An Investigation of the Factors Affecting Consumers’ Adoption of E-commerce: An Empirical Study of Saudi Arabia

This study identified a gap in the adoption of electronic (e)-commerce in Saudi Arabia in particular and developing countries in general and hopefully, provides some useful insight regarding e-commerce in Saudi Arabia. This study is limited to a small nation or group which makes generalization not essential (Bryman 2008,p.391). But at the same time, it provides a good base for further work that can be based on the findings of this study. Businesses across the world are launching e-commerce to increase sales by reducing costs, and extending their activities to serve their clients anywhere in the world. The literature, however, shows that in many developing countries e-commerce projects have failed due to a lack of consumers' readiness to adopt it whereas consumers in the developed countries have already incorporated e-commerce into their daily lives. In order for e-commerce to be successful in developing countries, consumers need to accept and adopt this service. This gap is addressed by this study so that developing countries come to benefit from e-commerce and avoid possible failures. The study presents the key factors (enablers and barriers) that affect consumers’ adoption of e-commerce. It aims to understand consumers’ perspectives, move theoretically to obtain suppliers’ comments on consumers’ viewpoints, gather any new aspects mentioned by them and finally to combine the two perspectives together to arrive at the final findings. The researcher investigated a number of research methodologies to find the one appropriate for this study. As a result, a qualitative research approach was adopted, which was used to understand and explain the phenomenon under investigation. Grounded theory methodology (GT) was used since it uses theoretical sampling that helped to achieve the study’s goals by moving theoretically from the first empirical study to the second. The study used various techniques to collect evidence such as semi-structure interviews, observations and official documents. The two empirical studies of this research offered a good understanding and further insights into e-commerce adoption among consumers. It reveals a roadmap for suppliers and governments that enable them to adopt e-commerce among consumers in developing countries. The findings of this study are divided into the following dimensions: cultural, telecommunication infrastructure, technical, suppliers’ responsibilities, financial, awareness, legal, delivery, tangible and intangible end-user characteristics, security, geographical and government’s responsibilities dimensions. Government’s responsibilities have been found to be the core category that affects most of the factors that are germane to this study. These factors can help decision makers understand the issues that are involved and effectively address them. The final paradigm model presented in chapter 8 illustrates the phenomenon, its causes, conditions, specifications and the required strategies that help to increase e-commerce adoption among consumers

An Investigation into the Adoption, Implementation and Utilisation of Campus Portals: A Comparative Case Study of Saudi and U.K. Universities.

Enterprise Information Portals (EIPs) have become crucial components in contemporary organisations, including universities. Campus portals (CPs) have found their way into the academic environment and universities are increasingly implementing these technologies. While there are many studies concerning EIPs in organisations, there are few studies that touch this issue in the academic environment. This study investigates factors affecting the adoption, implementation and utilisation of CPs from the implementers’ and users’ perspectives. It adopts a comparative approach based on multiple case studies in some Saudi and UK universities. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and documentation, which was analysed using hermeneutics and other qualitative data analysis techniques. Findings show that adoption and implementation of CPs are affected by factors including: technological, organisational, environmental, financial, innovation and user-related factors. Results from the users perspective reveal that although CPs are perceived to be useful in terms of accessing information and services, there are many concerns related to system, content and service quality. Moreover, the study has identified two main gaps between users and the implementers: a communication gap and an expectations gap. Consequently, users complained about a lack of user involvement and poor communication. Findings are interpreted using elements from institutional theory. Development of CPs is affected by many institutional factors such as coercive, mimetic, normative and competitive pressures. Furthermore, the introduction of CPs could lead to a clash of institutional logics among various stakeholders. Institutional arguments are likely to arise between portal teams and other campus constituents such as service providers and users. This study has three major contributions. First, it used institutional theory to investigate CPs adoption and implementation. As a result, it extends the line of research on the use of this theory to study IS in organisations. Second, it responds to calls from other IS researchers to study portals by conducting in-depth field investigation using qualitative research. Third, it addresses issues related to the development of bilingual portals in universities.Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabi