IMPACT OF

E-COMMERCE ON

SMALL BUSINESS

BUSN20016: RESEARCH IN
BUSINESS
FULL RESEARCH PROPOSAL

A Research Proposal submitted to in fulfillment of the requirements of BUSN20016

(RESEARCH IN BUSINESS) for the degree of Master of Professional Accounting.

June 2016
Contents
SECTION I..................................................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................................................3
PROBLEM STATEMENT..........................................................................................................................................6
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES/QUESTIONS.....................................................................................................................7
JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROJECT...........................................................................................................................8
EXPECTED RESEARCH OUTPUT/OUTCOME........................................................................................................10
SECTION II...............................................................................................................................................................11
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS................................................................................11
METHODOLOGY..................................................................................................................................................13
SECTION III..............................................................................................................................................................15
ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY...........................................................................................................................15
GANTT CHART.....................................................................................................................................................16
PROJECT BUDGET AND BUDGET JUSTIFICATION................................................................................................17
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................................18
SECTION I

INTRODUCTION

E-commerce is an emerging concept, where there is an electronic transaction during the

course of business for the buyer and seller in an arm length. Thus, due to growth of internet,
ecommerce has made the business transaction easy and efficient. According to ABS (1998),
there are around 94 to 96 percent of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Australia.
Because of this emerging concept, in the present scenario business can have global presence
in short period of time. It has also change the brick and mortar concept of business as there is
change in need of physical presence.
The term “e-commerce” is described by Chaffey (2009) as all transaction are in electronic
process between the company and related parties.
Turban et al (2002, p 4) define E-commerce as:
“an emerging concept that describes the process of buying, selling or exchanging services
and information via computer networks.”
Damanpour (2001, p 18), by comparison, defines E-commerce as:
“any ‘net’ business activity that transforms internal and external relationships to create value
and exploit market opportunities driven by new rules of the connected economy.”
E-commerce has been classified with different names like electronic commerce, eCommerce,
iCommerce, Internet commerce and digital commerce ( Lawrence et al, 1998). They define e-
commerce as, “Electronic commerce can be defined as the buying and selling of information,
products and services via computer networks today and in the future, using any one of the
myriad of networks that will make up the Internet.” (pp. 2-3).
Further, e-commerce has enabled the companies to share information, increase transaction
speed and decrease the related cost (Dou & Chou 2002). Various companies can have
different motive in implementation of e-commerce as big organization can use it to increase
their efficiency and small organization like to be more competitive in market (Xu & Quaddus,
2009).
In Australia, the companies can be described as small, with numbers of employees less than
50 and annual revenue is less than AUD 25 million (Company act,2000). As most of the
SMEs are still following the traditional way and they have not perceived the competitive
advantage from implementing e-commerce (Clarke, 1997). Also, SMEs has few staffs rather
than professional as that of large organization, resulting in initial high cost of implementation,
employee resistance, keeping up-to-date technology, low return, which small business is
likely to avoid (Farmer, 1996).
The growth of economy basically depends on the business prosperity as 95 percent of businesses
are SMEs and when they grow job opportunity increases with increase in employment rate and
there is rise in economy (Sharples, 2011). Consequently, if proper research is conducted in this
area, it would be beneficial to all the SME’s in the world.

The purpose of this assignment is to undertake a complete research proposal in the field of
E-commerce and the impacts/issues faced by SME’s so that they can implement and can
gain benefit from the recent development in e-commerce. The research proposal is centered
on how e-commerce can influence the organization, particularly SME’s, which has huge
impact in country economic growth and why organization hesitate to implement including
barriers to implement in business.

