Investigating E-commerce Adoption in Small and Medium-sized Tourism Enterprises: A Case of Travel Agents in Egypt

SMEs are often described as slow adopters of technology. However, adopting e-commerce is one of many strategies taken by travel agents to re-intermediate themselves in the global travel market against the threat of disintermediation. Exploratory studies have revealed that Egyptian travel agents are laggards when it comes to technology adoption, although they perceive e-commerce as a beneficial tool that can increase their chances of survival. As many as 59.2% of Egyptian travel agents were found not to have websites (Egyptian Travel Agents Association, 2008), this study investigates the factors affecting e-commerce adoption by travel agents. Past literature has shown that there are three main factors affecting the adoption of e-commerce by SMEs. Environmental pressures push SMEs to adopt in order to bolster their survival chances. The benefits of adoption are critical factors considered by managers when making the adoption decision. Finally, there are barriers to e-commerce adoption. By modifying the technology acceptance model, this research conceptualizes the causal relationships amongst these three types of factors. The benefits and barriers to e-commerce adoption are found to mediate the relationship between environmental pressures and e-commerce adoption. This study employs mixed methods starting with a quantitative survey and following it up with qualitative interviews. A questionnaire was used to collect data from 411 adopter and non-adopter e-commerce travel agents. Later, 22 interviews were conducted with the managers of travel agents. Structural equation modelling produced findings reveal that environmental pressures significantly affect the perceived benefits of and barriers to adoption, in addition to having an indirect effect on adoption behaviour. This study contributes to theory as it responds to the claim that the factors affecting e-commerce adoption have not been well documented in the travel sector (Hung et al., 2011, Thomas et al., 2011), especially in the context of developing countries (Thulani et al., 2010). The findings reveal that the modified technology acceptance model successfully interprets e-commerce adoption. The study compares other adoption models with the research model and provides statistical criteria for this comparison. Its contribution to practice is twofold, affecting the managers of travel agencies and policy makers. Recognizing the factors affecting adoption would enable managers to devise strategies and prepare better agendas for expanding their businesses, while at the same time identifying any defects and training needs that present barriers. Meanwhile, recognizing the barriers to adoption could encourage government bodies and policy makers to implement appropriate measures, such as introducing protective and financial legislation to encourage SMEs to adopt technology, or to formulate national policies and initiatives aimed specifically at supporting the adoption of e-commerce by SMEs.Egyptian Governmen

Using competing models to evaluate the role of environmental pressures in ecommerce adoption by small and medium sized travel agents in a developing country

This study investigates the factors that influence e-commerce adoption in SME travel agents in a developing country. The research is based upon a questionnaire survey of travel agents in Egypt and employs advanced statistical techniques to test a conceptual framework that extends the technology acceptance model. Using competing models the study examines the relationship between e-commerce adoption, perceived benefits, perceived barriers and environmental pressures. The results indicate that environmental pressures significantly affect the perceived benefits and barriers of e-commerce adoption, in addition to having an indirect effect on adoption behaviour. Insights are provided into the nature of relationships between the key factors that determine e-commerce adoption and the extent to which they can be used to develop effective strategies for SME travel agent re-intermediation in the global travel market. Implications are identified for practice and government policy in relation to the use of e-commerce in SME travel businesses in developing countries

The adoption of web based marketing in the travel and tourism industry: an empirical investigation in Egypt

