Risk Perception Disparities in E-Business: Analyzing SME Roles, Experience, and Legal Compliance Challenges
Journal of Digital Business and International Marketing
Received On : 06 May 2025
Revised On : 04 June 2025
Accepted On : 25 June 2025
Published On : 05 October 2025
Volume 01, Issue 04, 2025
Pages : 233–242
Abstract
This study examines how e-business experience and organizational roles impact on the perception of dependency risks including external service provider risks, legal and compliance risks, and security risks among SMEs. Thus, the first research objective is to examine how and to what extent general and specific e-business experience influence the perceived risks and their priorities. In the present research, a mixed research approach and Kruskal-Wallis test were adopted to compare the risk perception of the respondents. We dissect the findings further by applying qualitative analysis on the impressions shared by the respondents. The findings show that e-business experience has direct effects on risk perception and the firms with less e-business experience perceive dependency risks as more severe, especially in terms of website developer, hardware, and software dependencies. On the other hand, larger and more experienced SMEs consider legal and compliance risks as more important especially where the cross-border transactions and data privacy issues are involved. Moreover, IT staff showed better appreciation of the reputational and employee risk factors more than the non-IT staff showing that technical knowledge is key to risk perception. Based on these results, this study posits that as SMEs gain e-business experience, their risk perceptions change and so do their understanding of external vulnerabilities and regulations.
Keywords
E-Business Experience, Organizational Roles, Legal Compliance, Security Concerns, Smes, Cross-Border Transactions, Risk Perception, Data Privacy, Reputational Risks, Dependency Risks, Employee-Related Risks, External Service Providers, Digital Technologies, Risk Management.
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The authors confirm contribution to the paper as follows:
Conceptualization: Yang Lei, Zheng Xinyu and He Xin; Methodology: Yang Lei; Writing- Original Draft Preparation: Zheng Xinyu and He Xin; Investigation: Yang Lei, Zheng Xinyu and He Xin; Supervision: He Xin; Writing- Reviewing and Editing: Yang Lei, Zheng Xinyu and He Xin; All authors reviewed the results and approved the final version of the manuscript.
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Cite this Article
Yang Lei, Zheng Xinyu and He Xin, “Risk Perception Disparities in E-Business: Analyzing SME Roles, Experience, and Legal Compliance Challenges”, Journal of Digital Business and International Marketing, vol.1, no.4, pp. 233–242, October 2025, doi: 10.64026/JDBIM/2025023.