The Maturity of Corporate Websites as a Digital Communication Channel in Portuguese SMEs' Process of Adopting E-Commerce

This study aims to determine the maturity of the websites of Portuguese small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) as a basic form of digital communication in the sequential process of incorporation of e-commerce. The starting premise is that there is a relationship between the level of maturity reached in the SMEs' websites as digital tools that allow firms to communicate effectively, and the adoption of e-commerce. To study this, a representative sample of 381 SMEs located in Portugal and selected through stratified random sampling was analysed. To assess the degree of maturity of the websites, a sequential validation model, the extended model of internet commerce adoption (E-MICA), was applied. This information was crossed with some descriptive variables such as the volume of business, the location, the number of employees, and the sector of activity of the SMEs. The results showed that, in general terms, there predominant websites that limit their interaction to promoting products and services thus present a low level of maturity. While the sector of activity, the volume of income, and the location of the firm are decisive for the maturity of the websites as a form of digital communication in the process of incorporating e-commerce, the number of employees is not.