Internet Use Patterns amongst Internationalizing Ghanaian Exporters

Export firms are critical to the success of developing economies like Ghana. The Internet presents export firms with organizational improvement options and ways by which their value chain activities can be enhanced. The current study focused on the Internet use patterns amongst internationalizing Ghanaian non-traditional exporters (NTEs). Out of 150 questionnaires administered, 106 responses were obtained. We employed descriptive statistics in the presentation of results. The general pattern of Internet usage for information search varied among NTEs according to degree of internationalization. The most internationalized NTEs demonstrated a higher usage rate of the Internet for information search purposes, with about a third using the Internet for Public Relations (PR) activities, compared to less than one-fifth of the least internationalized group using the Internet for PR activities. Use of the Internet as a payment medium (getting paid for exports or paying for raw material inputs they need for operations) was significantly low among all NTEs in this study.