The main objective of this research is to increase academic understanding as well as provide managerial implications in relation to the determinants of the levels of web adoption for marketing purposes by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Egypt. Web adoption is specifically defined in this research as the ownership of a website to communicate and/or deliver travel services to a target market. Providing facilities for inquiry, reservation, communication and booking are examples of adoption of the web to provide travel services. This research is thus interested in how the web is being used to interact with customers. Additionally, the levels of adoption represent the different levels that SMEs go through in their adoption process starting with not owning a website to being a simple adopter to being a sophisticated adopter. Non-adopters do not own a web site. Simple adopters own web pages that have facilities for information provision and communication whereas sophisticated adopters own web pages that have facilities for online booking and completing a full transaction online. It is worth noting that the levels of adoption are interrelated and are not static but are part of a process of eEvolution. This research provides an empirical contribution by studying the tourism sector as an example of a service industry and investigating the relative importance of the factors that determine the different levels of web adoption by SMEs in the context of a developing country. In order to achieve this objective, the research integrates existing theories in order to develop a conceptual framework for the determinants of Web adoption in the tourism sector. Besides Roger’s model of innovation adoption, the Resource-based view of the firm, a theory that deals specifically with firm resources and capabilities, is used to provide valuable information about the firm-specific factors that are thought to have an influence on innovation adoption. The model developed in this research is based purely on existing research and it integrates different theoretical perspectives. In addition, the researcher empirically tests this framework using both qualitative and quantitative data from travel agents in Egypt. This research is divided into three main parts. The first part (chs. 2 &3) introduces the literature where the concept of Internet marketing is presented and the key themes of research on Internet marketing are discussed. A literature review on Internet adoption by firms is then presented and the gaps in literature highlighted. The key literature includes defining the web as an innovation and organizational adoption of innovation. The different ways in which innovation adoption has been studied are discussed and a classification of the different factors influencing innovation adoption is made. A review of the existing research on the factors influencing technological innovation adoption by organizations is then provided. Finally, Internet adoption including the web by SMEs is discussed. The main gaps identified are lack of research on SMEs adoption of the web from a level perspective (i.e. distinguishing between use for communication versus use for transactions), lack of research on innovation adoption in developing countries, too much focus on consumer adoption in comparison to organizational adoption of innovations, shortage of research on innovation adoption from a level perspective and a need to identify the critical factors that affect each level of adoption. A conceptual framework (ch.4) is then presented, based on integrating existing theories and literature, and a series of hypotheses derived. The second part starts by discussing the tourism sector in Egypt (ch.5) which is selected to be the research context and then outlines the methodology (ch.6). This research relies on triangulation with a mixed methods research approach which combines both qualitative and quantitative analysis. The qualitative work provides depth to the analysis. It is used to compare with the proposed model in an attempt to provide a more complete picture of the investigated phenomenon. The quantitative work tests the hypotheses and indicates generalizability of the results. It consists of descriptive analysis, factor analysis and regression analysis. Both logistic and multiple regression were conducted in this research. The third part of the research is concerned with the analysis of empirical results presented in four chapters. Chapter 7 deals with a small scale content analysis on travel agents’ websites to measure the evolution of services provided on these sites over a period of two years. Chapter 8 includes details of the qualitative work conducted in this research which consisted of 12 in-depth interviews with travel agents in Egypt and provided a basis for triangulating the findings from the quantitative analysis. Chapter 9 includes the descriptive analysis of the data as well as the reliability and validity tests on the measurement instrument. Chapter 10 presents the findings and the interpretations of the hypotheses testing. The contribution of this research is a synthesis of Roger’s innovation adoption model with the Resource-based View of the firm (RBV) to produce a revised conceptualisation for the adoption of innovations which is empirically tested for developing country SMEs in the context of tourism in Egypt. The key findings of this research are that management factors are important for the initial adoption decision by firms whereas marketing capabilities are important for more sophisticated adoption. As for perceived innovation attributes, relative advantage and complexity were found important for the initial adoption decision whereas perceived risk was found important for more sophisticated adoptions. This suggests that different factors affect the different levels of adoption. The main contributions of this research to theory are: first,-innovation attributes are not the whole story when studying firms’ adoption of the web, firm resources also affect firms’ adoption decision. Second,-different factors affect different levels of adoption thus when studying innovation adoption by firms, it is important to consider the adoption process as a continuous process that consists of different levels rather than a dichotomous process of adopt vs. non-adopt. The main contribution at the context level is that this is the first research to be conducted in Egypt which represents an important extension to the Web adoption studies that focused largely on developed countries. Additionally, the results of this research can be transferable to countries that share similarities with Egypt and may also be of relevance to SMEs in other sectors in Egypt as will be explained later

