1、电子商务的应用与中小企业的绩效外文文献翻译文献出处：Michael Abebe, (2014) Electronic commerce adoption, entrepreneurial orientation and small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance,Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 21 Iss: 1, pp.100 116原文Electronic commerce adoption, entrepreneurial orientati
2、on and small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) performanceMichael AbebeIntroductionThe significant role that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play in the US economy is well documented in the literature. As the pace of economic globalization continues to escalate, SMEs are increasingly expe
3、riencing fierce competition both from their domestic and foreign counterparts (Matlay and Westhead, 2005;Etemad, 2004;Julien and Ramangalahy, 2003;Lu and Beamish, 2001). In order to offset their inherent resource and size disadvantages and stay competitive, SMEs employ a number of competitive strate
4、gies and tools. One such competitive tool is electronic commerce (e-commerce) (Raymondet al., 2005;Kleindl, 2000;Stewart, 1997).E-commerce has increasingly become an important technological medium through which businesses serve their customers, expand their geographical reach, respond to competitive
5、 pressure and reduce operational costs (Martin and Matlay, 2003;Becket al., 2005;Wymer and Regan, 2005). Despite the tremendous amount of growth in e-commerce adoption around the globe, there is still a significant discrepancy between SMEs and large, well-established firms (Fominet al., 2005;Pratt,
6、2002).Pratt (2002), in a study conducted for the Office of Advocacy, US Small Business Administration (SBA), observed that only 58 percent of SMEs had a website compared to 77 percent of larger firms. Similarly, a survey conducted by Forrester Research found that only 40 percent of SMEs sold their p
7、roducts and services on the internet (Weiss, 2004). These and other similar studies have noted that, while small business owners (managers) value the importance of e-commerce, relatively few of them are able to establish an effective web presence due to numerous organizational difficulties.Past scho
8、larly work in this area has extensively explored the potential strategic benefits and pitfalls of e-commerce adoption in SMEs (e.g.Johnstonet al., 2007;Martin and Matlay, 2003;Wymer and Regan, 2005;Grandon and Pearson, 2004;Bianchi and Bivona, 2002;Webb, 2002). In general, past research evidence ind
9、icates that SMEs adopt e-commerce in order to pursue a global strategy that enables them to target a broader customer base (Mehta and Shah, 2001;Moodley, 2003;Becket al., 2005), address environmental and competitive pressures in their industries (Wymer and Regan, 2005;Grandon and Pearson, 2004), and
10、 take advantage of significant cost savings associated with implementing such a technology (Raymondet al., 2005;Riemenschneideret al., 2003;Santarelli and DAltri, 2003). Despite the growing number of empirical research dealing with e-commerce issues in SMEs, the literature has largely been confined
11、to exploratory studies that examine various factors affecting e-commerce adoption in SMEs (Wymer and Regan, 2005;Houghton and Winklhofer, 2004;Matlay, 2004).This study seeks to contribute to the literature by addressing two research questions:1. Is there a relationship between e-commerce adoption an
12、d performance of SMEs?2. More importantly, does the degree of managers entrepreneurial orientation moderate the relationship between e-commerce adoption and SME performance?Accordingly, this study first examines empirically the relationship between e-commerce adoption and SME performance using cross
13、-sectional data collected from the Southern part of the USA. This study then investigates whether owner-managers level of entrepreneurial orientation moderates the e-commerce adoption-performance relationship in SMEs.This study specifically focuses on this moderator (i.e. entrepreneurial orientation
14、) for two reasons: first, since managers (owner-mangers) of SMEs are often more directly involved in strategic as well as operational decision-making (including technology adoption decisions) than is the case in large businesses with multiple layers of management (Raymond and Blili, 2000;Wincent and
15、 Westerberg, 2005), examining the role of managerial cognitive and behavioral characteristics will enhance our understanding of e-commerce adoption in SMEs and its impact on overall firm performance. Second, by examining this specific moderator empirically, this study extends the ongoing research th
16、at predominantly focused on exploratory issues in e-commerce adoption to include the condition under which SMEs e-commerce adoption enhances firm performance. Hence, focus on this moderator provides a valuable contingency perspective that suggests the condition under which the e-commerce adoption-pe
17、rformance relationship is enhanced or diminished.Theoretical background and hypothesis developmentE-commerce adoption and SMEs performanceFollowingKalakota and Whinston (1997), this paper defines e-commerce from the B2C perspective as being “the buying and selling of information, products and servic
18、es via computer networks” (p. 3). A substantial portion of the current literature on e-commerce adoption in SMEs focuses on factors that influence the adoption and non-adoption decision (e.g.Riemenschneideret al., 2003;Grandon and Pearson, 2004;Matlay, 2004;Fominet al., 2005;Wymer and Regan, 2005).
