E-Commerce Adoption : A Comparative Study of Sweden and Pakistan

Sammanfattning: The rapid proliferation of internet has turned the growth of e-commerce into a globalphenomenon including both, in the developed and developing countries. Several studies havebeen conducted in the perspective of consumer level e-commerce adoption for differentdeveloped countries. There felt a need to look into whether the same pattern of studies has anyimplication on other countries, especially the developing countries. This study aims at analyzingthe pattern of e-commerce adoption on consumer perspective and the factors that have greaterinfluence in the adoption of e-commerce by conducting a comparative study between Swedenand Pakistan. The factors of trust on online sellers, national culture, infrastructure involved in theoverall e-commerce activities and education level of consumers are found to have significantimpact on the adoption of e-commerce. Trust plays a pivotal role in e-commerce adoption due toa higher level of uncertainty followed by risk, invisibility of the parties involved in exchange andlack of control mechanism. Same is the case with the national culture whereby the propensity totrust on the online seller and risk taking are influenced to a great extent by different culturalorientation of consumers. Hofstede‘s (1980; 2001) frame work of cultural dimensions provide agood insight on national culture to draw their implication for the e-commerce adoption. Swedishculture appears to be more adaptive towards e-commerce than the Pakistani culture, due to itswider difference on the Hofstede‘s cultural dimension indices. Moreover Swedish customersexhibit more trust on suppliers‘ of online services and products. On the other hand, infrastructureand education are two important contextual factors that serve as support function to e-commerceactivities and complement each other such that without them e-commerce activities cannot beexecuted or flourished. Insufficient infrastructure and low education level are also the mainhurdles that refrain most of the consumers in Pakistan to make online purchases.