Barriers to IT adoptionin SMEs in Developing and Less Developed Countries

Abstract

Every Small and Medium Enterprise(SME) will have to use Information Technology(IT) in order to sustain in the business with the increasing size and the growth of the enterprise. Yet in their efforts to adopt IT in the company, they face many barriers specially in developing and less developed countries.

This thesis analyzes the Barriers to IT adoption faced by the SMEs which are situated in developing and less developed countries according to previous written literature. Even though the categorization of developing and less developed countries exist, it would not make a much impact on the barriers which would affect SMEs. But certainly there is a significant difference between in barriers to SMEs in developed and developing and less developed countries.

Mainly these barriers are identified as Internal, whereas the barriers are controllable by the SME itself and External in which the SME has a less control or no control of. These barriers include Managers resistance, Resource limitation, Staff resistance, Organizational culture, Government's influence, Customer pressure and National culture. Anyhow most significant barriers are Attitude of the people in these developing and less developed countries and Less IT experience.

Most of the existing literature is on barriers to IT adoption in developed countries but little based on researches carried out in developing and less developed countries.