A Local Community Web Portal and Small Businesses

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the role played by the establishment, in a UK village, of a local community Web portal on the Internet adoption decisions of small businesses in the village. The article reports on some of the findings of an ongoing study of this local community Web portal, focusing specifically on those small businesses that had, prior to the launch of the Web portal, made a decision not to adopt the Internet into their business operations. The barriers these nonadopting small businesses perceived to Internet adoption are identified, and the impacts their portal presence had on their subsequent choice of Internet adoption pathway are discussed. Before presenting the research design and pertinent findings of this local community Web portal project, some background details about the study and the local community Web portal are provided.