Determinants of E-business Adoption: Evidence from Firms in India, Nigeria, Uganda

In this paper we employ firm-level data collected in three countries to analyze factors determining the adoption of internal e-business technologies in developing countries. The main objectives of the study are: identification of clusters based on technology adopted, classify firms in each cluster, investigate factors that resulted in technology adoption, and finally, analyse these factors within a multivariate framework. The variables that emerged significant display considerable variety across countries including size of operation, export performance, profitability, value addition, skill intensity, academic qualification of managing directors, learning processes, and technological collaboration with foreign firms. We found bi-directional relationships among several factors but the study could not identify all the causal relationships due to lack of time series data. Keyword: SMEs, e-business, developing countries, ICTs, adoption, cluster, learning UNU-INTECH Discussion Papers