Facilitators and Inhibitors for Deploying Business-to-Business E-Commerce Applications: A Multi-Method, Cross-Cultural Study

Firms are increasingly using the Web to conduct inter-organizational business transactions. This type of effort, popularly known as “business-to-business” (B2B) electronic commerce (e-commerce) has caught the attention of researchers and practitioners. Although there is a widespread adoption of B2B applications, there is very little empirical research that has attempted to investigate this phenomenon. There is no clear idea on how firms are managing the B2B initiatives and what problems they face in deploying B2B e-commerce systems. This paper describes an on-going research project that examines the facilitators and inhibitors for deploying B2B applications. The project employs both qualitative and quantitative approaches and is being conducted in the United States, Singapore, and Norway. The project is being conducted in two phases. In the first phase, an extensive literature review and iterative interviews with senior IT executives yielded a list of 46 facilitators/inhibitors. In the second phase, a survey instrument was developed based on the initial list. This survey form was pilot tested and sent to senior IT executives in the three countries. The preliminary analysis of data reveals nine categories of factors as affecting the deployment of B2B e-commerce applications in organizations. The current status of the project, preliminary findings from a partial data set, and the study’s potential contributions are discussed.