A contemporaneous statistical note on E-Commerce adoption in Romania: Based SMEs

Cazabat, Gerard; Paraschiv, Dorel Mihai; Călin, Adrian Cantemir; Popovici, Oana Cristina Article A contemporaneous statistical note on E-Commerce adoption in Romania: Based SMEs Amfiteatru Economic Journal Provided in Cooperation with: The Bucharest University of Economic Studies Suggested Citation: Cazabat, Gerard; Paraschiv, Dorel Mihai; Călin, Adrian Cantemir; Popovici, Oana Cristina (2019) : A contemporaneous statistical note on E-Commerce adoption in Romania: Based SMEs, Amfiteatru Economic Journal, ISSN 2247-9104, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Vol. 21, Iss. 50, pp. 177-193, https://doi.org/10.24818/EA/2019/50/177 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/196477 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Economic Interferences AE Vol. 21 • No. 50 • February 2019 177 A CONTEMPORANEOUS STATISTICAL NOTE ON E-COMMERCE ADOPTION IN ROMANIA – BASED SMEs Gerard Cazabat1, Dorel Mihai Paraschiv2 * , Adrian Cantemir Călin3 and Oana Cristina Popovici4 1) EDC Pars Business School, France 2) The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania 3)4) The Bucharest University of Economic Studies, Romania. Institute for Economic Forecasting, Romanian Academy Please cite this article as: Cazabat, G., Paraschiv, D.M. Călin, A,C. and Popovici, O.C., 2019. A Contemporaneous Statistical Note on E-Commerce Adoption in Romania – Based SMEs. Amfiteatru Economic, 21(50), pp. 177-193. DOI: 10.24818/EA/2019/50/177 Article History Received: 15 September 2018 Revised: 10 November 2018 Accepted: 5 December 2018 Abstract During the recent period, the scientific literature has highlighted the role of E-commerce in business development and growth. In this article we revisit the specifics of E-commerce adoption, focusing on the case of Romanian SMEs. Using the online questionnaire survey method and the principal component analysis, we draw a comprehensive picture of Romanian SMEs with E-commerce activities, with reference to the determinants and barriers of E-commerce adoption, benefits emerged with the use of E-commerce and main problems in the E-commerce development. We find that the main factor determining Ecommerce adoption is the perceived relative advantage brought by E-commerce activities pointing to higher productivity and efficiency inside the company, while the major barrier is the lack of compatibility between E-commerce activities and the SME’s way of doing business, and not the costs, as initially expected. The low competitiveness of the business environment has an important role in deterring E-commerce activity. We conclude that the launch of information campaigns for enhancing familiarity with E-commerce practices for increasing confidence in E-commerce activities for both SMEs managers and their clients is among the most effective measures for intensifying E-commerce activity in Romania. Keywords: SMEs, E-Commerce, adoption barriers, benefits. JEL Classification: M10, M15, M31, O33 * Corresponding author, Dorel Mihai Paraschiv – [email protected] AE A Contemporaneous Statistical Note on E-Commerce Adoption in Romania – Based SMEs 178 Amfiteatru Economic Introduction Electronic commerce (EC) was a major innovation that modified in a significant amount the traditional approach to doing business (Lefrebvre, et al., 2005). At present, there is a general consensus on the fact that e-business and e-commerce hold key advantages for business growth, especially given the recent dynamics of the business environment. The scientific literature recognizes these favourable effects and an important dose of academic effort was oriented towards determining the most relevant factors specific for EC adoption. Though generally country-specific, these benefits range from access to an enhanced pool of customers and markets, towards cost reduction and positive results in terms of productivity and brand image. Despite this general agreement, the dedicated literature points out to the fact that, as the case of any innovation, the benefits of EC have been successfully harvested by companies in developed economies or big companies. In present times, small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) hold a prominent role in mature economies (Eikebrokk and Olsen, 2007) and also in frontier