The Adoption of Business to Business E-Commerce: Heterogeneity and Network Externality Effects

The decision to adopt e-commerce technology depends on a variety of variables. This paper explores the relative importance of structural firm-specific variables, the intrinsic value of the technology, expectations concerning the evolution of the technology, and the adoption behaviour of other agents. Almost all variables pertaining to the conventional structure of firms, including size, and the value of technology, are found to have no importance in the adoption decision, whereas the expected number of other adopters are found to have a positive effect. Moreover, the smaller the percentage of adopters considered to be the threshold beyond which the firm will adopt (critical mass), the higher the probability of adoption.