How ability, motivation and opportunity influence travel agents performance: the moderating role of absorptive capacity

Purpose: This study aims to examine the influence of the three dimensions of travel agents’ manager competencies – ability, motivation and opportunity seeking – on knowledge transfer and travel agents’ performance. In addition, the study investigates how employee’s absorptive capacity moderates the effects of managers’ competencies on knowledge received by the employees and moderates the effects of knowledge received by the employees on travel agents’ performance. Design/methodology/approach: A positivist research philosophy was adopted with a quantitative approach, in which quantitative data were gathered based on questionnaires to tackle different stages of the study. To test the hypotheses, a self-administrated face-to-face survey of about 42 questions, launched on November 7, 2016, was used to compile response from top and medium management Category A travel agents operating in Egypt. Findings: Based on a sample of 577 travel agents’ frontline employees, the results showed that the three dimensions of travel agents’ competencies have a positive effect on knowledge received by the employee. Findings further indicated that knowledge received by employee mediates the link between these three competencies and travel agents’ performance. The link between the competencies and knowledge received by the employee was found to be positively moderated by employee absorptive capacity. Moreover, these findings suggested that the relationship between knowledge received and travel agents’ performance is stronger when employees’ absorptive capacity is greater. Research limitations/implications: This study is bound by certain limitations that also provide fertile grounds for further research. First, the study examined how an employee’s absorptive capacity moderates the effects of managers’ competencies on knowledge received by the employees and moderates the effects of knowledge received by the employees on travel agents’ performance. However, innovation as a dependent variable can be investigated. Second, one limitation is that the study is restricted to Category A travel agents only in Greater Cairo. Third, examining the antecedents of ability, motivation and opportunity seeking to transfer knowledge is also important. Practical implications: It is important for travel agents, owners, managers and employees to acknowledge absorptive capacity as a critical component for organizations to sustain, grow and compete. Travel agents can also take steps to develop their employees’ absorptive capacity. Doing so would further enhance the success of knowledge, employees and travel agents’ performance. Also, travel agents’ top management has to ensure their employees’ absorbing knowledge, identifying and recognizing external knowledge, processing and understanding it, combining it with existing knowledge and applying the new knowledge to commercial ends. Hence, the development of absorptive capacity contributes to a travel agent’s achievement of competitive advantage. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature by expanding the extant literature on knowledge transfer and absorptive capacity by investigating the influence of travel agents’ manager competencies – ability, motivation and opportunity seeking – for knowledge transfer in the Egyptian context. In addition, it investigates the direct effects of the three dimensions of travel agents’ manager competencies – ability, motivation and opportunity seeking – for knowledge transfer. Finally, the paper investigates how employee’s absorptive capacity moderates the effects of managers’ competencies on knowledge received by the employees and moderates the effects of knowledge received by the employees on travel agents’ performanc

The cognitive and affective antecedents to consumer behavior towards on-demand transportation services in Egypt

In the recent few years, smartphones have shaped and assisted in the creation of new business models to formulate and develop some additional dimensions such as shared-economy or shared-mobility. Since transportation is one of the most essential aspects of shared-economy, it is vital to this study to focus and investigate the consumers’ intention to use the new commuting services provided by Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) in Egypt. Consequently, this research aims to examine and understand the cognitive and affective antecedents to consumers’ behavior towards TNCs in Egypt. Therefore, the model of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT2) has been applied to understand and explain the factors that influence the behavioral intention (BI) to use TNCs services. The factors of Performance Expectancy (PE), Effort Expectancy (EE), Social Influence (SI), Facilitating Conditions (FC), Hedonic Motivation (HM), Price Value (PV), and Habit (HT) tested through surveying 200 respondents thru online (Google Forms) and offline (Self-Administered Questionnaires) techniques. The results showed that consumers’ intention to use TNCs services in Egypt, was positively affected by the factors of (performance expectancy, social influence, price value, and habit). However, the variables of (effort expectancy, facilitating conditions, and hedonic motivation) showed a negative influence on the intention to use TNCs services in Egypt. Thus, upon the evaluation of the gathered data and discovered findings, the market acceptance and share of TNCs services can be increased if these services considered the factors affecting the consumers\u27 intention that mentioned earlier

