The Institutional Environment for B2B E-commerce Adoption

Abstract

Grounding on institutional theory in organizational studies and e-commerce adoption literatures, this dissertation discusses the impact and effect of institutional environment on B2B e-commerce adoption. The institutional environment in question includes industrial, governmental, legal and national cultural factors. The study has been conducted in two phases. Phase I was in 2001-2003, as the infant stage of B2B e-commerce adoption. Phase II was in 2006-2007, reflecting the latest status of B2B e-commerce adoption. In both phases, the study collected and analyzed both secondary data at country-level and primary survey data at firm-level. The research methodology is a mixed approach of multi-time point, multilevel, multi-data source, multi-method, and comparative study. The cross-validated results of the study suggest that 1) the industrial pressure and/or encouragement is always the most powerful external facilitator for B2B e-commerce adoption; 2) at the beginning stage of e-commerce, the supportive government policy was a prime force to encourage private sector to adopt e-commerce; 3) as e-commerce becomes more prevalent and routine in business, e-commerce adoption becomes more business-driven, governmental policy loses its effect, and the legal environment becomes an important factor. The study is one of the first cross-country studies on the institutional environment in MIS research and fills the knowledge gap of understanding the external environment of e-commerce, especially from the temporal perspective. The research also offers empirical evidence to industrial practitioner and public policy-makers to develop e-commerce strategies.