Italian SMEs: The Role of Digitalization in Cross-Border E-Commerce Performance

©iStock/Alexander Farnsworth

In this paper, the authors aimed to understand the impact of digital technologies on cross-border e-commerce for Italian SMEs.

Overall, they observed that Italy is lagging behind its European counterparts in terms of digitalization and IT capabilities, although several national policies are addressing this topic and the initial data seem to show that they are succeeding.

This paper deals with three main categories of digital technologies: 

1. e-business
2. e-marketing
3.  e-commerce

They show that e-business has a mixed impact on cross-border e-commerce (CBEC) performance, and the relationships need to be further analyzed, while e-marketing tools have a significant positive impact on the online export performance.