E-Commerce diffusion in small island countries: The influence of institutions in Barbados

This paper concerns the role of institutions in promoting the diffusion of e-commerce. Using institutional theory as a framework of analysis, the paper evaluates institutional interventions over a six-year period in Barbados and how that impacted on the national environment for e-commerce. The paper explicates the institutional powers of influence and regulation in the context of the ideologies of market supply and demand for e-commerce. It concludes that at the early stage of e-commerce diffusion both public and external institutions play key roles in creating conducive conditions and in providing the impetus necessary for the spread of e-commerce respectively. However, the sustainability of e-commerce depends on 'bottom-up' entrepreneurial mobilization to maintain the momentum for growth 'top-down' interventions create.