developing economies. Despite this fundamental relevance, SMEs have traditionally experienced a series of deficiencies in the adoption of EC. These problems are, as Rahayu and Day (2015) note, more visible for the case of developing countries. Such obstacles in adopting EC are either firm specific (internal barriers) or environment (country) ‒ specific (external barriers). Kapurubandara and Lawson (2006) document on the external barriers focusing on various types such as: Cultural, Infrastructure, Legal and Regulatory, Political or Social and argue that they represent one of the main sources of different EC development between mature and emerging economies. Given the fact that several, if not all of these realities might be country-specific artefacts, and given the rapid changes and high volatility in the present business environment, the study of local SME’s involvement in EC is fundamental for the construction of sound governmental support policies. Moreover, we detect a gap in the literature consisting in a recent and specific study dedicated to the EC practices of Romanian SMEs. Therefore, in this paper we scrutinize a sample of Romanian SMEs in order to capture a present-day imagine of EC evolution and development. The vast majority of EC-dedicated studies focus solely on one facet of e-commerce, concentrating on either adoption, benefits or barriers. The merit of the present study is that of gathering all these issues of interest for drawing a complete framework of Romanian SMEs with EC activities, related to the determinants and barriers of EC adoption, benefits emerged with the use of EC and main problems in the EC development in Romania. To our knowledge, until present, there is not a similar study in the literature. This is why we consider that our study has the potential of being a reference one in the current literature and on the segment of studies dedicated to the Romania. Therefore, the aims of this paper are:  to identify Romanian SMEs’ perception on the main determinants and obstacles in EC adoption and the main advantages and obstacles in developing EC activities using the principal component analysis;  to establish whether there are differences in EC perception depending on the SMEs’ sector of activity. The remainder of this paper is organized in the following manner. Section two offers a brief review of the scientific literature, while section three presents our methodology that draws Economic Interferences AE Vol. 21 • No. 50 • February 2019 179 from a questionnaire approach. Section four presents the results obtained for both benefits and barriers, while the last section concludes. 1. Review of the scientific literature This paper is related to the block of academic interest that focuses on E-commerce implementation in SMEs. A large part of this literature discusses EC adoption in SMEs, while aiming to isolate country-specific factors (see for example: Rahayu and Day (2015), Kabanda and Brown (2017), Sin, et al. (2015), Lefrebvre (2015), or Savrul, Incekara and Sener (2014). These efforts offer a wide range of motivations, contexts, determinants or perspectives for EC adoption in SMEs in both developed and developing countries. A selection of such studies employs a questionnaire approach and considers also the benefits deriving from SME adoption of EC. For example, Rahayu and Day (2015) survey 292 Indonesian SMEs and report that the most relevant factors leading to EC adoption were in this case: marketing, procurement activities, extending the market, increased sales or company image. Along the same line, and again in a questionnaire-based approach, Kaynak, Tatoglu and Kula (2005) notice that for the case of Turkish SMEs, the adoption process was highly influenced by the perceived benefits deriving from EC. Another important conclusion of the study is the fact that in this case, the adoption process was invariant on company and industry-specific factors. Other similar contributions can be traced back to Alam, et al. (2011) for Malaysia, Simpson and Docherty (2004) for the UK, Lertwongsatien and Wongpinunwatana (2003) for Thailand, Scupola (2003, 2009) for the south of Italy, Denmark and Australia, Jeon, Han and Lee (2006) for Korea or Nasco, Toledo and Mykytyn (2008) for Chile. Our paper is also related to the strain of literature that focuses on EC barriers, both in the moment