CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.3. Research design
3.3.1. Nature of the study
Sekaran and Bougie (2010) identify three types of study:
• Exploratory study: is normally conducted when little or nothing is known about a problem or phenomena at hand. This study is undertaken when no information is available on how similar problems or research issues have been solved.
• Descriptive study: is conducted in order to describe the characteristics of the variables being studied. Thus, the goal of a descriptive study is to describe relevant aspects of a subject area within the context of individuals, organisations or industry.
• Hypothesis testing: usually undertaken to test the relationship between variables.
• Case study: is conducted for contextual analyses of similar situations in other organisations
The nature of this study is descriptive. The researcher seeks to find out what types of e- commerce activities SMMEs in Durban and Pietermaritzburg engage in, the inhibitors and determinants of e-commerce adoption and the knowledge that SMMEs have about e- commerce benefits. It is not exploratory since there is readily available literature on the subject (e-commerce).
3.3.2. Descriptive research design
According to Leedy and Ormrod (2010), there are four types of descriptive research design:
• Observational research design: is based on objective observation and quantification of a behaviour/phenomena being studied
• Correlational study design: where two different characteristics (variables) are measured to determine whether and in what way these characteristics might be related
• Developmental research design: where data related to characteristics are collected, in intervals, over time or from different groups of participants
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• Survey research design: in this case, data is gathered by asking questions of participants and tabulating their answers. The aim is to draw conclusions about a large population by surveying a sample of that population. Data is then summarized by means of statistical analysis.
Survey research designs in a business research context are often designed to describe incidence, frequency and distribution of certain characteristics in a population (Leedy and Ormrod, 2005).
Blumberg et al. (2005) attest that survey design is suited for collecting information concerning opinions, attitudes, perceptions, intentions and expectations. Thus, the survey design was opted as the most appropriate research design for this study.
3.3.2.1. Data collection tools for survey designs
i) Interviews: Leedy and Ormrod (2010) indicate that there are two types of interviews. A structured interview entails the researcher asking a standard set of questions only. However, a semi-structured interview will follow standard questions with the flexibility of shaping some questions to gain more understanding of the respondent’s perspective or to trigger the respondent to reason on the things/concepts being asked.
ii) Questionnaires: Sekaran and Bougie (2010) indicate that there are different ways of distributing questionnaires. Personally administered questionnaires are hand delivered questionnaires to the respondents. In this case, completed questionnaires can be collected within a short period and the researcher can clarify anything from the questionnaire that the participant does not understand. It is also less expensive to administer questionnaires to a number of respondents at the same time (when questionnaires are administered to a group of people such as companies’ employees).
Postal/electronic mail questionnaires are questionnaires posted to respondents through postal mail or electronically. However, Sekaran and Bougie (2010) attest that the response rate for mail questionnaires is very low (30%), and it is difficult to ensure representativeness of the sample. In addition, any query/doubt that the respondent might have cannot be clarified.
In this study, questionnaires were chosen as the survey instrument. Questionnaires were deemed the most appropriate as data were collected in two different locations. Thus, there was a need for a standardised instrument that would measure objectively (without the researcher’s interference) the subjects of the study. In addition, due to time constraints, interviews were deemed inappropriate due to the logistics involved in setting up an interview. Postal mail questionnaires were considered inappropriate due to time constraints and costs involved in
49 mailing the questionnaires. Electronic questionnaires were not considered as the selected sample involved those that have and those that do not have e-mail addresses. Thus, questionnaires were personally administered to respondents.
3.3.3. Questionnaire design
Items included in the questionnaire were mainly drawn from questionnaires used in previous studies on IT/e-commerce adoption. Some items had to be adapted/ adjusted to fit within the context of the study. The questionnaire was divided into sections as follows:
Section A: General information about the respondents
The aim of this section was to capture respondents’ responses pertaining to their age, gender, and the position that they occupy in their businesses. In addition, the section was designed to gather information concerning their businesses. Particularly, the instrument was designed to capture i) the extent of their business coverage i.e. whether their businesses operate locally, nationally, internationally or nationally and internationally, ii) how long their businesses have been established, iii) the business sector they belong to, iv) the approximate number of full-time employees in their companies, v) their target customers and vi) whether they sell their products online or not.
Section B: Information about e-commerce adoption
The purpose of this section was to:
1) examine which areas/aspects of e-commerce are currently adopted by SMMEs (research objective 1). SMMEs were asked to choose which of the following e-commerce options have been adopted within their companies: i) Customer payment by credit card through the company’s website, ii) receiving customer orders through the company’s website, iii) providing customer services through the company website and iv) placing orders with suppliers over the internet (Item 10 from the questionnaire in Appendix E)
2) examine e-commerce enablers that SMMEs currently have in line with e-commerce adoption (research objective 5). The enablers that were examined are: i) company strategy for developing e-commerce, ii) computerised database of company’s customers, iii) computerised database of company’s suppliers, iv) computerised inventory of company’s products or services, v) company’s electronic e-mail, vi) company access to the internet, vii) website demonstrating company’s products or services (item no 11 from the questionnaire in Appendix E).
50 3) examine the impact of the determinants of e-commerce on SMMEs e-commerce adoption (research objective 3). Determinants of e-commerce adoption within SMMEs were identified through the literature on e-commerce adoption. The choice of determinants to be examined through the questionnaire was informed by the two theoretical frameworks being used in this study (DOI and UTAUT). SMME owners/managers were requested to indicate the extent to which they agree or disagree about the influence of the determinants on e-commerce adoption in their companies (items 12 and 13 from the questionnaire see Appendix E).
Section C: Information about perceptions of e-commerce
The purpose of this section was to:
1) examine SMMEs knowledge of the benefits of e-commerce (research objective 4). The following e-commerce benefits were examined against SMMEs knowledge of e-commerce benefits (based on their current and anticipated business requirements): i) improve information exchange with customers, ii) increase customer loyalty and retention, iii) improve service to the customer, iv) provide easier access to international markets, v) expand business reach, vi) reduce costs of maintaining up-to- date company information, vii) improve information exchange with suppliers, viii) reduce costs through web based purchasing and procurement, ix) improve the competitive position of the company and x) attracting new investment to the company (Item 14 from the questionnaire).
The following e-commerce benefits were examined to determine the extent to which SMMEs have benefited from them as a result of adopting e-commerce: i) raising/improving company profile, ii) increasing sales/enquiries, iii) extending customer base, iv) improving customer relationships, v) improving supplier relationships, vi) speeding up processes such as transactions, recruitment and marketing processes, vii) reducing costs such as transaction and marketing costs, viii) keeping up to date with products, services and market news, ix) keeping ahead of/abreast of competition, x) flexibility in terms of customer payment options, xi) flexibility in terms of placing orders with suppliers, xii) customer convenience (Item 14 from the questionnaire).
2) examine the inhibitors/limitations of e-commerce adoption (research objective 6).
The importance of the following limitations to the use of e-commerce was examined through item 16 of the questionnaire: i) company not convinced of financial and business benefits, ii) company has limited knowledge of the required technology, iii) e-commerce use is too low among customers, iv) e-commerce use is too low among suppliers, vi) level of computerisation is too low in the company, vii) cost of computers and network technologies is too high, viii)
51 telecommunications services are not dependable, ix) company has concerns about internet security, x) company has concerns about legal issues, contracts and/ or liability.