Factors impacting behavioural intentions to adopt the electronic marketplace: findings from small businesses in India.

The pandemic has accelerated e-commerce adoption for both consumers and sellers. This study aims to identify factors critical to the adoption of electronic markets (EM) during the pandemic, from the perspective of small sellers in non-metro cities. The research design utilizes core dimensions of the UTAUT model and selected constructs from protection motivation theory; since business closure vulnerability also triggers electronic market adoption. A questionnaire survey method was used to collect data from 150 sellers from tier-II/III cities of India. Study results identified performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence and perceived vulnerability as significant determinants of behavioural intention towards adoption of EM. The findings also explain the moderating impact of sellers' awareness of information technology and merchants' age on behavioural outcomes. Given the growing demands from such cities, the research offers insights for marketers to understand the bottlenecks and ways to motivate small sellers to get associated with EMs.

The changing contours of global value chains post-COVID: Evidence from the Commonwealth.

The COVID-19 pandemic emphasised the global value chains (GVCs) debate by focussing on whether gains from GVC participation outweigh firms associated risks of demand and supply shocks amid rising protectionism. This paper bridges the gap between the international trade and management literature by examining the impact of COVID-19 on Commonwealth countries, an area that has received scant attention in academic literature. Using the Eora database, we simulate scenarios to examine Commonwealth countries' participation in GVCs post-COVID. We draw on the transaction cost economics (TCE) theory to develop a framework that investigates whether growing protectionism, associated with reshoring, decoupling and nearshoring, could potentially affect the constellation and participation of Commonwealth countries in GVCs post-COVID. Results show that trade protectionism is likely to impact the supply chains and lead to GVC reconfiguration, which could offer opportunities for the Commonwealth countries and firms to potentially gain following the geographical redistribution of suppliers.

An anatomy of the impact of COVID-19 on the global and intra-Commonwealth trade in goods.

This article employs gravity modeling to examine the effect of COVID-19 on global and intra-Commonwealth trade. It uses bilateral monthly exports, number of COVID-19 cases and deaths and the stringency of measures. The main novelty is the use of price indices as proxies for multilateral resistance terms, which allow us to identify, supply, and demand effects of COVID-19 on bilateral trade. The incidence of COVID-19 impacts Commonwealth trade flows, the effect varies with the development level. High numbers of COVID-19 cases, including deaths, in low-income importers reduced Commonwealth exports unlike high-income importers that show higher exports. The incidence of COVID in an exporters' neighbouring countries impacted trade and restrictions in high-income countries increased Commonwealth trade. Short-term trends project a negative change in both exports and imports of Commonwealth countries.