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goods purchased online), space (which influences the choice of access technology
for e-commerce) and financial infrastructure (which is related to credit card use).
Structural conditions differ from country to country—and even from location to
location within country, but they are not necessarily related to dimensions of natural
culture. Therefore, analysis of cultural differences alone is unlikely to provide a
satisfactory explanation of global differences in e-commerce activity. Valid expla-
nations of global differences require a careful assessment of relevant structural, as
well as cultural, factors.
To make this point, we examine a few of the structural conditions likely to
influence e-commerce activity that are significantly different in various parts of Asia
than they are in the U.S.A. The next two sections of the paper describe structural
conditions related to business-to-consumer and business-to-business electronic
commerce activity. The discussion section identifies implications for future re-
search.
BUSINESS-TO-CONSUMER ELECTRONIC
COMMERCE
In this section, we address the adoption of B2C e-commerce by individuals and
the development of B2C e-commerce business models by firms.
Structural Factors in Individual B2C e-Commerce Adoption
One structural factor likely to affect IT adoption and e-readiness is the urban-
rural distribution of a country’s population. People in rural districts generally have
lower levels of access to the IT infrastructure necessary to sustain ordering over the
Web; long distances may make “delivery to order”
difficult, if not impossible. In
North America urban dwellers comprise 77% of the population; in Asia as a whole
the figure is 37% (United Nations Population Division, 1998). But within Asia, there
are huge differences. The percent urban is 100% in Singapore, 95% in Hong Kong,
81% in South Korea, 78% in Japan, 54% in Malaysia, 30% in China, 27% in India,
and 20% in Thailand (http://www.xist.org/global/urban.htm). It is not surprising
therefore that the latest Economist Intelligence Unit’s survey ranks largely urban