The adoption of the E-Commerce

138 Pages·2013·1.23 MB·English

School of Management
Blekinge Institute of Technology
The adoption of the E-Commerce
A study of the Iranian Oil Industry

Supervisor: Henrik Sällberg
Author: Amir Taheri

Thesis for the Master’s degree in Business Administration, autumn 2012
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1 Chapter One: Introduction and background .................................................................................................. 12
1.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 12
1.2 Motivation .................................................................................................................................................... 12
1.3 Objective of this thesis ............................................................................................................................. 14
1.4 Research question ...................................................................................................................................... 14
1.5 Thesis structure .......................................................................................................................................... 15
2 Chapter Two: E-Commerce and the Iranian oil industry ............................................................................ 17
2.1 Different type of E-Commerce ............................................................................................................... 17
2.2 Benefits of E-commerce ........................................................................................................................... 18
2.2.1 Accessibility ............................................................................................................................................ 18
2.2.2 Better opportunities and self servicing ............................................................................................ 18
2.2.3 Customer benefits ................................................................................................................................ 18
2.2.4 Business benefits .................................................................................................................................... 19
2.3 Disadvantages of E-commerce ................................................................................................................ 25
2.3.1 Delivery issues ....................................................................................................................................... 25
2.3.2 Quality evaluation ................................................................................................................................. 25
2.3.3 Lack of trust in virtual seller ............................................................................................................... 25
2.3.4 Lack of personal services .................................................................................................................... 26
2.3.5 Lack of enjoyment in shopping........................................................................................................... 26
2.3.6 Security risks .......................................................................................................................................... 26
2.3.7 Disadvantages from a business prospective .................................................................................... 26
2.4 E-Commerce in the Iranian oil industry ............................................................................................... 26
2.4.1 Iran and oil industry .............................................................................................................................. 26
2.4.2 Iran and E-Commerce .......................................................................................................................... 27
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3 Chapter Three: Models of E-Commerce adoption ...................................................................................... 30
3.1 Background .................................................................................................................................................. 30
3.2 IT adoption models .................................................................................................................................... 31
3.3 E-Commerce adoption model ................................................................................................................. 32
3.4 E-Commerce adoption model for the Iranian oil industry ............................................................... 35
3.4.1 Technical criterion ................................................................................................................................ 37
3.4.2 Organizational criterion ....................................................................................................................... 41
3.4.3 Inter-organizational criterion ............................................................................................................. 49
3.5 Oil and information technology .............................................................................................................. 54
3.6 E-Commerce development and the stages of adoption.................................................................... 56
4 Chapter Four: Research Methodology ............................................................................................................ 58
4.1 Research approach ..................................................................................................................................... 58
4.2 Measurements and instruments .............................................................................................................. 58
4.2.1 Data collection and scaling .................................................................................................................. 58
4.2.2 Sampling plan .......................................................................................................................................... 59
4.2.3 Sample size .............................................................................................................................................. 59
4.2.4 Pilot testing ............................................................................................................................................. 60
4.2.5 Validity of data ....................................................................................................................................... 60
4.2.6 Reliability analysis .................................................................................................................................. 61
5 Chapter Five: Empirical findings ......................................................................................................................... 63
5.1 Demographic analysis ................................................................................................................................ 63
5.2 The most important factors of E-Commerce ..................................................................................... 64
5.2.1 Most important factors of Technical Criteria ................................................................................ 66
5.2.2 Most important factors of Organizational criteria ........................................................................ 67
5.2.3 Inter-Organizational criteria ............................................................................................................... 68
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5.3 Correlation among the criteria ............................................................................................................... 70
5.3.1 Correlation; Technical factors ........................................................................................................... 70
5.3.2 Correlation; Organizational factors .................................................................................................. 71
5.3.3 Correlation; of Inter-organizational factors .................................................................................... 72
5.3.4 Correlation among the E-Commerce adoption criteria .............................................................. 73
5.3.5 Stages of E-Commerce development ............................................................................................... 74
6 Chapter Six: Analysis ............................................................................................................................................ 75
6.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 75
6.2 Comparison of the results ....................................................................................................................... 75
6.3 The analysis of the result received by this study ................................................................................ 77
6.3.1 Technical criteria ................................................................................................................................... 77
6.3.2 Organizational criteria ......................................................................................................................... 79
6.3.3 Inter-organizational criteria ................................................................................................................ 91
6.4 Analysis of the customer-based questionnaire.................................................................................... 95
7 Chapter Seven: Conclusions and Implications ............................................................................................... 97
7.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 97
7.2 The factors influencing E-Commerce adoption in oil industry ....................................................... 98
7.3 The status of E-Commerce in the Iranian oil industry ...................................................................... 99
7.4 Barriers of E-Commerce in the Iranian oil industry .......................................................................... 100
7.4.1 Technology related barriers ............................................................................................................... 100
7.4.2 Non-technology related barriers ....................................................................................................... 101
7.5 Contributions .............................................................................................................................................. 102
7.5.1 Theoretical contributions .................................................................................................................... 102
7.5.2 Empirical contributions ........................................................................................................................ 102
7.6 Implications .................................................................................................................................................. 102
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7.7 Limitations .................................................................................................................................................... 103
7.7.1 Access to companies ............................................................................................................................ 103
7.7.2 Time constraint and deadlines ........................................................................................................... 103
7.7.3 Abundance of questions ...................................................................................................................... 103
7.7.4 Low number of response samples .................................................................................................... 103
7.7.5 Disadvantages of questionnaires ........................................................................................................ 104
7.8 Further studies ............................................................................................................................................ 104
8 References .............................................................................................................................................................. 105
9 Appendix A: Statistics and Questionnaires ..................................................................................................... 110
9.1 Digital Economy Rankings ........................................................................................................................ 110
9.2 Literature review on E-Commerce ....................................................................................................... 110
9.3 Studies regarding technical, organizational, and inter-organizational criteria .............................. 111
9.4 Questionnaires based on Elahi studies .................................................................................................. 113
9.5 Customer based questionnaire ............................................................................................................... 121
9.6 Comparisons between the Elahi result and the thesis result .......................................................... 126