of adoption or later on in the development state. Kapurubandara and Lawson (2006) notice different E-commerce patters among developed and developing countries and consider that some of these differences derive from barriers. The authors divide the barriers into internal and external sources. Among the most relevant internal barriers, the survey isolates the employees lack of skill, doubts on the financial gain capacity of EC, the fact that e-commerce might not be suited to the products and services of the company. The external barriers are then divided into categories such as: Cultural, Infrastructure, Legal and Regulatory, Political or Social. Kartiwi and MacGregor (2007) focusing on adoption barriers aim firstly to identify the main obstacles and then, using as proxy Sweden and Indonesia for developed and developing countries, try to determine whether these realities vary with the level of country development. The main finding of the study is that the respondents from the developed country were more concerned with technical barriers, while respondents from the developing country had organizational concerns. In addition to the above-mentioned work, there is a rich literature that deals with the Ecommerce aspects for the case of Romania, with contributions such as: Wang and Sun (2010), Belingher and Calin (2011), Onete, Teodorescu and Vasile (2016) or Antonescu, et al. (2017). Despite this focus, the literature paying particular attention to the case of Ecommerce in Romanian SMEs is rather scarce. Damaskopoulos and Evgeniou (2003) study the drivers of new commerce practices in a set of Eastern European SMEs, including Romania. Employing a survey with a sample of 900 SMEs, the authors offer details on EC adoption. Martin, et al. (2012) offer a theoretical comment on the e-readiness of Romanian AE A Contemporaneous Statistical Note on E-Commerce Adoption in Romania – Based SMEs 180 Amfiteatru Economic SMEs, commenting on the lack of governmental aid. Besides the above-mentioned contributions, other studies focus on ITC development in SMEs without a special orientation towards E-commerce. 2. Research methodology The present study is an exploratory research for a better understanding of the barriers and advantages that motivate SMEs to conduct EC activities using the online questionnaire survey method † . As stated above, the questionnaire was built in relation to previous academic efforts such as Eikebrokk and Olsen (2007), Kartiwi and MacGregor (2007), Ghobakhloo, et al. (2011) or Rahayu and Day (2017). The approach was refined and adapted to the intrinsic characteristics of Romania’s business environment. The questionnaire targeted SMEs that are already involved in electronic commerce activities in Romania, in order to isolate both the drivers of electronic commerce adoption and the dynamics of the company after the above-mentioned adoption. The questionnaire has two main parts. The first part relates to demographic factors describing SMEs, such as age, duration of involvement in EC practices, number of employees, area of activity. The second part is divided into other four parts, in order to reach our aims, and correspond to two moments of time. The first one envisages the period prior to the EC adoption, meant to establish the main factors pushing to EC embracement and the principal deterrent elements. The respondents’ opinion was requested for 17 potential causes or items for the start of the EC activity and 11 potential barriers (items) faced when adopting EC. For the easiness of writing, we will relate to the part A when discussing about the determinants of EC adoption and part C when referring to obstacles when adopting EC. The second moment of time has to do with the actual activity of SMEs that already unfold EC activities and focuses on the EC benefits and obstacles in the development of the activity following adoption. Again, the respondents were asked to express their opinion on 12 benefits and 13 impediments in the EC activity in Romania. We will relate to part B when talking about benefits brought by EC and part D when discussing the main problems in the EC development in Romania. The options for each question were established based on previous studies in the literature, given that this is the first study of this type conducted for Romania so far, at least to our knowledge. The