A Typology of Firms Regarding M-Commerce Adoption

Nowadays firms are actively considering the mobile phone as a means of marketing and should also analyze its potential as a means of selling. In this study, the authors present the survey results from a sample of 125 firms, in Spain. They outline four types of firms (innovators, followers, laggards and traditionalists) on the basis of factors that drive or inhibit this type of selling and the main variables from TOE (technological, organizational and environmental) framework. The authors also characterize those four types of firms according to their size, sector, experience and use of ICT marketing strategies. To the best of their knowledge, scarce studies have analyzed mobile selling in Spain and proposed an exhaustive characterization of mobile vendor firms and strategies. Both academic and managerial implications of interest are derived from this study.