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Table 2-1 Example of different type of the E-Commerce .................................................................. 17
Table 2-2 Estimates of the E-Commerce sales compared to different benchmarks ................... 19
Table 2-3 Estimated Quarterly U.S. Retail Sales ................................................................................... 20
Table 2-4 E-Commerce impact on various distribution costs (OECD report) ............................ 24
Table 2-5 Analysing the impact of E-Commerce on prices ............................................................... 24
Table 2-6: National Petrochemical Company ....................................................................................... 27
Table 2-7 Ranking of E-Commerce preparedness of some countries............................................. 28
Table 3-1 Characteristics of the technology adoption ........................................................................ 33
Table 3-2 Four stages of E-Commerce ................................................................................................... 56
Table 3-3 E-Commerce stages and Customer based transaction list.............................................. 57
Table 4-1 Scale of the evaluation .............................................................................................................. 59
Table 4-2 Reliability of each variable in questionnaire ........................................................................ 61
Table 4-3 Reliability of the questionnaires ............................................................................................. 62
Table 5-1 Criteria influencing the E-Commerce adoption ................................................................. 65
Table 5-2 Statistics about the Technical Criteria indicators .............................................................. 70
Table 5-3 Correlation among the indicators of technical factors .................................................... 70
Table 5-4 Correlation among the technical indicators ....................................................................... 71
Table 5-5 Correlation between the organizational factors ................................................................ 72
Table 5-6 Correlation between indicators of organizational factors............................................... 72
Table 5-7 Correlation between the Inter-organizational factors ..................................................... 72
Table 5-8 Correlation between indicators of Inter-Organizational factors ................................... 73
Table 5-9 Correlation between the E-Commerce criteria ................................................................ 73
Table 5-10 Correlation between Elahi-based model and stages of E-Commerce ........................ 74
Table 6-1 Correlation between the studies with regard to E-commerce criteria ....................... 76
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Table 9-1 E-Readiness of Countries ...................................................................................................... 110
Table 9-2 Literature review ..................................................................................................................... 110
Table 9-3 Technical criteria for E-Commerce adoption .................................................................. 111
Table 9-4 Organizational criteria for E-Commerce adoption ......................................................... 112
Table 9-5 Inter-Organizational criteria for E-Commerce adoption ............................................... 113
Table 9-6 Technical criteria ..................................................................................................................... 113
Table 9-7 Leadership and Management ................................................................................................ 114
Table 9-8Financial structure .................................................................................................................... 115
Table 9-9 Organization culture ............................................................................................................... 115
Table 9-10 Human resource criterion .................................................................................................. 116
Table 9-11 Organization dimension ....................................................................................................... 117
Table 9-12 Organization domain ............................................................................................................ 118
Table 9-13 Organizational structure ..................................................................................................... 118
Table 9-14 Product criterion ................................................................................................................... 119
Table 9-15 Customer criterion .............................................................................................................. 119
Table 9-16 Competitors criterion ......................................................................................................... 120
Table 9-17 Suppliers criterion ................................................................................................................. 120
Table 9-18 Customer-based E-Commerce .......................................................................................... 121
Table 9-19 Customer-based model indicators used to group four stages of E-Commerce .... 124
Table 9-20 technical criteria indicators sorted from to high to low rank .................................... 126
Table 9-21 Leadership and management .............................................................................................. 127
Table 9-22 Financial structure result ..................................................................................................... 128
Table 9-23 Organizational culture ......................................................................................................... 129
Table 9-24 Human resource .................................................................................................................... 131
Table 9-25 Organization dimension ....................................................................................................... 133
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Table 9-26 Organization domain ............................................................................................................ 133
Table 9-27 Organization structure ........................................................................................................ 134
Table 9-28 Product .................................................................................................................................... 134
Table 9-29 Customers .............................................................................................................................. 135
Table 9-30 Competitors ........................................................................................................................... 136
Table 9-31 Suppliers .................................................................................................................................. 137

