For many countries, their economic sustainability often chiefly relies on the growth of their small and medium enterprises (SMEs). For the proponents of “people’s economy” concept among those countries, especially the developing ones such as Indonesia, cooperative enterprises (cooperatives) have similarly been regarded as the cornerstone of economic resilience. Confronted with rapid and unprecedented shift towards preference for digital commercial activities, cooperatives and SMEs seem to be caught off guard catching up with the global market that has, to an increasing extent, gone digital. The lack of adoption of information and communication technology and the Internet to conduct business or so-called e-business among cooperatives and SMEs is despite e-business’ self- evident potentials. E-business could facilitate, among others, access to larger markets, cost reduction in supply chain through disintermediation, increased productivity and potentially a competitive advantage. These potentials may also be applicable to cooperatives and SMEs as already demonstrated in large enterprises. This study presents the current understanding surrounding the e- business phenomenon in the context of cooperatives and SMEs. As competitive pressures scrape away cooperatives and SMEs’ scarce resources, our analysis suggests the need for them to be empowered by e- business in order increase their ability to grow in today’s e-business-dependent environment. As cooperatives share several common characteristics with SMEs such as mainly in their limitation of readily available resources and enterprise diversity, the analysis further suggests a potential approach to the lack of adoption problem and spur uptake by adapting and extending a particular e- business framework used by SMEs. Finally, given the importance of cooperatives and their limited use of e- business, the analysis also implores scholars to address the currently minimal research in this area.

Keywords : Cooperatives; Co-op; Small and Medium Enterprises; SMEs; E-business Information and Communication Technology; ICT; Internet; People’s Economy.