The organization of this assignment is as follows. This Introduction forms Section I of this
research proposal. This is followed by the Problem Statement, Research Objectives,
Justification of the proposed proposal and the expected outcomes which also fall under
Section I. Then, Section II comprises Conceptual Framework, Research Hypothesis and
Methodology. Finally, Section III comprises Organisation of the Study, Gantt chart and the
Budget required to carry out the proposal.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
E-commerce has become one of the platform to do the transaction of buying, selling and
sharing information electronically. Most of the large organization has already adopted the e-
commerce in their day-to-day transaction and various research has been conducted based on
large organization. SMEs still are doing transaction in traditional way with the concept of
brick-and-mortar. SMEs tend to adopt e-commerce as it has possible benefits but still due to
various barriers for its adoption they seem to slow down to take the competitive advantage of
e-commerce. SMEs have to see the potential benefit that can be gained from the adoption of
e-commerce over the barriers or the cost. As there has been less academic research on the
adoption of the e-commerce by business (Teo et al. 1997-98), SMEs lags to adopt it.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES/QUESTIONS
The overall aim of this project is to investigate the impact of E-commerce on small firms,
their responses to implement that (i.e. their strategies) and the resulting impact on the
performance of the firm. Further, it also elaborates the barriers which hinders the SMEs to
implement E-commerce. More specifically, this study aims to answer the following research
questions:
 RQ1: How did E-commerce impact the SMEs?
 RQ2: How did the SMEs adopt E-commerce?
 RQ3: What are the Barriers that hinders the SMEs to implement E-commerce ?

These questions will help answer the most important aim of this project: providing the best
options/schemes that any SME can follow in order to implement E-commerce and gain the
competitive advantage.
JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROJECT
E-commerce is one of the emerging evolutions in the business. It has brought the world in a
virtual platform where buyer and seller can interact with each other, exchange the information
and do the transaction.
The success of the organization depends upon the ability to undertake the changing technology
that needs to undertake the concept of E-commerce.
Due to failure to cope with the changing scenario of advancement of technology many
organization are still within the brick-and-mortar traditional concept and lagging in expansion of
business. Australia is the first country to adopt the technology funded by government level
(Alston, 1999).
Under these circumstances, the following are the benefits of conducting this research
proposal:

 It will help those who wish to understand how E-commerce has influences
SME’s activities and performance. Also, they must also take into account the
mechanisms through which E-commerce can influence SMEs.
 This research proposal will also help broaden the understanding of how E-
commerce can enhance the productivity and performance with increase in
competitiveness.
 SME managers can make use of the strategies presented in this research to
implement the E-commerce where in this research proposal will help them to
identify the right focus areas during and post implementation of e-commerce. But,
there is no guarantee of a single ‘best method’ that can ensure a SME’s success
in achieving the competitiveness.
 The results obtained from this research proposal will be of use to business
owners, researchers and policy makers.
EXPECTED RESEARCH OUTPUT/OUTCOME

The outcomes of this study will provide an analytical framework for investigating the
factors affecting SME’s because of implementation of E-commerce which will ultimately
help develop and analyse the strategies used by them in order to gain the competitive
advantage and overcome barriers faced by them. Though the response of any business before
and after implementation of E-commerce can vary as it can give both positive and negative
outcome. But it can still provide the ultimate picture about the impact of E-commerce and
help to understand what factor lead to success and what barriers lead business to fail and
cannot cope with the changes.
SMEs can have various factor influencing the adoption of e-commerce like internal
organizational structure, readiness to change, management policies further many external
factor like government policies, market structure. These factor will effect the result of this
research as they can vary with the situation and structure where SMEs are operating their
business. The main focus will be on the data collected, its findings and further interpretation
and analysis. This research will help in future to the emerging organization both large or
small, to adopt the e-commerce, its possible benefit along with the barriers it can face before
they implement e-commerce in the business.
SECTION II

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

E-commerce is basically started from 1991, when the use of internet was made possible for
commercial purpose. It was mainly focused on buying and selling, with the use of electricity
computer and internet. After being popular in general public there was development of secure
protocol and people start using ecommerce as a method of buying and selling using those
secured method.
After the innovation of e-commerce, business has made a global presence in short period of
time. Some examples may be of Amazon.com and ebay.com, which has made online
transaction possible with secure payment. Today, every business seek to adopt e-commerce
due to its competitive advantage. SMEs plays huge role in development of economic
condition of the country. But due to various barriers they tend to lag behind adopting e-
commerce like, lack of or limited resources (capital, personnel, time), lack of knowledge,
poor computer literacy, organizational resistance to change, perceived lack of professional
direction of e-commerce, and lack of awareness of its potential for their own business
(Lawrence, 1997)
According to Quayle (2002), he has derived that SMEs can get benefit from e-commerce
like: reduced administration costs, reduced production costs, reduced lead time, reduced
stock, improved marketing and improved quality of information.
When Organization has to decide to adopt the e-commerce in the business, they have to be
ready internally and externally. Internal factor may include readiness for change, organization
policies, employee awareness; adequate training and external factor may include government
policies, environmental effect. (Bourletidis & Triantafyllopoulos, 2014).

