The increased use of information technologies has led to more research on information technology/information system (IT/IS) adoption and decision-making behavior in small businesses to improve information utilization. This paper presents an extensive review of the literature on IT/IS adoption to identify the key factors affecting small businesses based on comparison analysis. The review identifies the current interest in the adoption of Internet based IT and points out that the factors affecting different stages of the business lifecycle and research variables should be selected in terms of the different technology types. Especially, the review emphasizes the characteristics of external openings on the network in the research on e-commerce adoption. Future studies should focus on IT/IS adoption and implementation in small and medium-sized businesses during the development of small and medium-sized industrial clusters and specialty towns.