I conducted a non-exhaustive6 review7 of literature, particularly journal
articles, books postgraduate theses and published conference proceedings
6 Whilst every effort was made to use thorough and rigourous search and selection
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written in English in the period January 2000 to the time of writing, October 2010. The review of literature was confined to this period as, due to the rapid change in ICTs and e-commerce activities, literature written before 2000 is likely to be redundant.8 The above listed types of literature
were selected because their quality has been vetted by established academic processes namely peer-review or examination.9
Only MBA and PhD theses were relied upon as they are required to be more rigorous than undergraduate theses. MBA theses are of particular relevance to this thesis because of their focus on entrepreneurial issues. PhD theses are rigorous because they are required to make a novel contribution to a field.10 Further, because theses have no commercial bent
(unlike books) and are not intended for a general readership, they are able to give in-depth analysis of niche subjects (such as accommodation SMEs) that generally do not have a wide appeal or huge potential (book or journal) readership. Finally, in selecting theses, the standing of the 7 The literature search and its subsequent evaluation was conducted according to
the guidelines suggested by Justus J Randalph ‗ A Guide to writing the dissertation literature review‘ (2009) 14 Practical Assessment Research & Evaluation. Available at <http:pareonline.net/getvn.asp?v=14&n=13> (last assessed 28 0ctober 2010) and Dawn Burton ‗Using literature to support research‘ in Dawn Burton (ed) Research Training for Social Scientists: A Handbook for Postgraduate Researchers (2000), 137 (hereafter Burton 'Using literature').
8 Burton ‗Using literature‘ 147 emphasises the need to make judgements about
literature on sound considerations including date of publication, credentials of the author and publisher.
9 Ibid.
10 Dawn Burton ‗Writing a thesis‘ in Dawn Burton (ed) Research Training for
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institution with which the then-student author was affiliated was considered.
The methodology used to collect the data on which the literature is based was also evaluated to ensure that only literature with a sound basis is relied upon in this thesis.11 The relevant literature obtained from this
review is summarised below together with an indication of how it is relevant to this thesis.
E-commerce models and methods flow from strategies employed by a particular business. Therefore it is important to incorporate an examination of business strategies as they inform an enterprise‘s decisions on the selection of e-commerce business methods. Neil Botes and Graeme Newcomb‘s study evaluated the e-commerce business strategy of tourism enterprises in South Africa.12 In addition to relying on
literature, Botes and Newcomb used an online questionnaire to obtain the
11 The methodology was evaluted against standards set in texts such as Michael D
Myers Qualitative Research in Business and Management (2009) (hereafter Myers 2009), Michael D Myers ‗Qualitative Research in Information Systems‘ 1997 (21)2 MIS Quarterly 241-242. MISQ Discovery, archival version, June 1997, Available at <http://www.misq.org/discovery/MISQD_isworld/> MISQ Discovery, updated version, last modified: February 17, 2011 available at <www.qual.auckland.ac.nz> (both last accessed 11 April 2011), Dawn Burton ‗Design Issues in Survey Research‘ in Dawn Burton (ed) Research Training for Social Scientists: A Handbook for Postgraduate Researchers (2000) 292 and
John W Creswell Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches 3 ed (2009).
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views of tourism enterprises that use e-commerce and held a series of face-to-face semi-structured interviews with selected experts.13
The e-commerce activities of SMEs in the accommodation sector have been comprehensively described and analysed by Tonderai Maswera in his PhD thesis and numerous conference papers and journal publications.14 Maswera‘s work details the features of e-commerce
websites, accesses their usabilities and makes some recommendations for improvements. Maswera‘s work is based on three online surveys of a total of 373 websites of tourism enterprises in South Africa, Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe and three questionnaires sent to these enterprises. 15
Whilst the work covered four countries the results are clearly labelled by country of origin and economic activity and it is thus possible to extrapolate information relating to accommodation SMEs in South Africa.
13 Botes and Newcomb 20 – 22. 1043 requests to participate in the online survey
were delivered to selected respondents and a 10.1% response rate was achieved. Respondents were selected through internet searches and from a proprietary database owned by the Southern African Tourism Services Association.
14 For example see T Maswera and R Dawson ‗An evaluation of the use of the
internet for customer relationship management by the travel and tourism industry in four African countries‘. Presented at the Business Innovation in the Knowledge Economy Conference, IBM, Warwick, July 2003, T Maswera, R Dawson and J Edwards ‗Analysis of usability and accessibility errors of e- commerce websites of tourist organisations in four African countries‘. Proceedings of the 2005 Conference on Information and Communications Technologies in Tourism, Innsbruck, Austria, 531–542, Maswera et al 2008, T Maswera, J Edwards and R Dawson ‗Recommendations for e-commerce systems in the tourism industry of sub-Saharan Africa‘ (2009) 26 Telematics and
Informatics 12–19 (hereafter ‗Maswera et al 2009‘).
15 Maswera PhD thesis 67 - 100, Maswera et al 2008 at 192, Maswera et al 2009
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Knowledge Mpofu‘s doctoral research has also focused on the e-commerce activities of accommodation SMEs in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. Mpofu details his findings with respect to accommodation SMEs in South Africa in an award winning paper written in 2009.16
Mpofu used a theoretically sampled multiple case study methodology and collected data through 17 semi-structured interviews, document analysis and participant observation.17 Among other things, Mpofu‘s work sheds
light on the SMEs‘ use of their own websites and their use of portals.
