E-commerce success factors: exploratory and empirical research on the Chinese publishing industry

This research studies the electronic commerce (EC) success factors of Chinese enterprises, and builds the assessment indicator system of EC success. Although there are already a large amount of similar researches in this field, the existing studies still have limitations. On the basis of literature review, as well as two rounds of survey to specialists, we propose 15 assessment indicators of EC success, and 33 impact factors affecting the EC success. The hypothesis is proposed that leadership, strategy, management, organization, technology, customers and supplier factors would affect EC success. Focusing on the Chinese publishing industry, we conduct the empirical study to verify this hypothesis. 305 questionnaires are sent out to the book publishing companies that have already implemented EC; 93 questionnaires are sent back. After regression and factor analysis, this research finds out several key factors and critical sub-factors affecting EC success.