Internet adoption and usage: evidence from Italian micro enterprises

This study aims to fill a gap in the literature of internet adoption and usage within a micro enterprises (MEs) context. The aims of the research are twofold: a) to investigate the factors that influence the adoption of internet in MEs in developed countries; b) to characterise the MEs in term of internet usage and tools adopted and benchmark different typologies of them. After a thorough analysis of the literature, a research model is created. It consists of two parts. In the first part, four hypotheses are developed in order to investigate the different factors relevant to internet adoption (company size, geographical location, type of industry, and level of internationalisation). In the second part of the research, through a cluster analysis, we analyse the main differences related to internet usage. The statistical analysis was carried out on a sample of 600 Italian MEs. The research shows that the use of the internet is still not widespread. As shown from the regression analysis, the decision to use this technology is influenced by the size of the company, the sector it operates in, and the level of internationalisation, while location is not a significant factor. Cluster analysis shows three different groups of firms related to internet usage.