This study focuses squarely on the processes employed by small firms for making e-commerce strategy, hereinafter called e-commerce strategy-making modes.  This studyaccepts the aforementioned linkage between small firm strategy-making modes (how strategy-making happens) and firm performance, and reasons that similar links between e-commerce strategy-making modes and e-commerce performance may also exist in these firms.  Unfortunately, extensive e-commerce strategy-making literature that could shed light on this relationship does not exist.

   Given a stark absence of specific e-commerce strategy-making literature, this study made use of research identifying strategy-making modes in a general business context as a useful starting point for identifying e-commerce strategy-making modes in a narrower e-commerce context.  Specifically, the study adapted Verreynne's (2006) strategy-making work which identified the four “most likely” (p. 209) strategy-making modes in small firms, to begin the work of identifying e-commerce strategy-making modes in these firms.

Problem Statement

A “common issue with e-commerce is that many companies do not carefully formulate their e-commerce strategy” (Quader, 2007, p. 25).  This study assumes that  small firms are among the companies suffering from the lack of careful e-commerce strategy formulation, or lack of carful e-commerce strategy-making.  Here, the terms strategy formulation and strategy-making are used interchangeably.

 The general business strategy-making literature investigates and identifies strategy-making mode in small firms (Gibson & Cassar, 2002; Hart & Banbury, 1994;Miller, 1987; Verreynne, 2006), but the literature does not investigate nor identify e-commerce strategy-making modes in these firms.  This lack of research is notable because it is thought that the “ill conceived strategies” (Rigby, 2011, p. 66) of the dot-com era doomed many early e-commerce operators.  To date, no study identifies e-commerce strategy-making modes in small firms.  Logically, without first identifying e-commerce strategy-making modes, it is difficult, if not impossible to determine if a specific e-commerce strategy-making mode leads to a certain level of e-commerce performance.  Thus, identifying e-commerce strategy-making modes in small firms was the goal and expected contribution of this study.

Dissertation Goal

Hart (1992) describes strategy-making as how strategy “actually gets made” (p. 347).  Understanding how strategy gets made means investigating the relationships and interactions among firms’ stakeholders and the decision-making processes they use to craft a strategy.  Together, the relationships, interactions, and decision-making processes comprise a strategy-making mode.  A strategy-making mode is the manner in which strategy-making happens, occurs, or gets done, the resulting output being a strategy.

   Adapting Hart’s (1992) description of strategy-making, this study investigated how e-commerce strategy actually gets made in small firms.  This meant investigating the relationships and interactions among firms’ stakeholders and the decision-making processes they use to craft an e-commerce strategy.  Together, these relationships, interactions, and decision-making processes comprise an e-commerce strategy-making mode.  An e-commerce strategy-making mode is the manner in which e-commerce strategy-making happens, occurs, or gets done, the resulting output being an e-commerce strategy.  The goal of this study was to identify specific e-commerce strategy-making modes in small firms.  

Research Questions

 The study research questions were motivated by the lack of prior work on e-commerce strategy-making in small firms, or firms of any other size.  In a general business context, Verreynne’s (2006) work synthesized forty years of strategy-making research to extract the four “most likely” strategy-making modes in small firms: (a) adaptive strategy-making, (b) intrapreneurial strategy-making, (c) participative strategy- making, and (d) simplistic strategy-making.  Similar work identifying e-commerce