Alev M. Efendioglu, University of San Francisco Vincent F. Yip, University of San Francisco William L. Murray, University of San Francisco Abstract Differing characteristics of local environments, both infrastructural and socio-economic, have created a significant level of variation in the acceptance and growth of e-commerce in different regions of the world. Our findings show that, in development and diffusion of ecommerce in China, cultural issues such as “socializing effect of commerce”, “transactional and institutional trust”, and “attitudes toward debt” play a very major role. In this paper, we present and discuss these findings, and identify changes that will be required for broader acceptance and diffusion of e-commerce in China and propose approaches that businesses can use to enhance this development.
Introduction The number of Internet users around the world has been steadily growing and this growth has provided the impetus and the opportunities for global and regional e-commerce. However with Internet, different characteristics of the local environment, both infrastructural and socioeconomic, have created a significant level of variation in the acceptance and growth of ecommerce in different regions of the world. Over time, various studies have been conducted and models have been developed to identify diffusion of e-commerce in different environments. (Zwass, 1999; Wolcott, et. al. 2001; Travica, 2002) These models have looked at “infrastructure” (e.g. connectivity hardware and software, telecommunications, product delivery and transportations systems) and “services” (e.g. e-payment systems, secure messaging, electronic markets, etc.) as the primary diffusion factors. In addition to infrastructural issues, trust (in our paper, we call this “transactional trust”) has been identified as one of the critical issues that confront businesses that are new businesses or utilize new business models