Start Date
16-8-2018 12:00 AM
Description
We adopt Media system dependency theory (MSD) to examine e-commerce and social media use in Cambodia. A field study was conducted by performing semi-structured interviews with three major e-commerce website owners: Little Fashion, Khmer24.com, and Comptech.com. Through the lens of MSD, we observe how these e-commerce websites were established by using a grass-root approach. Furthermore, we interview local business owners who are using social media—Facebook and YouTube—as tools of marketing and customer services. We found that 1) e-commerce activities are fully depends on social media and that 2) from a media perspective Facebook plays the role of fulfilling user’s needs of getting information and services and that 3) e-commerce activities are highly depend on big players such as Facebook and Google. We also found that the environment is yet mature for e-commerce activities but opportunities exist for business ventures. The social background of Cambodia is unique, as such, the online activities and social media use behavior is completely different from what is observed in western countries and we conclude few unintended consequences of social media use which go beyond the scope of our knowledge.
Recommended Citation
Luo, Margaret Meiling and Chea, Sophea, "E-Commerce and Social Media Use in Cambodia" (2018). AMCIS 2018 Proceedings. 14.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2018/GlobalDev/Presentations/14
E-Commerce and Social Media Use in Cambodia
We adopt Media system dependency theory (MSD) to examine e-commerce and social media use in Cambodia. A field study was conducted by performing semi-structured interviews with three major e-commerce website owners: Little Fashion, Khmer24.com, and Comptech.com. Through the lens of MSD, we observe how these e-commerce websites were established by using a grass-root approach. Furthermore, we interview local business owners who are using social media—Facebook and YouTube—as tools of marketing and customer services. We found that 1) e-commerce activities are fully depends on social media and that 2) from a media perspective Facebook plays the role of fulfilling user’s needs of getting information and services and that 3) e-commerce activities are highly depend on big players such as Facebook and Google. We also found that the environment is yet mature for e-commerce activities but opportunities exist for business ventures. The social background of Cambodia is unique, as such, the online activities and social media use behavior is completely different from what is observed in western countries and we conclude few unintended consequences of social media use which go beyond the scope of our knowledge.