Our approach to understand e-business investment decisionsin SMEs emphasises that they are a blend of both objective andsubjective assessments of risk. Our initial position is that factorsinfluencing SME owners will differ from those influencing theirlarger counterparts, because SMEs generally cannot influence mar-ket prices (Storey and Sykes, 1986) and they also have less perfectinformation on which to make decisions. With this in mind, ourpaper examines whether the number of years of using e-businesstechnologies; the IT experience and knowledge of the respondent(based on their role within the SME) and the industry type influ-ence perceptions of risk when making e-business related decisions.Exploring the ‘softer’ side of technology investments challenges the over reliance on more quantifiable, mathematical and analyticalapproaches and helps balance the quintessential quantifiable waysof examining in a more systemic way. This does not claim that quan-tifiable techniques are unimportant but rather to highlight they arenot the all-important element.The paper is structured as follows: the first section discussesSME investments in technology. This is followed by a discussionof the concept of psychometric risk, which introduces the subjec-tive view of risk and its merits. This subjective approach is usedto generate three hypotheses. Following an outline of the testingstrategy and the characteristics of the sample firms, results arepresented. Then the limitations of the research, suggested furtherresearch directions, and implications for both policy and practiceare discussed.