Coercive Institutional Support and Habit Drive Sustained E-commerce Use for Accounting in SMEs

Sustained e-commerce use is critical for digital entrepreneurship among SMEs because it stabilizes digital value creation beyond initial adoption. This study examines how Behavioural Intention (BI) and habit predict sustained e-commerce use and whether coercive institutional support strengthens the translation of intention into actual use. Using survey data from 184 Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Central Java, Indonesia, the proposed model was tested with Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), including a moderation effect. The results show that BI positively predicts sustained use, while habit exhibits a stronger effect, indicating that routinized automaticity is central in post adoption digital operations. Coercive institutional support, conceptualized as enforceable mandates, monitoring, and credible sanctions, significantly amplifies the intention use relationship, suggesting that compliance oriented governance helps convert plans into consistent routines. This study contributes to technopreneurship research by positioning sustained use behaviour as an operational capability and by integrating an institutional boundary condition into Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) mechanisms. Practically, the findings inform Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aligned SMEs digitalization by highlighting interventions that accelerate habit formation and strengthen compliance governance aligned with Indonesia’s e-commerce and digital system regulations. Future research should employ longitudinal designs and objective usage logs to validate behavioural persistence over time.