Antecedents of business-to-business e-commerce adoption and its effect on competitive advantage in manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises: A comparative study of United States of America and Egypt

Business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce adoption has become a necessity for most small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), allowing them to gain and sustain competitive advantage in a dynamic competitive environment. Accepting the fact that B2B is adopted at different levels based on different resources leads to the acceptance that competitive advantage is gained and sustained on a level consistent with the level of adoption. This study employs quantitative method based on the positivism philosophy and deductive approach. A questionnaire survey technique was used to collect the data from the American and Egyptian manufacturing SMEs. Moreover, it used structural equation modelling with a sample of 320 and 260 manufacturing SMEs in the United States of America and Egypt respectively. The structural equation modelling (SEM) findings revealed that each level of B2B e-commerce adoption was affected by different factors from another level of adoption. Besides, there was a significant difference between the issues which faced manufacturing SMEs in USA and Egypt. Furthermore, in Egyptian manufacturing SMEs, relative advantage and competitive pressure have a significant effect on adoption behaviour. On the other hand, when American manufacturing SMEs made their decisions to adopt B2B e-commerce, they considered the main factors to be relative advantage, top management support, firm size and government support. In addition, the findings revealed that the higher the level of B2B e-commerce, which an SME adopted, the higher the level of competitive advantage it gained. However, in developing countries such as Egypt, SMEs remained far behind their peers in developed countries. In terms of theoretical implications, the study could be considered to be a unique study in the field of B2B e-commerce generally and B2B e-commerce in Egyptian manufacturing SMEs in particular. This is because, by looking back at the literature review, is clear that empirical studies into B2B e-commerce issues, including manufacturing SMEs, remained embryonic in developed countries and rare in the developing countries. This is especially so in the Arabic countries. In addition, most previous studies focused on a broad and generic view of the SMEs’ adoption of B2B e-commerce or on the relationship between adoption of IT and competitive advantage. This study was conducted in a cross-country context; it considered the manufacturing SMEs’ adoption of B2B e-commerce from the perspective of the level of adoption. Therefore, it made an original empirical contribution towards the current body of knowledge on the adoption of B2B e-commerce through the identification of manufacturing SMEs adoption levels of B2B e-commerce; their impacts on competitive advantage; and the significant factors which influenced each adoption level of B2B e-commerce in USA and Egypt. In addition, this study used TOE as the theoretical framework in investigating the factors affecting B2B e-commerce in SMEs and focused largely on the factors affecting each level; this is a new contribution to the extant literature. Turning to the study’s practical implications, important implications for the manufacturing SMEs’ owner/managers can be drawn from the findings to help them to understand their environments as, in a cross-country business context, they move through the different stages of adopting B2B e-commerce. In addition to the implication for manufacturing SMEs’ owners/managers, this study presents important implications for governmental, nongovernmental organisations and other institutions linked to manufacturing SMEs. Similar to other studies, this study has a number of limitations. The main one is that it lacks the use of qualitative analysis to depict how SMEs understand the concept of competitive advantages and how this helps them to survive and grow.Iraqi governmen

Quality modeling in electronic healthcare: a study of mHealth Service

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have the potential to radically transform health services in developing countries. Among various ICT driven health platforms, mobile health is the most promising one because of its widespread penetration and cost effective services. This paper aims to examine Quality Modeling in Electronic Healthcare by using PLS based SEM

