This article starts with definitions of e‐business and a summary of what it means for businesses. This is followed by a quick description of a model of e‐business adoption. It then argues that modelling has reached a secure enough state for us to be able to predict benefits of adoption with...

A number of recent studies have suggested that, for small businesses to compete with their larger counterparts in the electronic commerce environment, many are collaborating in a network arrangement. This study examines whether factors such as business size, business age, business sector or...

This paper explores a range of issues surrounding the adoption of ICT and e‐business technologies and techniques by small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). The paper reviews the nature and extent of the take‐up of these technologies by small firms, and the digital divides that have...

Explores the electronic commerce (e‐commerce) involvement of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in terms of the strategic, operational, and performance aspects. Findings are reported from a survey of SMEs in northern California. The results show that SMEs tend to pursue e‐commerce...

The small business sector of the UK economy is extremely important and the government expends considerable resources in providing support services for this sector. This paper investigated the reasons why SMEs move from traditional commerce to e‐commerce, the efficacy of the support services...

This paper reports on research that investigates how three start‐up dotcoms, founded at the height of the Internet boom avoided joining the many dotbombs of the subsequent crash of the Internet economy. The paper describes how the companies made use of Internet‐based information and...

This paper presents results on the extent to which e‐business and knowledge management approaches are being used by SMEs in the UK. The questionnaire survey and interview results identify the main issues that should concern SMEs if they want to prevail in the emerging business environment and...

A previous paper by the authors drew on existing research on e‐business and the smaller firm, developed a conceptual model and a set of research propositions. This paper analyses a series of qualitative, in‐depth interviews of owner/managers of smaller firms in central Scotland in order to...

The Office for National Statistics revealed that in 2001 Wales had the lowest number of businesses with access to the Internet compared with the rest of the UK, whilst the number of businesses in Wales using e‐commerce was well exceeded by other regions. But is it time for Aesop to take...

Traditionally, entrepreneurs and small businesses have faced difficulties when competing with entrenched firms for customers and expanding into global markets. The World Wide Web (WWW) is one approach to overcoming obstacles by giving organizations a direct connection to potential customers and...