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Figure 1-1 Thesis structure ........................................................................................................................ 16
Figure 2-1 Us Retail E-Commerce Revenues, 2003-2008 .................................................................. 22
Figure 3-1 E-Commerce adoption model suitable for Iran ................................................................ 54
Figure 3-2 the chain of the oil industry ................................................................................................... 55
Figure 5-1 Demographic information ...................................................................................................... 64
Figure 5-2 Adoption of technical criteria of E-Commerce factors .................................................. 66
Figure 5-3 Adoption of organizational criteria of E-Commerce factors ......................................... 68
Figure 5-4 Adoption of inter-organizational criteria of E-Commerce factors .............................. 69
Figure 6-1 Comparison between two studies with regard to technical sub-factors/indicators 77
Figure 6-2 Comparison between two studies with regard to leadership and management ...... 79
Figure 6-3 Comparison between two studies with regard to human resource ........................... 81
Figure 6-4 Comparison between two studies with regard to domain and dimension ................ 83
Figure 6-5 Comparison between two studies with regard to organizational culture ................. 84
Figure 6-6 Comparison between two studies with regard to structure ........................................ 86
Figure 6-7 Comparison between two studies with regard to financial structure ........................ 88
Figure 6-8 Comparison between two studies with regard to product factor ............................... 89
Figure 6-9 Comparison between two studies with regard to customer factor ............................ 91
Figure 6-10 Comparison between two studies with regard to competitor factor ...................... 93
Figure 6-11 Comparison of two studies with regard to supplier factor ......................................... 94
Figure 6-12 E-Commerce implementation pyramid ............................................................................ 96
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Abstract
Information technology (IT) in general and Internet in particular has revolutionized our lives in so many
ways. Business sectors as well as many others are taking advantage from Internet and other IT systems in
the world. The concept of Electronic Commerce (E-Commerce) is the process of buying and selling
products and services using electronic systems such as Internet. E-Commerce has been well adopted in
the developed countries and is considered as a major source in improving the revenue in those
countries. Meanwhile developing countries are lagging behind developed countries due to many
inhibitors which hinder the process of E-Commerce adoption and implementation. This MBA thesis is a
research on the status of the E-Commerce in the Iranian oil industry and the factors influencing it’s
adoption through the analysis and assessment of the data received from the respondent companies.
A study based on the E-Commerce adoption model presented by Elahi S. with 156 questions (grouped
into 14 questionnaires) was designed and sent out to 50 companies. The analysis of responds based on
the Elahi model suggests that there is a strong positive relationship between the study conducted by
Elahi and the one conducted by this research work. In another word, it proves that the indicators of
model presented by Elahi are valid factors for the E-Commerce adoption in the Iranian oil industry. The
responds from the customer-based model presented by Wei J. would identify the status of E-Commerce
in the Iranian oil industry, the obstacles on it’s way and the ways to improve it.
Keywords: E-Commerce, E-business, Technology adoption models, oil industry, Iran
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