Small businesses' adoption of a social, mobile and local online presence

Abstract: The constant development of online technologies and the Internet offers new opportunities for small businesses to improve their business. In the past couple of years the development of the online is pointing to the emergence of three new areas of the Internet labeled under the fields of social, mobile and local. Previous research has found that there is a widespread acceptance of new technologies among small businesses, but that the extent of adoption varies widely. Previous research in the field of small business adoption of new technologies suggest several models and frameworks for studying why small businesses choose to adopt new technologies. However, as new technologies emerge the models for adoption need to be revised to fit the new characteristics and requirements of that technology. As such, this thesis aims to research adoption and suggest a framework for adoption of a social, mobile and local online presence by small businesses. The main results of this thesis identify the four categories of external drivers, strategic reasons, technology characteristics and individuals' characteristics as areas that influence adoption of a social, mobile and local online presence by small businesses. The study goes on to identify subcategories for these areas for each field of social, mobile and local respectively and presents support for the influence of these four category areas in the adoption of a social, mobile and local online presence by small businesses.