EMAIL ADOPTION, DIFFUSION, USE AND IMPACT WITHIN SMALL FIRMS - A SURVEY OF UK COMPANIES

A survey of 360 small firms of between 10 and 250 employees revealed t hat 274 (76.1%) had not adopted, and 86 (23.9%) had adopted email. Of firms with less than 100 employees, non-adopters were four times as nu merous as adopters, whereas companies with 100-250 employees had a sli ght majority of adopters. Of the adopters, three-quarters adopted emai l between 1995 and 1996, whereas only 13% adopted email between 1994 a nd 1995. Two-thirds of adopting companies have less than 10% of employ ees using email regularly. A relatively larger proportion of Managing Directors answered the questionnaire from non-adopting companies. A hi gher proportion of Finance and Computer managers answered the question naire in adopting than in non-adopting companies. Of most importance a s reasons for non-adoption was that customers and suppliers and other organisations with which respondents needed to communicate did not use email. Of medium importance were implementation barriers to email ado ption-expense of installation and maintenance, email being too technic al, etc. Of least importance were worries about effect on internal com pany communication. Adopters used email mainly for simple, fast messag es about topics on which there was no disagreement (answering and aski ng questions, exchanging time-sensitive information, keeping close con tact with suppliers and customers). The smaller the company the more t hat email was used for company-to-company communication rather than fo r internal communication. Unfortunately, a majority (56.2%) of email a dopters said that organisations with which they wished to communicate seldom had email. The main impact of email on personal work effectiven ess was ability to make and keep links with external business contacts , and reduced use of fax, post, and telephone. The main perceived impa cts on the business were efficiency gains and the ability to perform n ew tasks such as transmitting electronic spreadsheets and CAD drawings , and the ability to work away from base. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Lt d. All rights reserved.