4. RESULTANTS AND DISCUSSIONDescriptive statistics of research variables, which include mean, median, standard deviation, coefficient ofvariation, and minimum and maximum values, are depicted in table below.Table 1. Descriptive statistics of research variablesNote:PU: Perceived Usefulness ANX: Internet AnxietyPEO Perceived Ease of Use IA: Internet AdoptionISE: Internet Self Efficacy FP: Firm Business PerformanceRespondents tend to belief that internet is useful for their business. They found that learning internettechnology is not that easy, however, they are confident that they—supported by adequate traininginternet technology—will be able to learn it. Interestingly, respondents, on average, still belief andunderstand that internet technology is difficult to learn and, more than that, to some extent is“frightening”. These are indicated through the mean values of the following variables: perceivedusefulness (4.79—out of maximum value of 6), perceived ease of use (2.79), internet self efficacy (3.91),and internet anxiety (4.61).The majority of respondents are categorized as both internet non-adopter (51.14%) and internet potentialadopter (44.32%). Only 4.55% respondents can be categorized as internet adopter. Firm businessperformance, as reported by respondents, are found to be good. As shown in Figure 5, more than 50%respondents belief that their firm business performance will be improved with internet technologyapplication. This indicates that respondents who are not categorized as internet technology adopter (i.e.,mostly non-adopters and potential adopters) understand that internet technology has the potentials toimprove their firm business performance.Figure 5. Firm business performanceResults of path analysis on the relationships between independent variables (i.e., perceived usefulness,perceived ease of use, internet self efficacy, and internet anxiety) and dependent variables (i.e., internettechnology adoption and firm business performance) are depicted in Figure 5 and 6.As shown in Figure 6, patterns and magnitudes of relationships between independent variables (perceivedusefulness, perceived ease of use, internet self efficacy, and internet anxiety) and dependent variable(internet technology adoption—sub-model 1) and between independent variable (internet technologyadoption) and dependent variable (firm business performance—sub-model 2) are represented by thefollowing regression equations.Figure 6. Path analysis results (standardized coefficients)Internet Adoption = 1.04 + 0.05PU + 0.12PEOU + 0.08ISE – 0.08ANX (1)Firm Business Performance = 5.20 + 0.03IA (2)where: PU (perceived usefulness); PEOU (perceived ease of use); ISE (internet self efficacy); ANX(internet anxiety); IA (internet adoption); and FP (firm business performance)Figure 7. Path analysis results (standardized coefficients)Coefficient determinants (R2) for each equation are, respectively, 0.12 and 0.00, as can be seen in Figure7.Analysis of variance (ANOVA) for each sub-model is shown in Tables 2 and 3. As clearly shown in Table2, internet technology adoption is significantly (p<0.05) affected by the four mentioned independentvariables: perceived usefulness (positive); perceived ease of use (positive); internet technology self efficacy (positive); and internet technology anxiety (negative). However, their ability to explain thevariability of internet technology adoption is relatively low (i.e., 12 per cent). This means that there anumber of factors that have the potential to affect the level of internet technology adoption within smallbusiness operators. These include social influence (i.e., customer influence), competitor pressure,facilitating conditions (i.e., information technology infrastructure), and users’ demographic characteristics(i.e., gender, age, level of education, and experience).Table 2. Analysis of variance sub-model (1)Firm business performance, on the other hand, as seen in Table 3, is not significantly affected by internettechnology adoption. This means that internet technology application, according to perceptions of SFFoperators, has nothing to do with their firm business performance. In other words, there was no differencein firm business performance between firms which use information technology—in this case internettechnology (i.e., internet adopter or potential adopter) and those which do not use it (internet non adopters).This finding is different from Bitler’s finding (2001), which found that information (internet)technology adoption significantly affect firm business performance.This finding and its difference from Bitler’s (2001) findings could be explained this way. Most ofrespondents in this study (i.e., small manufacturing firm operators) are categorized as either internet non adoptersor internet potential adopters. However, they belief and understand that internet technologywill—to some degree—be able to improve their firm business performance. This could be caused by theexistence of gaps or differences between their theoretical knowledge regarding the technology and itsassociated advantages and their practical experience utilizing this technology.Table 3. Analysis of variance sub-model (2)5. CONCLUSIONLevel of internet technology adoption by SFF operators is affected by their perceived usefulness,perceived ease of use, internet self efficacy, and internet anxiety. This indicates that these predictors(independent variables)—even they partially do not significantly affect internet adoption—are regarded asimportant variables that should be carefully taken into account in developing internet technologyeducation and/or training programs for small business operators. Firm business performance is notaffected by internet technology adoption. Since firm business performance was measured using self reported approaches (e.g., whether adopting and utilizing internet technology will improve their firmbusiness performance), this finding can be regarded as an indicator that internet technology educationand/or training is of importance for small manufacturing firm operators as well as other sectors of smallbusiness operators.
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