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Abstract:
Electronic commerce offers considerable opportunities to organizations to expand their customer base enter new products and rationalize their businesses by competing in the global economies. State Owned Enterprises (SOE's) have generally been slow to adopt and evaluate electronic commerce. The SOEs have failed to reach the levels of adoption required to realize the benefits associated with it during formative stages of the enterprises. Many SOEs are unaware of the potential of electronic commerce to enhance their business operations which they consider not applicable to the products and service. Many economies are transferring themselves into knowledge based economies, where information and innovation are competitive instruments. There are a limited number of studies on e-commerce adoption by SOE's. To address the gap in the literature, this study looked at factors influencing adoption of e-commerce by State Owned Enterprises in Kenya. The specific objective of this study was to assess factors that influence adoption of E-commerce by state owned operations in Kenya. To achieve the objective four variables including Organizational factors, Environmental, Technological and Individual factors were used to access its influence on adoption of electronic. The study employed a descriptive research design embracing the use of structured questionnaires. The questionnaires designed were issued to respondents with an aim to collect information on factors influencing adoption of E-commerce by SOE's in Kenya. The data was obtained from 52 members of staff from top management, Information Technology, Operations and other departments, who were all administered with the questionnaires. The research instrument was then pilot tested for reliability and validity. The analysis was done using descriptive statistics such as mean scores, frequencies and percentage. Pearson correlation technique was used to establish the strength and significance of the relationship of Organizational factors, Environmental factors, Technological factors, Individual factors and E-commerce adoption. Field study was done and the data analyzed and discussed to come up with a conclusion which helped the study to give commendation to the concerned parties. The study found out that Organizational, Technological, Environmental and Individual factors have a positive influence on the adoption of e-commerce by the SOEs in Kenya. This imply that the government has done enough to help the SOEs to adopt of e-commerce and that adoption of E-Commerce led to improved overall customer satisfaction, increased number of customers and increased sales volume. The study thus recommends that in order to ensure overall improved performance, SOE's needs to adopt and utilize E-commerce in their day to day operations.
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