Towards a National Information Ecology Framework for e-Commerce Adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa

There is a serious issue stemming from the low adoption of e-Commerce in developing countries, so this study was conducted in order to determine contributing factors as evidenced by prior studies. The specific focus was to identify the impact of government policy, legal environment, socio-cultural framework, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), Internet diffusion and technology transfer on the national adoption of e-Commerce in developing countries of southern Africa. This study was motivated by the fact that developing countries are lagging behind in national adoption of e-Commerce. Secondary data was collected mainly from the World Bank and Global Information Technology Report (GITR) websites. Other sources included the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Internet World Statistics and Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA). The study concluded that socio-cultural factors have the most influence on e-Commerce adoption. Technology transfer, Internet diffusion and government policy showed a very small impact while legal environment showed no effect. Technology transfer and Internet diffusion provided some level of mediation which improved the significance level of other variables. The results enabled us to confirm that the information and computer literacy problem can only be addressed by enhancing various organizing forms in order to improve e-Commerce diffusion. The mediating role of the organizing forms is critical in galvanizing local community participation, for instance in capturing and accumulating cultural knowledge as a basis of developing relevant content for enhancing community participation in e-Commerce.