Factors Influencing Social Commerce Adoption by Small and Medium-Scale Enterprises in Sri Lanka: A study based on Technological, Environmental and Entrepreneurial Framework

Abstract

Small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) must comprehend social networks and the tactics for utilizing social media (SM) for business expansion in the new digital era. SMEs are essential to the economic success of any country because they play a major role in most international economies. In the same manner, the Covid-19 epidemic in later 2020 has reformed people's mode of lifecycle and dealt with information. This has created more lead to the expansion of social media usage for consumers and business assistance. This study focuses on the technological, environmental and entrepreneurial elements that have an impact on the adoption of social commerce by SMEs in Sri Lanka. The TEE framework has developed with the factors of technological availability, customer pressure, competitive pressure, Bandwagon effect, attitude, innovativeness, and IT knowledge. The transference of electronic commerce activities and transactions through social media is known as "social commerce". The simple random sampling technique was utilized to select business owners from the target population of SMEs listed at chambers of commerce. 384 SMEs in the Western Province (Colombo, Kalutara, Gampaha) were chosen for the data analysis of this study. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to test the developed hypotheses. The results show that adopting social commerce in SMEs in the Western Province of Sri Lanka is practical and hugely beneficial to all parties involved, especially within the South Asian context. Entrepreneurs who are fascinated with social commerce for their brands will find the study to be insightful. Additionally, it will help policymakers develop specific social commerce deployment leads that should be broadly adopted and focus on management and ownership training for SMEs. The study's findings showed the importance of utilizing social media in daily business activities as most SME owners hold the belief of possessing the required knowledge, skills, and resource in their business operations with social media as the focus point. The present research is one of the significant studies that the researchers are conscious of that conducts a thorough quantitative study of the factors affecting the adoption of social commerce by SMEs with a special emphasis on entrepreneurial factors.