Managerial Expectations of Internet Commerce Adoption after the "Tech Wreck" of 2000 - An Australian Perspective

Internet commerce has been greeted with much excitement in the popular, practitioner and researcher literature over its brief lifetime. Many firms fervently pursued Internet commerce based business models in the belief that the initial costs would be justified by future returns. The "tech wreck" of early 2000 saw a sudden drop in ecommerce uptake. Only a limited amount of research has examined managerial expectations regarding adoption of this technology, especially after the crash of 2000. This study examines such post-crash expectations of managers of Australian companies regarding Internet commerce adoption. Based on literature analysis, it proposes a set of business expectations from technology adoption, these being the desire to gain a competitive advantage, to remove a competitive disadvantage, improve communication, reduce organisational costs and improve functionality. The study finds that, in the short and long term, managers still hope to acquire a competitive advantage and to benefit from improved communication with customers and shareholders. The results also suggest that managers are optimistic about functionality improvements in the long term but that some scepticism may have emerged regarding other benefits purportedly obtainable from Internet e-commerce adoption.