Title: The institutional environment for B2B e-commerce adoption: a quantitative study of electronics and textiles firms in Greater China and the USA

Authors: Ling Zhu, Sherry M.B. Thatcher

Addresses: Department of Management Information Systems (MIS), Eller College of Management, The University of Arizona, McClelland Hall Room 430, 1130 E Helen St, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. ' Department of Management Information Systems (MIS), Eller College of Management, The University of Arizona, McClelland Hall Room 430, 1130 E Helen St, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA

Abstract: Grounding on the institutional theory and IT adoption literature, we conduct a quantitative analysis assessing the effects of industrial, governmental, regulatory and cultural factors on the initial stages of B2B e-commerce adoption. Our analysis is based on a survey data collected from electronics and textiles firms in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the USA, reflecting business perceptions of institutional environments in emerging and traditional industries and in developing, newly industrialised and developed economies. The results of our analysis indicate that industrial and governmental encouragements are the most powerful facilitators at the beginning of B2B e-commerce adoption. There are also significant cultural and country-level effects. The study confirms that institutional environments exert an important influence on organisations| decisions on whether or not to adopt e-commerce. It is one of the first cross-country and industry-level empirical studies on institutional environments and the research results have policy implications for global e-commerce development.

Keywords: institutional environment; B2B; e-commerce; electronics; textiles; China; Taiwan; Hong Kong; USA.

DOI: 10.1504/IJNVO.2007.012085

International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations, 2007 Vol.4 No.1, pp.92 - 104

Published online: 19 Jan 2007 *

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