Digitalization Adoption among Malaysian SMEs: The Drivers and its’ Industry Based Heterogeneity

Abstract

Digital technologies advancement has immersed in many aspects of our lives, be it an individual or a business. The fast moving technologies has fostered the growth of digital economy. Businesses which fail to adopt will eventually lose their competitive advantage. The pressing phenomena motivates the study of digitalization adoption among small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which account for the majority of the businesses worldwide. Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework was utilized to guide this study. The plausible difference between service based and non-service based industries was also examined. Quantitative approach via purposive sampling was performed to collect data from the SMEs. The data was analyzed using the concept of Hierarchical Component Model (HCM) for TOE constructs and Multi-Group Analysis (MGA) under the purview of Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). For more insightful findings, Importance Performance Matrix Analysis (IPMA) was conducted. The findings informed that Technology and Organization record significant positive influence on Digitalization Adoption among SMEs while there is heterogeneity between service based and non-service based industries.