Abstract:
Even though there is a rapid development of social commerce, developing countries are still confronted by
infrastructural and cultural issues related to the acceptance of e-commerce. Since Sri Lanka is a developing
country, the acceptance of e-commerce by the small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) is still in challenge by
such barriers; it is now applying models for the acceptance of new technologies by SMEs. The paper aims to
discuss these types of issues. This research study is endeavoring to develop a model, with the ideas of existing
models on e-commerce, which will be applied with Sri Lankan conditions. The data collected by a survey is
composed with prior models in e-commerce area to investigate this study, and it has been empirically tested to
recommend an innovative model. The findings of this research reveal that poor awareness of the advantages of
the e-commerce and organizational issues lined with its applications are the reasons for most of the e-commerce
obstacles in Sri Lanka. The findings and suggestions of this study, can be applicable to other developing
countries as well. This paper is giving a better representation of Sri Lankan market. Lastly the paper deliberates
probable upcoming guidelines of this research, as well as its boundaries. This research supports to the
hypothetical basis of information systems and e-commerce acceptance studies through recommending and
testing a pre-acceptance model for e-commerce. The acceptance of e-commerce in SMEs in Sri Lanka has not
been considerably inspected. It is obvious that the SMEs in Sri Lanka play a significant role in its economies.
The findings of this study demonstrate a substantial affiliation between organizational readiness and the
acceptance of e-commerce and validate the positive relationship between readiness of e-commerce and its
acceptance.
