The impact of culture on the adoption of IT: an interpretive study
Journal of Global Information Management
Generalizing Generalizability in Information Systems Research
Information Systems Research
Rule of law and the international diffusion of e-commerce
Communications of the ACM
International Journal of Electronic Commerce
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In this paper we explore the relationship between average organizational readiness and actual electronic business (e-business) adoption at a national level. Several researchers have provided empirical evidence suggesting that an organization's readiness is one of the most important antecedents of e-business adoption; however, despite often comparable levels of organizational readiness, tremendous variations in the national level of e-business adoption can still be observed. We argue that cultural specifics can explain these variations to a great extent, and report results from a pan-European empirical study conducted among 14,065 enterprises from 29 different countries. Measuring culture by Hofstede's (2001) well-known cultural dimensions we are able to show that national culture significantly moderates the relationship of organizational readiness and e-business adoption. Power distance, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance were found to exert a significant influence on the relation between organizational readiness and e-business-adoption. We suggest that decision makers interested in e-business consider these cultural effects prior to starting new initiatives.