E-Commerce Readiness Assessment in Sarawak

This study explores the factors of e-commerce adoption among Sarawakians. One of the factors is the level of cybersecurity awareness. We aim to assess the readiness for e-commerce among Sarawakians due to the lack of study conducted on the subject. A research model based on the perceived risk (PR), perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived quality of products (PQ), and the intention (I) of adoption of e-commerce services in Sarawak is proposed. The validity of the proposed model is then tested using various validity tests such as item reliability, construct validity, convergent validity and discriminant validity via the SmartPLS software. Once the validity of the model has been determined, a structural equation model is used to study the strength of the model before the test of the hypothesis can be done. The effect size, f2, is calculated by using SmartPLS. The index value of each variable is also plotted in the importance-performance matrix analysis (IPMA). Based on the survey data from 128 end users in Sarawak, the study finds that PU is the most crucial factor in adopting e-commerce services, followed by PQ. Surprisingly, PR does not play any role in the intention of Sarawakians to adopt e-commerce services. The results suggest several important key points as follows: (i) the Sarawak Government and its e-commerce partners should focus on educating the people of Sarawak on the importance of cybersecurity to prevent cyber-related crimes from occurring and causing massive damage in Sarawak’s attempt to digitise its economy; (ii)Sarawakians prefer functional e-commerce services; (iii) the quality of e-commerce products should also be maintained; and (iv) the developers should focus on the usefulness of their products to ensure that their service can be adopted by the people of Sarawak.