMEs, particularly in a developing economy context. To achieve the research purpose, this study employed the quantitative research approach, using a cross sectional study design. Data was gathered from 320 service firms from Information and Communication, Administrative and Support Services and Fashion sub sectors. The collected data was analysed using SPSS and PLS-SEM. The PLS-SEM was used to analyse the relationships between the strategic behaviour of firms, customer responsiveness and e-commerce adoption. Findings from the study indicated that the sampled service SMEs are indifferent about their strategic behaviour options relative to Miles and Snow’s typology. Also, based on the Miles and Snow’s typology, these firms’ differ with regards to e-commerce adoption making them more of defenders than prospectors or analysers or reactors. Finally, the analyser, prospector and defender behaviours have been statistically proven to influence e-commerce adoption leaving out reactor behaviour which statistically, does not have a relationship with e-commerce adoption. With regards to customer responsiveness, only the prospector behaviour has been proven statistically to have a relationship with the construct. Statistically, there is no relationship between the analyser, defender and reactor behaviours and customer responsiveness. Conclusively, this study has advanced knowledge that strategic behaviour (using Miles and Snow typology) can affect e-commerce adoption and customer responsiveness to some extent.