Based on the problem statement and the research objectives, the following Research
Hypothesis’s can be proposed that would be tested in this study:
 H (1): Null Hypothesis: E-commerce does not have any impact on SME’s.
 H (2): Alternate Hypothesis: E-commerce does have an impact on SME’s.
METHODOLOGY

The following methodologies will be undertaken in order to effectively analyse the aims of
this research proposal. They are:

 Literature Review:
This project will be completed by using exploratory research method, which will use
secondary data and resources.Furthermore, review of past researcher has given board
overview of the topic as this can give more accurate conclusion. As it was the main
reason to choose secondary data. Data related to e-commerce, its development, benefit
and barriers are analysed using journal articles, books, government official websites,
business reviews. As journal articles and past report about the topic will be look for
through CQU library (online) as well as Google scholar (Sharples, 2011).
 Data Series and Surveys/Questionnaires (Data Collection Methods):
Various question will be asked and information will be collected from the series of
data and surveys to analyze the impact of e-commerce, its advantage to the
organization and how they have overcome the barriers that lead to implement the e-
commerce successfully (Sahin , et al., 2011).
Furthermore, SMEs will be questioned about how they were able to predetermine the
necessity of e-commerce, key impact felt by them for adoption, what strategies were
taken to overcome barriers and successfully implement e-commerce in their business. For
example, SMEs were asked to respond to the question as what was the level of e-
commerce in the business. Ten items has been used to measure the adoption level of e-
commerce effects, advantages of using it and barriers regarding the adoption using a five-
point Likert scale (where 1 = ‘strong positive effect’ to 5 = ‘strong negative effect’ )
where adoption level includes use of internet, online trading, sharing information,
whereas, advantage and barriers of e-commerce include A global presence, Improved
competitiveness, improved marketing, increase in customer base, employee resistance,
lack of knowledge, reduced flexibility of work (Raymond, 2001; Turban et al, 2000; Lee,
2001; MacGregor et al, 1998)
 Data Analysis Methods: There will be two methods of data analysis used, Qualitative
analysis which will use online forums and surveys other is Quantitative analysis
which will be using figures pie charts, mathematical and statistical modeling which
are available online and via scholarly articles.
The techniques used for analysing quantitative data will be descriptive
statistics (focusing on mean, median and standard deviation of the data) and
hypothesis testing which will consider the likelihood of Type I and Type II
 errors (which relate to whether the data supports accepting or rejecting the
hypothesis).
For analysing qualitative data, concepts from literature will be used as a
source of help to establish the findings and relationships will be examined
based on the answers from online forums and surveys.
This research will consider a mixture of all the above methodologies as the accurate
solution can be obtained only after in-depth study of literature review and the answers
obtained from questionnaires. Thus, after these are done then data will be arranged in first
place, then they are grouped together based on the response of questionnaires, after that they
are analysed and presented
SECTION III

ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY

The organisation of the study is as follows:

 Chapter One will be the Research Proposal as outlined in this assignment.

 Chapter Two will describe the case study of Impact of E-commerce in-depth.
 Chapter Three will include the details of methodology – literature review, data series
and surveys (data collection methods), Impact of E-commerce and data analysis
methods.
 Chapter Four will report the Findings and Analysis of the proposed research.
 Chapter Five will summarize the important findings and discuss their implications in
making SME’s better prepared to implement E-commerce (mainly focusing on key
strategic adoptions by SMEs for being competitiveness).

GANTT CHART
 
The following table shows the timeline for the whole Project to be completed.

Task Name Start Day End Day Duration

(Days)

Project Proposal 01/03/2016 15/03/2016 14

Literature Review 16/03/2016 15/04/2016 30

Data Collection 16/04/2016 16/05/2016 30

Data Analysis 17/05/2016 30/05/2016 12

Final Report Submission 31/05/2016 03/06/2016 4

MILESTONES AND DELIVERABLES

01/03/2016 16/03/2016 16/04/2016 17/05/2016 31/05/2016 3/06/2016 .

