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Top1. Introduction
In recent times, e-commerce has revolutionized the conduct of business to a large extent. Electronic commerce (EC) has substantial potential to foster the growth of businesses being it small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developed and developing countries (Wang et al., 2016; Chen, 2012; Kauffman et al., 2010; Choshin & Ghaffari, 2017; Yang et al., 2015). It comes as no surprise that the e-commerce systems adoption research has seen much attention in recent times (Ueasangkomsate, 2015; Thorleuchter & Van den Poel, 2012; Kim & Peterson, 2017; Oliveira et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2016; Hallikainen & Laukkanen, 2018; Kaur & Khanam Quareshi, 2015; Hwang & Lee, 2012; Capece et al., 2012; Rahayu & Day, 2016). For a successful e-commerce systems implementation, e-commerce researchers and practitioners must have an in-depth of online customer behavior. Even though there are research endeavors to explain e-commerce system adoption and online consumer behavior (Chiliya et al., 2011; Govindaraju et al., 2015; Kartiwi & MacGregor, 2008; Triandini et al., 2017), one of the main questions is how to understand the influences of social normative and affective factors on electronic customer relationship management. Lian & Yen (2014) also recently called for research to investigate the moderating effects of gender in e-commerce systems adoption. Arguably, among the many characteristics that impact the use of e-commerce, one that has received relatively little attention is gender. Extant evidence suggests that men and women differ in their beliefs regarding the use of information technology-related innovations, including ecommerce (Zhou & Wang, 2010; Wang, Wu & Wang 2009; Van Slyke et al., 2010). However, less is known about how gender moderates the impact of various beliefs on behavioral intentions.
Despite this great attention by the researchers, studies on the moderating effects of gender on e-commerce systems adoption is still far behind (Hasan, 2010; Saeed et al., 2003a, 2003b; Lian & Yen, 2014). This raises the question as to what are the precise factors that influence gender in their adoption of e-commerce. The answer is important as it is widely known that the e-commerce can revolutionize the conduct of business globally and play an important role in economic development. E-commerce make a significant contribution not only in terms of its technological and managerial benefits but also in terms of development and opportunities it provides (Yeh et al., 2014). This study fills this knowledge gap by investigating the factors responsible for gender differences in the adoption factors of e-commerce adoption.