The Government's Role in Improving Electronic Commerce Adoption

Electronic commerce has been introduced to the business community at a very fast pace. The Internet’s ease of use in particular resulted to a rapid growth of electronic transactions in a spontaneous manner. Governments worldwide are anxious to control this new means and have to balance between international cooperation and care for specific national needs. In this paper we examine the role of governments in the implementation of a national electronic commerce strategy. We argue that public authorities need to consider key stakeholders in the electronic commerce market and apply different strategies to different stakeholder groups.