Project Proposal 3/15 14

Literature Review 4/15 30

Data Collection 5/16 30

Data Analysis 5/30 12

Final Report Submission 6/03 4

PROJECT BUDGET AND BUDGET JUSTIFICATION

The budget for the proposed research is around $4000 in order to complete this project within
the time frame (3rd June 2016) as given in the Gantt chart.
This budget has been specified for the following reasons:
  The Literature Review to be undertaken requires the use of textbooks, journal
articles and online resources that are not free of cost. This will cost around $1000.
 Data collection in the form of surveys and questionnaires include printing,
travelling and posting/mailing costs. If e-mail is used, there is a chance of it ending
up in the Junk Box section of the e-mail. And, it is better to approach the SME’s in
person and collect information regarding the impacts of E-commerce on them and
their competitive success. In cases where travelling in person might be impossible, the
use of posts can be availed of. This will cost around $1500.
 Also, in order to access charts/tables/government figures for Data Analysis, some of
the budget must be allocated for this purpose too. This will cost around $1000.

In summary,

Purpose Estimated Amount to be Spent

Literature Review $1000
Data Collection $1500
Data Analysis $1000
Total Budget Estimated $3500

REFERENCES
Alston, R. (1999), Australia’s e-commerce Report Card, Department of communication,
Information Technology and the Arts, available at: www.dcita. gov.au/cgi-bin/graphics.pl

Bourletidis, K. & Triantafyllopoulos, Y., 2014. SMEs Survival in time of Crisis: Strategies,
Tactics and Commercial Success Stories. Procedia - Social and Behavioural Sciences,
CXLVIII(1), pp. 639-644.
Chaffey, D. (2009). E-business and e-commerce management – Strategy, implementation and
practice. Fourth Edition. Prentice Hall
Clarke, R (1997),What’s holding up EC in Australia?
available at: www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/EC/Impeds97.html
Damanpour F. (2001) E-Business E-Commerce Evolution: Perspective and Strategy
Managerial Finance vol 27, no. 7, pp 16 - 33
Farmer, C. (1996), Nothing but net, Success, Vol. 43 No. 3, pp. 58
Goodwin, N. et al., 2013. The Financial Crisis and the Great Recession. In: J. Devine, ed.
Macroeconomics in Context. Massachusetts: Routledge, pp. 337-356.
Kenneth C. Laudon, Carol G. Traver (2008). E-Commerce: Business, Technology, Society,
Second Edition.

Lawrence K.L. (1997) Factors Inhibiting the Utilization of Electronic Commerce Facilities in
Tasmanian Small-to-Medium Sized Enterprises 8th Australasian Conference on Information
Systems pp 587 - 597

Lee, S. A., 2009. Guiding Your Small-Business Clients Through the Downturn Maze. Journal
of Financial Planning, XXII(5), pp. 24-29.

Nanto, D. K., 2009. The Global Financial Crisis: Analysis and Policy Implications.
Congressial Research Service, I(1), pp. 1-89.
OECD (1999), “Economic and Social Impact of Ecommerce: Preliminary Findings and
Research Agenda”, OECD Digital Economy Papers, No. 40, OECD Publishing.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/236588526334
Turban E., Lee J., King D. & Chung H. (2000) Electronic Commerce: A Managerial
Perspective, Prentice Hall, NJ

Smallbone, D., Deakins, D., Battisti, M. & Kitching, J., 2012. Small business responses to a
major economic downturn: Empirical perspectives from New Zealand and the United
Kingdom. International Small Business Journal, XXX(7), pp. 754-777.
Turban E., Lee J., King D. & Chung H. (2000) Electronic Commerce: A Managerial Perspective
Prentice Hall, NJ
Turban E., King D, Lee J. Warkentin M & Chung H.M. (2002) Electronic Commerce Prentice
Hall Vanasco R.R. (1999) The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: An International Perspective
Managerial Auditing Journal vol. 14, no. 4, pp 161 - 261

Xu, J. & Quaddus, M. (2009). E-Business in the 21st Century: Realities, Challenges and
Outlook. SGP: World Scientific Publishing Co., [Online] Available:
http://site.ebrary.com/lib/kaubib/Doc?id=10422509&ppg=301 [2012-03-23]