Humanistic E-tailing as a Driver of E-commerce Adoption in Diverse Environments: An Analysis

Abstract

Literature suggests use of increasingly social and/or humanistic elements to increase the appeal of e-commerce for wider audience. These elements denote an important driver of e-commerce adoption as a whole but have multiple terms of reference such as ‘humanized website’, ‘interactive web’, and ‘social presence’ in literature – nomenclature complexity. The purpose of this study is twofold. First is to advance humanistic E-tailing (HE) as the umbrella term of reference for the social and/or humanistic elements aimed to increase the appeal of e-commerce. Second is to identify the ‘principal facets’ of HE and expand on their role in addressing a range of barriers to e-commerce adoption found to be prevalent in developing countries on average such as online threats, trust deficit, inadequate IT literacy and cultural rigidity respectively. Towards these ends, this study commit to qualitative methods of inquiry – a narrative literature review followed by a conceptual analysis in order to conceptualize an integrative model which encapsulate and present a solid theoretical foundation for HE as a significant theme and driver of e-commerce adoption in diverse environments – the Humanistic E-tailing Promotion Strategy (HEPS). This study is the first of its kind in retrospect, and HEPS is an original contribution to the literature body of e-commerce.