To analyze the adoption of the Internet by B-to-B companies, the following main question has been developed:
What are the factors that affect the adoption of the Internet for B-to-B international marketing?
This was the overall question to be answered by the current study; defined by the following three objectives:
To explore the factors that influence the adoption of the Internet by B-to-B companies,
To develop and clarify a conceptual model integrating these adoption constructs, and its consequences on B-to-B companies’ usage of the Internet for their marketing activities and,
To specify and test hypothesised relationships derived from the conceptual framework.
In the following sections, first the development of the conceptual model and the hypotheses of the study are presented. Next, the methodology of the study is discussed followed by the analysis and results. More specifically, the conceptual model is tested using path analysis, and data collected by mail survey of 123 B-to-B UK companies. Finally, the conclusions and their implications are discussed.