Pengaruh faktor teknologi terhadap hubungan antara faktor organisasi dengan penerimaan media sosial dalam pemasaran penginapan bajet

Social media has been accepted as a new marketing medium for survival of various industries in Malaysia, especially in budget accommodation. However, its adoption among small and medium enterprises in the tourism industry is still at the initial stage. Previous studies showed that organization’s internal and external factors determine the success of budget accommodation marketing, yet technological factor was less emphasized. Accordingly, this study was conducted to identify the influence of the organization’s internal and external factors, and the technological factor on the adoption of social media in the budget accommodation marketing. The theoretical framework of this study was developed by combining the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Innovation Diffusion Theory (IDT). The method used in this study was cross-sectional survey involving budget accommodation operators in Kedah, Perlis and Penang. A total of 112 respondents answered the questionnaires and the data were analyzed by using multivariate techniques of Structural Equation Modeling. Path Analysis showed that a large variance in the adoption of social media in the budget accommodation marketing was contributed by the organization’s internal factor, external factor and technological factor by 71.6 percent. The findings also revealed that organization’s external factor and technological factor have significant direct influences towards the social media adoption. Technological factor was also found to be significantly mediating the relationship between organization factors and social media adoption. This study contributes to the application of TAM and IDT in the context of adoption of social media for budget accommodation marketing, as well as a guide to the operators as a new marketing strategy in the current tourism sector

E-loyalty formation of Generation Z: Personal characteristics and social influences

Purpose: This study examines the personal characteristics and social influence of Generation Z on their e-loyalty towards tourism websites. In contrast to previous models, this study explores the effect of perceived compatibility and innovativeness (personal characteristics) and subjective norm (social influence) on perceived usefulness and trust on tourism websites, which in turn influence e-loyalty in a generational context. These factors are crucial in e-commerce, but they have not been studied together in the context of tourism, especially for Generation Z. Methods: Using a sample size of 389 respondents falling within Generation Z in India, the proposed model was validated using PLS-SEM. A quantitative approach was followed in this study and the data was collected by using a survey questionnaire. Results: Within the wider context of technology adoption, the findings show the decisive role of both personal characteristics and social influence in determining the e-loyalty of Generation Z towards tourism websites. Implications: The implications of understanding the e-loyalty of Generation Z may assist tourism firms in retaining them by developing and implementing effective marketing strategies. Moreover, the study’s most significant contribution is that it considers Generation Z, a generation that will shape the world’s future economy and a digital sector with significant purchasing power and influence

Converting hotels web site visitors into buyers: how online hotel web assurance seals services decrease customers' concerns and increase online booking intentions

Purpose: Despite the increasing utilization of webpages for the purposes of information seeking, customers’ concerns have become a crucial impediment for online shopping. Our study mainly examines the influence of the effectiveness of web assurance seals services (WASS) and customers' concerns on customer's willingness to book hotels through perceived website trust and perceived value. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire was administrated to measure the study variables. Using PLS-SEM approach to analyses the data collected from 860 users of online hotel websites. Findings: The results indicate that WASS influence positively on perceived website trust and negatively on consumers' concerns. As well as, perceived value and trust play a mediating role in the link between WASS and consumers' concerns and their intentions. Finally, perceived website trust and perceived value have greater effect on intention to book hotel for low-habit consumers. Research limitations/implications: Our study ignored the cross-culture issue as it concentrates on the customers from developing countries, so further research may need to compare between two or more than two samples from different societies that could give a significant insights. Second, our study stress on the Web assurance seal services (WASS) to predict customers booking intentions that indicates significant results, so further research may need to examine the role of online reviews as a predictor of customers purchase decision as well. Originality/value: To the best knowledge of authors, this is the first empirical research that investigates examines the influence of the effectiveness of web assurance seals services (WASS) and consumers' concerns on consumers' intentions through perceived value and trust. This research also investigates the moderating role of habit in the link between perceived website, perceived value and consumers' intentions