perception of the respondents in the second part of the questionnaire was measured using a five-point Likertscale, which ranges from 1 (“total disagreement”) to 5 (“total agreement”). The SMEs in the sample are companies that have already adopted the EC solution, at different moments in time, which allows us to investigate both the drivers at the moment of EC adoption and the success in unfolding the business at present, after gaining some experience in using EC. The respondents are owners or managers of the SMEs in the sample. The questionnaire was electronically filled by SMEs representatives in the first quarter of 2018. It targeted 500 SMEs in three cities in the country that organized conferences for discussing this topic (Bucharest, Constanta and Craiova) during this period. 109 questionnaires were filled, which suggests a response rate of 21.8%, while the final sample was made of 97 responses fully completed. The profile of the respondent SMEs is presented in Table 1. † The questionnaire can be provided at request. Economic Interferences AE Vol. 21 • No. 50 • February 2019 181 The sample consists of SMEs that usually develop activities in the field of trade and related domains (almost 32%). The second economic sector of origin is Marketing, which stands for 18.56% of the sample, being followed by Finance and related services with close to 16.5% and IT (15.46%). Other sectors register percentages lower than 10% (such as Transport and communication and Manufacture). The sample is almost balanced between micro (35.05%), small (34.02%) and medium enterprises (30.93%), as classified by the number of employees. We notice that our sample is generally populated by young companies. The largest part of the sample (almost two thirds, namely 66%) includes companies with maximum 10 years of activity, while almost 20% report an experience of over 15 years. Only a fraction of about 14% of the sample has a market activity between 11-15 years. Table no. 1. Profile of respondent SMEs Frequency % Frequency % Industry type Age of the company Manufacture 5 5.15 Less than 5 years 32 32.99 Trade and related activities 31 31.96 5-10 years 32 32.99 Marketing 18 18.56 11-15 years 14 14.43 Transport and communication 8 8.25 Over 15 years 19 19.59 Finance and related services 16 16.49 TOTAL 97 100.00 IT 15 15.46 Experience in EC activities Others 4 4.12 Less than 3 years 29 29.90 TOTAL 97 100 3-5 years 38 39.18 Firm size 6-10 years 22 22.68 Micro (0-9 employees) 34 35.05 Over 10 years 8 8.25 Small (10-49 employees) 33 34.02 TOTAL 97 100.00 Medium (50-249 employees) 30 30.93 TOTAL 97 100.00 The above investigation was enriched with references towards the duration of EC activities. As expected, usually the EC activities are new for the companies. The results reveal the fact that 69.08% of the sample conducted EC activities for a maximum of 5 years. Out of this figure, almost 30% have been implementing EC for a period lower than three years, while 39.2% are accustomed with EC activities for 3-5 years. The results also point to a fraction of companies of almost 23% that have conducting EC activities for 6 to 10 years. Only about 8.25% of the contacted companies can prove an EC activity older than 10 years. We used the principal component analysis for identifying the main factors related to the determinants and obstacles in EC adoption and the advantages and barriers in developing EC activities in SMEs by sector of activity. AE A Contemporaneous Statistical Note on E-Commerce Adoption in Romania – Based SMEs 182 Amfiteatru Economic 3. Results and discussion We were firstly interested to find whether there are significant differences in the SMEs’ EC perception considering their sector of activity. Therefore, given the distribution of the companies according to the sector of activity, we divided the sample into two larger groups, the first one containing SMEs with activities in the field of Commerce (including here the SMEs in the field of Trade and related activities and Marketing) and a second group, formed by SMEs in Other fields of activity (Manufacture, Transport and communication, Finance and related services, IT and others). This division allows us to benefit of two almost balanced groups, the first one containing 49 SMEs in the field of Commerce and the second one encompassing 48 SMEs with a wider range of