Highway to the danger zone: A systematic review of the hazard side of e-commerce in small companies

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for most of the world’s business and are an important contributor to global e-commerce (EC) transactions as the number of digital customers continues to climb. Over the past decade research in the field has examined either the positive effect of EC or isolated unfavorable outcomes in EC businesses. From an original perspective, this systematic review analyzes eleven years of research of positive and negative EC outcomes and their tradeoffs in SMEs. Based on a standardized complete coding protocol, 73 selected studies were retrieved and analyzed. Results show that when it is well implemented, EC creates value and enhances firms’ performance. In this research, we synthesize the critical success drivers of e-commerce and emphasize the conceptual importance of positive and negative research propositions for theory building.