 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
•
•
Growth by opportunistic expansion
•
A high degree of strategic adaptability
•
Centralized decision making, usually by the founder or his immediate family
•
Very few written guidelines and formal control measures
•
Low trust in subordinates
Family businesses tend to be slow in adopting sophisticated information
technology, so that B2B e-commerce has not reached many of these companies. The
reliance on guanxi also means that there may be a high level of discomfort with the often
anonymous or arms-length nature of some types of B2B activity. Similarly, Berger and
Lester (1997) note that most business financing in Hong Kong comes from relatives
and family connections—a factor that places important constraints on patterns of investment
and technological innovation.
A final important structural difference concerns national policies that may
promote or inhibit business-to-business e-commerce. China’s attempts to regulate
Internet content are well known (Chen, 2001). And differences in national policy
regimes have been credited with the greater early success of electronic custom and
trade declarations in Singapore than in Hong Kong (Damsgaard and Lyytinen,
1997).
In short, as is the case with B2C e-commerce, structural conditions in Asia lead
to significantly different B2B e-commerce business models and patterns of e-
commerce activity than can be found in the US. Cultural factors certainly play a role in these
outcomes, but they cannot provide as satisfactory an explanation alone as they can in
combination with structural conditions.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The examples presented above suggest that global e-commerce activity is
strongly shaped by structural conditions—physical, social, and economic factors—
in addition to
the dimensions of national culture. Examples of key structural
conditions are:
•
Financial infrastructure (e.g., electronic payment systems, credit financing)
•
Legal and regulatory infrastructures (e.g., consumer protection legislation,
taxation)