E-Commerce Adoption by Women Entrepreneurs in India: An Application of the UTAUT Model

Abstract

The wide use of ICT applications has opened enormous opportunities for large, medium and even small organizations. This study aims to investigate the extent of adoption of e-commerce applications by the women owned SMEs in India, with special focus on behavioral factors which influence them to do so. The Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model was utilized to determine the strength of the constructs in influencing e-commerce adoption amongst women entrepreneurs. Using a structured questionnaire, responses were solicited via a field survey amongst 144 women entrepreneurs in two districts of Kolkata and 24 Parganas (South) in the State of West Bengal, India. The results show that three constructs, namely, performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence significantly affect the behavioral intention of these women entrepreneurs to use e-commerce. Experience and voluntariness to use are the moderators significantly correlated with effort expectancy, facilitating conditions and social influence. Moreover, it has been revealed that facilitating conditions and the behavioral intention positively influence their usage behavior.