governments are looking to encourage SMEs to use electronic commerce to tap into the
international market. Advice from governments must reassure SMEs wishing to export.
Hamill and Gregory (1997) identify the barriers to SME internationalisation in Table 3.4.
Complete Activity 3.2 to look at the actions that can be taken to overcome these barriers.The political and regulatory environment is shaped by the interplay of government agen-
cies, public opinion and consumer pressure groups such as CAUCE (the coalition against
unsolicited e-mail) which were active in the mid-1990s and helped in pressurising for laws,
http://www.cauce.org, and industry-backed organisations such as TRUSTe (www.truste.org) that
promote best practice amongst companies. The political environment is one of the drivers
for establishing the laws to ensure privacy and to collect taxes, as described in previous
sections.
Political action enacted through government agencies to control the adoption of the
Internet can include:
promoting the benefits of adopting the Internet for consumers and business to
improve a country’s economic prosperity;
sponsoring research leading to dissemination of best practice amongst companies, for
example the DTI international benchmarking survey;
enacting legislation to regulate the environment, for example to protect privacy or
control taxation;CHAPTER 3· THE INTERNET MACRO-ENVIRONMENT
Activity 3.2 Overcoming SME resistance to e-commerce
Purpose
To highlight barriers to exporting amongst SMEs and suggest measures by which they may be
overcome by governments.Activity
For each of the four barriers to internationalisation given in Table 3.4 suggest the management
reasons why the barriers may exist and actions governments can take to overcome these
barriers. Evaluate how well the government in your country communicates the benefits of
e-commerce through education and training.Table 3.4Issues in SME resistance to exporting (barriers from Hamill and Gregory
(1997) and Poon and Jevons (1997))Barrier Management issues How can barrier be overcome?
1Psychological
2 Operational
3 Organisational
4 Product/market