8 Conclusion
Despite the obvious importance of B2B e-commerce, little research has been conducted on the role of business factors in its adoption in organizations. Even in the previous studies on the subject of B2B EC adoption, most studies have used the TOE (Technology-Organization-Environment) framework (Tornatzky and Fleischer 1990) and/or the DOI framework (Diffusion of Innovation) (Rogers 1983). While these are overlapping frameworks used for B2B EC adoption, they capture mostly technological and organizational variables. For example, they do not include industry characteristics or decision maker characteristics. These factors are very important as they influence adoption decision considerably. Excluding these factors could result in wrong adoption decisions, which may have negative consequences to the organization. Our model captures these missing constructs along with the constructs used by the TOE and DOI frameworks. Thus our model provides a novel contribution to the B2B EC adoption literature as it represents major efforts towards developing an adoption model for this IT innovation.
In this research, we developed a holistic model to describe the factors that influence the adoption of B2B e-commerce. We considered variables in five contexts: external environment, organizational context, decision maker’s characteristics, technology factors, and (organizational) learning context. We find that price competition in the industry, the informational preferences of decision makers, perceived barriers, and informal linkages have strong influence on the adoption decision of B2B e-commerce. Furthermore, we find that IT maturity and perceived operational benefits have no effect on B2B e-commerce adoption. The fact that IT maturity and perceived operational benefits are not important factors is counter intuitive. In conclusion, this study identifies business factors facilitating the adoption of B2B e-commerce technology and prescribes normative guidelines for successful B2B e-commerce implementation.
