Barriers of website adoption for South African beef cattle breeder SMMEs

Abstract

The benefits for SMMEs of adopting a website are well known and a lot of research has been done in various industries. However no such study has been done to provide insight into the preceived benefits and barries of website adoption for beef cattle breeder SMMEs in South Africa.The research methodology involved a quantitative design of a descriptive type as there is a depth of knowledge already available. A non-experimental survey design was used, which consisted of an electronic, self-administered survey. The survey served as the research method using a combination of the benefits and barriers identified by Walczuch et al (2000) and Cloete (2003). The sample size for the research consisted of 1261 registered beef cattle breeders from varies breeder societies which have valid email addresses.The study primarily outlines the proportion of website adoption and secondly describes the perceived barries and benefits of website adoption by beef cattle breeder SMMEs in the survey. The results indicate that close to 70 percent of the cattle breeders in the survey have not adopted a website. Those SMMEs that have adopted a website perceive marketing and advertising as the primary benefit and the cattle breeders’s primary perceived barrier of website adoption is unfamiliar with or the lack of knowledge regarding websites. This finding further indicates a definite difference between industries, compared to previous studies done by by Walczuch et al (2000) and Cloete (2003).