Mpofu‘s findings are supported by two other studies. The first of these is Jump.co.za‘s 2009 E-commerce Survey Report which was based on a survey of 115 e-commerce shop owners in 2009 using an online close ended 18questionnaire.19 This report provides evidence of the usage of e-
commerce packaged solutions, outsourced development and in-house
16 Knowledge Chinyanyu Mpofu ‗ICT Adoption and Development of E-business
among SMEs in South Africa‘ paper presented at the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE) 2009 conference. Available at <http://www.isbe.org.uk/content/assets/BP09-KnowledgeMpofu.pdf> (last accessed 29 October 2010) (hereafter ‗Mpofu‖). This paper won the 2009 Best academic research paper in ICT, IT and e-business in the small firm sector award.
17 Mpofu 10 - 11.
18 Allan H Church and Janine Waclawski (2001) Designing and Using
Organizational Surveys: A Seven-step Process 67: close ended questions are questions with a ‗limited number of options from which respondents must make one or more choices‘. Examples include questions with a yes or no answer or multiple choice questions.
19 Jump.co.za ‗2009 E-commerce Survey‘ Available at
<http://www.jump.co.za/general/e-commerce-survey.htm> (last accessed 2 October 2010). 900 invitations to participate in the survey were issued (12.7% response rate).
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development of websites. The reasons for out-sourcing are probed by Johnson et al.20 This quantitative study was conducted through the use of
a questionnaire with close ended questions.21 This study was not industry
specific and covered both SMEs and large businesses. However the results are clearly segregated by business size and it was possible to extract information about SMEs.
Other work focuses on specific aspects of e-commerce usage. A case in point is Elliot and Boshof‘s 2009 research on internet marketing in the tourism industry which used quantitative survey methodology.22 This
research builds on earlier research findings published in 2007 which focused on factors which affected the success of internet marketing.23
20 KA Johnston, T Abader, S Brey and A Stander ‗Understanding the outsourcing
decision in South Africa with regard to ICT‘ (2009) 40(4) South African Journal of Business Management 37 (hereafter Johnston et al). 1809 questionnaires were distributed to respondents who were selected using judgment sampling. A response rate of 8.7% was achieved.
21 Johnson et al 41.
22 R Elliot and E Boshof ‗The marketing of tourism services using the internet: A
resource-based view‘ (2009) 40(3) South African Journal of Business Management 35.
23 R Elliot and C Boshoff ‗The influence of the owner-manager of small tourism
businesses on the success of internet marketing‘ (2007) 38(3) South African Journal of Business Management 15.
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A second example is Verhoest et al‘s survey on ICT usage by tour operators in the Gauteng province of South Africa. 24 This research used
Electronic Business Survey methodology that employs both qualitative and quantitative methods and encompassed 40 face-to-face interviews. This research provides evidence of the main e-commerce activities of tour operators. This work is relevant to the thesis because tour operators are a key member of the tourism value chain.25 Whilst the work concentrated
on SMEs in only one province of South Africa, it is relevant because it supports evidence generated by studies that had a nationwide focus.
An example of such nationwide research is the report published by Jacqui Kew and Mike Herrington in 2009 which documents the use of ICTs by SMEs in South Africa.26 This work reports the results of a survey of 1807
enterprises in all of South Africa‘s nine provinces.27 The enterprises were
selected by random sampling and data was collected by personally administered structured interviews.
24 Paul Verhoest et al ‗E-tourism: a survey of e-business among South African tour
operators‘ (2007) 8 South African Journal of Information and Communication
172 (hereafter ‗Verhoest et al‘).
25 Verhoest et al 176.
26 Jacqui Kew and Mike Herrington ‗ICT and Entrepreneurship‘ 2009 Small
Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA). Available at
<http://www.gsb.uct.ac.za/files/SEDAICTReport2009.pdf> (last accessed 28 September 2010).
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The SME Surveys conducted annually by Wordwideworx provide evidence similar to that offered by Kew and Herrington. In particular, the 2007 Report provides evidence of Information Technology (IT) support and software and website development trends.28 This report is based on
5124 interviews of decision makers in SMEs in all nine provinces. 241 of these SMEs were in the accommodation sector. This sample was randomly selected from a proprietary database and the respondents were interviewed by telephone.29 Although Kew and Herrington‘s research and
the SME Surveys reports do not give industry specific findings, they provide a very useful composite overview of the use of ICTs and e- commerce by SMEs in South Africa.
Finally, research by Research ICT Africa on ICT usage and access in 2006 also confirms these findings.30 This research covered 14 African countries
but the research and research findings are presented by country enabling the easy location of South African information. 280 South African SMEs, selected by judgment sampling, were surveyed.
28 A Goldstuck SME Survey 2007 SME Insight, Johannesburg, August 2007
(hereafter SME Survey 2007).
29 SME Survey 2007 3.
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The body of work presented above provides the basis for the arguments advanced in this thesis. It is based on quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method research methods. Each of these adds value. An understanding of entrepreneurial behaviour is best constructed by qualitative research that enables the exploration of business contexts and the logic upon which decisions are made.31 Quantitative research such as
Elliot and Boshoff‘s article generates evidence of patterns and trends that adds to the understanding of the tourism industry. This body of work is based on credible data collection techniques including surveys, individual and focus group interviews, participation observation and document analysis. Some studies, for example those by Maswera and Mpofu, use triangulated data collection methods that considerably strengthens their findings.