activities. We used the two-tailed t-tests for equality of means in order to establish if there are significant differences between the perception of SMEs in the two groups, for each of the advantages and barriers identified in the two stages of EC related activity: during its initial adoption and at present. The results are presented in Table 2. Table no. 2. Two-tailed t-tests Note: ** and *** indicate significance at 0.5 and 0.1 Item Mean Commerce Mean Others t p-value Mean Commerce Mean Others t p-value Moment: EC adoption Advantages Obstacles a1 4,1429 3,8750 1.392 .167 c1 3,4490 3,3750 .331 .742 a2 4,3061 4,4583 -.786 .434 c2 3,3673 3,3333 .142 .887 a3 4,0612 4,0417 .097 .923 c3 3,3265 3,5000 -.874 .384 a4 4,1020 3,9583 .725 .470 c4 3,4490 3,6250 -.914 .363 a5 3,8571 4,1667 -1.400 .165 c5 2,8571 3,1250 -1.067 .289 a6 3,7347 3,8333 -.516 .607 c6 2,7551 3,0417 -1.184 .239 a7 3,8367 4,0833 -1.193 .236 c7 2,7143 2,8333 -.520 .604 a8 3,7959 4,0208 -1.007 .317 c8 2,8571 2,9167 -.268 .789 a9 4,2857 4,4167 -.713 .477 c9 2,8367 3,0000 -.832 .407 a10 3,8980 3,7917 .514 .608 c10 2,7347 2,5417 .790 .431 a11 4,1429 4,0417 .581 .563 c11 3,0612 2,7083 1.418 .160 a12 4,1020 4,1250 -.123 .902 c12 2,7143 2,5000 .999 .320 a13 3,9592 4,0417 -.371 .711 a14 3,7755 3,3333 2.013** .047 a15 3,2857 3,2500 .132 .895 a16 3,5918 3,6250 -.134 .894 a17 3,7143 3,5532 .638 .525 Moment: present Advantages Obstacles b1 4,0000 3,7708 1.120 .266 d1 3,4082 3,4792 -.314 .754 b2 4,3265 4,0833 1.176 .242 d2 3,6531 3,4792 .847 .399 b3 4,4286 4,1875 1.211 .229 d3 3,1224 3,2292 -.446 .656 b4 3,7143 3,8958 -.697 .488 d4 3,1429 3,0000 .571 .569 b5 3,5714 3,3333 1.139 .258 d5 2,6531 2,8333 -.748 .456 b6 4,0408 3,8542 .752 .454 d6 3,2857 3,6042 -1.313 .192 b7 3,6939 3,7083 -.060 .952 d7 3,6531 4,1042 -2.274** .026 b8 3,8367 3,9583 -.620 .537 d8 3,2653 3,6458 -1.552 .124 b9 4,0612 3,7500 1.559 .122 d9 3,7143 3,3542 1.703*** .092 b10 3,8776 3,6667 .838 .404 d10 2,7959 2,9167 -.575 .567 b11 4,0612 3,8333 1.009 .315 d11 3,3878 3,6250 -1.072 .287 b12 3,7959 3,9792 -.711 .479 d12 2,9388 3,2708 -1.267 .208 d13 2,7143 3,1250 -1.909*** .060 Economic Interferences AE Vol. 21 • No. 50 • February 2019 183 Given the results in Table 2, we conclude that for the largest part of items, there is not a significant difference between the means of SMEs in the Commerce area of activity and the other sectors of activity, with the exception of four items (a14, d7, d9 and d13). There is one determinant for EC adoption (a14, namely “EC enhances customer loyalty”) and three obstacles (d7: “Lack of governmental support”, d9: “Reduced used of cards (credit/debit) as instruments of payment” and d13: “Low availability of new technologies”) for which the means are significantly different and support the need of distinguishing between sectors of activity. The means are lower for SMEs with Commerce activity in all the items encompassing obstacles. Still, given the low number of such items, we consider that the analysis of the whole sample is appropriate in this case, the sector of activity not being a factor that influences the EC activity. For each of the four dimensions investigated, we check for the reliability or internal consistency using Cronbach’s Alpha. The results of the coefficient of consistency are presented in Table 3. As all the coefficients are above the minimum threshold of 0.7, we establish that all the four parts of the questionnaire have a relatively high level of internal consistency. Table no. 3. Cronbach’s Alpha results Part of the questionnaire No. of items Mean SD Cronbach's Alpha A 17 66.7604 11.47239 .912 B 12 46.7216 9.98722 .928 C 12 36.3093 7.38010 .794 D 13 42.6907 7.85992 .791 As we intend to use principal component analysis for reducing the larger set of items used in the questionnaire, we also tested if the data in the sample is appropriate for factor analysis by applying the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy (KMO MSA) and Bartlett's Test of Sphericity for the four sets of data. The results are presented in Table 4 and indicate that the samples are mediocre adequate for using factor analysis according to KMO results’ interpretation (Kaiser, 1977), while Bartlett's test of sphericity support the use of the factor analysis for our data. Table no. 4. Tests for the assumption of factorability Part of the questionnaire KMO