19、The theory of planned behavior (Azjen, 1991), the technology acceptance model (Davis, 1989), the theory of reasoned action (Azjen and Fishbein, 1980) and the diffusion of technology theory (Rogers, 1995) are major theoretical underpinnings in most of the extant literature. Research in e-commerce ado
20、ption has examined a number of internal and external factors influencing the adoption decision in SMEs (Grandon and Pearson, 2004;Sutanonpaiboon and Pearson, 2006;Loane, 2006;Saffuet al., 2008).For instance, in their study of 100 managers from SMEs in the USA, Grandon and Pearson found that organiza
21、tional readiness, external pressure, and perceived ease of use significantly affect e-commerce adoption. Other studies in the literature considered the benefits and rewards of e-commerce adoption in SMEs (Stockdale and Standing, 2004;Raymondet al., 2005).Raymondet al.(2005)studied the assimilation o
22、f e-business activities in manufacturing SMEs. According to their findings, most of the benefits and business capabilities derived from e-business adoption can be categorized as “communicational/ informational” functions, “business intelligence” functions and “transactional/ collaborative” functions
23、. Communicative functions of e-commerce may include promotion of products and/or service as well as interaction with customers. Business intelligence functions, on the other hand, involve attracting potential clients both domestic and abroad and gathering competitor or market intelligence (Quelch an
24、d Klein, 1996;Bianchi and Bivona, 2002;Houghton and Winklhofer, 2004). Finally, transactional/collaborative use focuses on selling products and/or services as well as interacting with business partners in order to collaborate on R&D and marketing (Raymondet al.2005). Such collaborations include main
25、taining and developing relationships with clients, channel partner, suppliers and network partners (Coltmanet al.2001;Loane, 2006;Auger, 2005). The transactional benefits generally extend to promoting SMEs and servicing customers in new markets with reduced operational expenses (Santarelli and DAltr
26、i, 2003;Lohrkeet al., 2006).This study extends the ongoing research on e-commerce adoption by examining the relationship between e-commerce adoption and performance of SMEs. More specifically, it is argued that there will be a positive and significant influence of e-commerce adoption on SMEs perform
27、ance due to two major intermediary organizational processes. First, e-commerce adoption positively affects SMEs performance by providing an enhanced and streamlined business process management. Several studies in the literature found that e-commerce plays an important role in reducing transaction co
28、sts as well as enabling a more efficient handling of internal business processes in SMEs (e.g.Turner, 2000;Chan and Lee, 2003;Santarelli and DAltri, 2003;Lohrkeet al., 2006).Santarelli and DAltri (2003), for instance, observed in their analysis of Italian manufacturing and service SMEs that adopting
29、 a robust e-commerce capability allows the firms to reduce the transaction costs involved with external distribution channels. Similarly,Lohrkeet al.(2006), drawing from the transaction-cost economics (TCE) theory, proposed and tested the argument that SMEs with high information specificity tend to
30、adopt e-commerce more than those with lower information specificity, partly because of the possibility of reducing the transaction cost involved in delivering highly specialized customer support. The results of their analyses of 47 US manufacturing SMEs provided support for their argument. Past rese
31、arch has also shown that e-commerce adoption in SMEs improve the efficiency of not only internal business processes but also the broader supply chain (Johnston and Wright, 2004;Kimet al., 2008). These and other similar studies show that e-commerce adoption affects the overall performance of SMEs pri
32、marily by providing a more efficient and streamlined internal business processes that in turn translate into significant cost-saving and profitability.The second intermediary organizational process through which e-commerce adoption influences SMEs performance is enhanced marketing capability. One of the most obvious shortcomings of SMEs is their size and resource disadvantagevis-vistheir larger competitors. Hence, SMEs face significant challenges not only in identifying and developing a broader customer base but also in competing against global competitors (Etemad, 2004;
