The effects of E-Commerce drivers on export market strategy: fundamental study on the perception of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME's) in Labuan

• Main Authors: Caroline Rosie Jeffrey Nasah, Ang, Magdalene Chooi Hwa, Minah Japang, Goh, Say Leng
• Format: Research Report
• Language: English; English
• Published: Universiti Malaysia Sabah 2009
• Subjects: HF Commerce
• Online Access: https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/23350/1/The%20effects%20of%20ECommerce%20drivers%20on%20export%20market%20strategy.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/23350/7/the%20effects%20of%20e-commerce%20drivers.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/23350/

The advancement of e-commerce technologies and the rapid global expansion of firms have been the major trends in today's modem business landscape. The e-commerce technologies have led to entirely new possibilities for exporters to access new markets and improve their efficiency in terms of receiving customer orders and handling inquiries (Bennett 1997; Hamill 1997; Prasad, Ramamurthy, and Naidu 2001; Samiee 1998). The globalization of the world markets therefore has led to explosive growth of global trade and exporting firms around the world. However, little progress has been made to integrate the two streams of research. Because of the lack of integration of e-commerce with export marketing strategy studies, little is known about howe-commerce influences a firm's export performance, how to incorporate e-commerce into export marketing, and what theoretical framework is appropriate to integrate e-commerce drivers into export marketing (Karavdic and Gregory 2005). This has been identified as a major gap in the export marketing literature because without incorporating e-commerce into a firm's export marketing strategy, the current export marketing theories would be incomplete, and current knowledge of the determinants of export perfonnance would be biased. Due to the reason mentioned above, as an initial approach, this research study was conducted to grasp the perception of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME's) in Labuan towards the effects of e-commerce drivers on export market strategy. The study begins with Chapter 1 on Introduction by giving some insight on the background of the research followed by research question and objectives. The chapter then closes with the significance of the study and organization of the remaining chapters. Chapter 2 will touch on the Literature Review where the literature on export marketing perfonnance, export marketing strategy, finn's characteristics, product's characteristics, industry's characteristics, export market characteristics, management commitment and electronic commerce will be discussed and relate to the study. In Chapter 3, a brief introduction starts the chapter on the Research Methodology. After that the chapter continues with the research design followed by data sources and collection method. The chapter then elaborates further on the questionnaires design and research instruments and closes with the pilot study. The Analysis and Findings will be in Chapter 4 where 12 results and findings were discussed thoroughly with a brief introduction given at the beginning of the chapter. Most of the results were presented in pie charts and graphs. Lastly, Chapter 5 on the Conclusion and Recommendation starts with a brief introduction on the chapter, followed by the limitations of the study and recommendations for future research. The chapter then closes with conclusion on the study.