Investigating the factors affecting e-commerce in Iranian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the world trade environment

Abstract

In the era of the global economy, many markets have increasingly turned into international and competitive markets. Technological advances in logistics and distribution enable almost every business to buy, sell, and collaborate globally; and even smaller and local businesses are also forced to be present in the global arena in order to survive in this new and challenging business environment. The present study aimed to identify the factors affecting the e-commerce boom in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the world trade environment. The statistical population of the study consists of companies and specialists active in e-commerce which are 100 ones. The present study is applied in terms of purpose and is descriptive in terms of nature. A researcher-made questionnaire was used for data collection. The validity of the questionnaire questions was confirmed by experts in the field. Cronbach's alpha technique was used to determine the reliability of the questionnaire which was confirmed with a coefficient of 0.82. Exploratory factor analysis and Friedman tests were used to analyze the data. The study results showed that all the 25 factors affecting e-commerce can be classified into 8 groups, and Friedman test showed their order which includes effective economic, cultural, educational, personal, political, and infrastructural, security, and marketing factors, respectively. Therefore, it should be noted that factors such as costs of using the Internet, the growth rate of people's access to computers, software and hardware systems, economic factors associated with the existence of e-commerce insurance, and unfamiliarity with economic benefits such as cost savings due to using e-commerce are the main factors affecting the development of commerce