Broadband Internet adoption challenge

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate empirically how broadband has been implemented at the business level and what are the potential adoption benchmarks. Several recent studies have called for the development of frameworks of broadband adoption, particularly at the business level, to help policy makers, communities and businesses with their strategic decision-making process. Design/methodology/approach – This paper opens the discussion by presenting concerns and challenges of Internet adoption. Internet adoption is viewed as the current challenge facing businesses, communities and governments. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) techniques are used to create, analyze and develop Internet adoption models. Findings – Based on the Internet usage data from a number of states across the USA, measurement models are developed using EFA and CFA. The findings indicate that for our sample, a three-factor model is the most appropriate for the representation of Internet adoption in the tourism sector, while a five-factor model can best describe Internet adoption in the sample of manufacturing organizations. Research limitations/implications – The availability of data on Internet usage at the business/organizational level is one of the main constraints. Industry/community-specific data can also provide valuable insights about the Internet adoption and support the development of industry/community-specific adoption models. Practical implications – The findings and the employed research method can be used by businesses, communities and government managers and policy makers as benchmarks to examine broadband adoption based on gap-opportunity criteria. Originality/value – This is the first study that provides Internet adoption models based on an empirical study at the business level. The benefits of broadband Internet have been investigated by many researchers in the past decade. There seems to be a consensus among practitioners and scholars about the role of broadband Internet in gaining competitive advantage. However, there have not been any previous studies that investigate how broadband has been implemented and what the potential adoption benchmarks at the business level are.