E-Business Barriers in Iran’s Free Trade Zones

Currently there are 24 free trade and special economic zones in Iran. Problem Statement: of these zones is lack of e-business and this is in spite of managements’ desire to have proper infrastructure for e-business in these zones. The goal of this study is to determine and explain ebusiness barriers in free trade and special economic zones in Iran. Approach: Our approach in this study is based-on Delphi method. We used Delphi method to conduct our study and chose 25 members for our Delphi panel, who were given the outcomes of literature review. We asked the panel group to rank the barriers by importance and provide any other problems or issues they found during their studies. Results: The result of four rounds of Delphi panels declared five main barriers for implementing e-business in the regions including: Infrastructural barriers, Property rights issues, Mistrust in Epayments, financial barriers and Shortage of IT skills. Conclusions/Recommendations: We concluded that to implement e-business in the Iranian free zones and special economical districts, there are some infrastructure requirements such as high speed internet, wide internet band, proper laws and regulations; so that small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) could utilize e-business.


INTRODUCTION
At the present time, most countries with similar goals have acted to establish free trade and special economic zones. Islamic republic of Iran too, understanding the importance of establishment of free trade zones has initiated remarkable efforts in providing the necessary infrastructures for the activities relating to free trade zones. The results of these efforts, up to the time of writing this essay had been designing of 6 free trade zones and 20 special economic zones in Iran ( Table 1).
The nature of free zone and special economic zones are almost the same. The only difference is that retail trade is allowed in the free zones and it is not allowed in the special economic zone. Special economic zones are also for more of a larger activity for trade and industry A key challenge that has arisen within Iran's Free trade and special economic zones is encouraging Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) to adopt more advanced E-business applications and for these to integrate better with business processes and applications. With the emergence of Internet, companies are facing new challenges such as intensive global competition, more demanding customers, rapidly shrinking product Life cycles and short response time. As a result, companies are racing against time to achieve the competitive advantage by offering a wider range customer of product and service portfolio.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Definition of E-business: E-business can be described as the new business logic that operates in a world without boundaries. It refers to a broader definition of Electronic Commerce, not just buying and selling but also servicing customers, providing an integrated business environment and offering added value services [1] . E-Business, as an area of research, is still evolving with many researchers disagreeing to the Benefits or boundaries. Many benefits from the utilization of ecommerce for SMEs are suggested [2] . Figure 1 explains Categories of E-business.
There is an extensive literature that discusses the potential benefits of E-business [3,4,5] . However, organizations need to consider a range of challenges presented by E-business adoption [6] . It is observed that most of the E-business studies are largely based upon the experience of E-business implementation in the developed countries [7] .
The current research tries to identify the key barriers to adoption E-business in Iran's free trade and special economic zones using Delphi Method.
Delphi method: Delphi method is a group decisionmaking process that involves circulating questionnaires on a specific problem until a consensus regarding the problem is reached [8] . In current research 25 experts were selected as Delphi panel members  Research problem: What are the key barriers to adoption E-business in Iran's Free trade and special economic zones.
Literature review: Table 2 The results of literature review on barriers of E-business adoption is shown [9] .
The first round results: In the first round of Delphi method, 24 experts from 25 members of panel did participate. In first round, the ideas of panelist about importance of E-business old barriers that mentioned in pervious studies and as well E-business new barriers that not mentioned in pervious studies were collected. In Table 3 Table 4, the panelist's new ideas regarding importance of E-business barriers in Iran's free trade and special economic zones is shown.
The Third Round Results: In round three, 22 experts from 25 members of panel did participate. In the first part of the questionnaire of the third round of Delphi  method, ensemble of factors were introduced which participants in the first and the second rounds did recognize those as a key barriers of E-business adoption   in Iran's Free trade and special economic zones. Only those responses receiving a median score of 4 or higher remained for the third round [10] . In Table 5 the results of third round is shown. In this round, Kendal's Coefficient of Concordance is 0.711.

The fourth round results:
In fourth round of Delphi method, only 20 experts from 25 members of panel did participate.
In Table 6 the results of fourth round is shown. The brief results of Delphi fourth round are shown in Table  6. In fourth round, Kendal's Coefficient of Concordance is 0.734, compared to the third round coefficient (0.711) was increased up to 2.3%.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results of four rounds of Delphi shown that according to the following reasons, consensus amongst the panel members was obtained and can terminate the repetition of rounds: • According to Table 7, More than 50 Percentage of members have determined the arrangement of factors like the arrangement of group • According to the Table 7, the standard deviation of panelist answers regarding the importance of barriers has decreased from 0.666 in the first and second round to 0.598 in the fourth round • The Kendal's Coefficient of Concordance for the panelist answers regarding the arrangement and importance of barriers to E-business adoption in the fourth round is 0.734. With attention to the number of panelist, which is more than 10 people, this level of Kendal's Coefficient is significantly meaningful [11] . The Kendal's Coefficient of Concordance for the arrangement of success factors in the fourth round (0.734) in comparison to the third round (0.711) is just 0. increased up to 023 CONCLUSION E-business has significantly transformed the way in which firms conduct business, allowing them to gain more business opportunities and competitive advantage. However, results from the study revealed a lack of or slow uptake of E-business strategy among the SMEs in Iran's free trade and special economic zones. Among the different variables studied, Infrastructural barriers, Property rights issues, Mistrust in E-payments, Financial barriers and Shortage of IT skills were reported to have significant influence in the context of e-business development among the SMEs in these zones.. It was found that infrastructural barriers played a key role in explaining non-adoption of e-business by firms. The study can have an implication for free zones and government authorities engaged in promoting ebusiness development. Given the unique context of SMEs, such an understanding could be useful for government in drawing guidelines, approaches, and developing more practical and effective framework to promote SME-e-business development.
The study findings indicate that Barriers to Adoption of E-business in Iran's Free trade and special economic zones are Infrastructural barriers, Intellectual Property rights, financial barriers, Shortage of IT skills and Infrastructural barriers. The implication for free trade and special economic zones is that the E-business adoption in these zones requires overcoming factors impeding E-business adoption.