and key informants about the barriers that firms face to the development of B2B e-commerce and about
what they perceive to be the most likely e-commerce developments in the future.
The study is based on case studies of 12 firms and interviews with key informants from internet service
providers and public and private agencies concerned with regulating and supporting ICT. Despite the
many assertions in the literature on B2B e-commerce about the potential benefits for firms in developing
countries, unfortunately, most of these are not supported by the empirical evidence in this study. The
results suggest that B2B e-commerce had not become firmly established in the garment sector in Kenya at
the time the research was carried out in mid-2002. Although most of the firms in the study were found to
be using e-mail and had access to the public Internet, there was little sign of use of the more sophisticated
forms of B2B e-commerce. However, there was a considerable amount of variation in both the B2B ecommerce implementations and practices that were being used and in the perceptions of the advantages
and disadvantages of B2B e-commerce for the study firms. Surprising, there appeared to be very little
pressure or momentum to implement B2B e-commerce applications from buyers in the industrialised
countries. There was also evidence of the continuation of the roles of intermediaries and of many of the
traditional trading practices that rely on personal contacts.
The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 provides an introduction to the Kenyan context in which
B2B e-commerce applications are expected to emerge. Section 3 outlines the methodology for the study,
section 4 describes the case study enterprises and section 5 presents the results. The final section
summarises the findings and offers suggestions for further research.
2. THE KENYAN CONTEXT FOR B2B E-COMMERCE
Kenya has been involved in trade in global markets for many years. Until recently, primary commodities
such as tea and coffee were the main traded commodities. Trade in manufactured products began in the
1980s when a strategy of export-oriented manufacturing was promoted by the government. As in many
developing countries, textile products, and especially garments, are important for employment and export
growth. For this reason, and because global electronic trading platforms have been established in this
industrial sector, the garment industry was expected to provide an interesting case study for an
investigation of the extent and forms of Kenyan’s firms involvement in B2B e-commerce at the time the
study was conducted in the Spring of 2002. Particular emphasis was given to investigating the ways that
the implementation of various forms of B2B e-commerce may be influencing Kenyan garment firms’
trade prospects in international markets.
The following subsections outline the market context in which
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