MSA Bartlett's Test of Sphericity Chi-Square p-value A .636 1376.115 .000 B .772 959.082 .000 C .610 576.619 .000 D .597 646.170 .000 A principal component analysis with Varimax rotation was employed for establishing the factor structure for each of the four parts of the questionnaire. a) Determinants of EC adoption For the first part of the questionnaire, related to the determinants enhancing the start of EC activity in SMEs, the results are provided in Table 5. There are five factors with eigenvalue AE A Contemporaneous Statistical Note on E-Commerce Adoption in Romania – Based SMEs 184 Amfiteatru Economic above 1, explaining 79% of the variance in the data. The first factor is the largest one, encompassing seven determinants that are usually related to the perceived relative advantages brought by EC activities, as described by Ghobakloo, et al. (2011) and Ahmad, et al. (2015), and point to higher productivity and increased efficiency inside the company. 44.75% of total variance is explained by this factor. The second factor also relates to the perceived advantages of EC, but this time with an orientation towards the exterior, pointing to the positioning of the company as compared to competitors. The brand/image of the company, the impact on customers’ loyalty, better knowledge of competitors and profitability are important for determining SMEs to adopt EC. The other three factors explain each less than 10% of the variance. The third one is related to better advertising and marketing and to gaining information in a time interval that allows decision taking. Both items are part of the perceived relative advantage described by Ghobakloo, et al. (2011), which positively affects Iranian SMEs in EC adoption. The fourth factor is related to the external factors in adopting EC activities, by encompassing the pressure from both clients and competitors in EC adoption. The pressure from business partners is integrated in the first factor. The result is in line with Oliveira and Martins (2010) or Al-Qirim (2007) who invoke the SMEs’ dependency on partners in the value chain and on clients, and Teo, et al. (2004) and Levy, et al. (2001) who emphasize the need of compliance with industry standards or competitors' technology level due to the risk of otherwise losing the competitive advantage. Ahmad, et al. (2015) find, for the case of Malaysia, that the external change agent and perceived compatibility are the most important factors enhancing EC adoption in SMEs. For Romanian’s SMEs, this factor has a lower explanatory power, given the characteristics of business environment that are not conductive to EC activities (low quality of telecommunications and transport infrastructure, poor usage of electronic channels in relation with other companies or with the public authorities). The last factor’s reduced impact in explaining the variance in the data sample somehow confirms the results related to EC adoption barriers. As we shall see below, there is a large reticence in perceiving EC sustainability for the SMEs’ activities and the lack of compatibility with the way of doing business is one of the obstacles. Therefore, the impact of the perceived compatibility, as described by Lertwongsatien and Wongpinunwatana (2003) is reduced. The results are interesting: while the perceived benefits are high, the perceived compatibility with EC adoption is reduced. Table no. 5. Rotated component matrix for determinants of EC adoption Item Description Component 1 2 3 4 5 a3 EC offers a faster solution for specific activities .681 a4 EC contributes to productivity growth .704 a5 EC allows for time saving while looking for new resources .872 a6 EC expands workplace performance .761 a7 EC allows for goods and services acquisition for business development .665 a8 EC offers better knowledge on competitors .663 a15 Pressure from business partners .774 a11 EC improves brand/company image .562 a12 EC leads to growth in business profitability .736 a13 EC offers better knowledge on competitors .614 Economic Interferences AE Vol. 21 • No. 50 • February 2019 191 Alam, S.S., Ali, M.Y. and Jani, M.F.M., 2011. An empirical study of factors affecting electronic commerce adoption among SMEs in Malaysia. Journal of Business Economics and Management, 12(2), pp.375-399. Al-Qirim, N., 2007. 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