EDI adoption in New Zealand marketing channels: an empirical investigation of proactive versus reactive adopters

Abstract

Firms within commercial distribution channels have responded to the technology driven information revolution by adopting Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). This research addresses the lack of understanding the marketing literature has about the EDI adoption decision process. The recognition that firms may play a proactive, or a reactive role, within the EDI adoption decision process, introduces a relatively new perspective to EDI adoption research. The objective of this research is to identify the factors which differentiate proactive EDI adopters from reactive EDI adopters. Using the 'EDI Adoption Model' (based on the Political Economy Framework), fourteen hypotheses are developed about various organisational, inter-organisational, and environmental factors, which are expected to distinguish proactive EDI adopters from reactive EDI adopters. To test these hypotheses, data was collected by mailing a questionnaire to 560 firms within New Zealand. Logistic regression was used to estimate a proactive EDI adoption model from the data which was collected.

The findings indicate that proactive EDI adopters tend to be larger firms, who perceive more advantages to be associated with using EDI. They also appear to adopt EDI in response to high levels of demand uncertainty. Also, the findings indicate that reactive firms tend to adopt EDI because of a cooperative working relationship between themselves and proactive firms, or because they are responding to coercive channel power used by proactive firms. Overall, these findings provide some support for a previous study, and have established four new factors which differentiate proactive EDI adopters from reactive EDI adopters.

This research makes a contribution to the marketing literature because it addresses three gaps within EDI adoption research. Firstly, this is empirical research which attempts to address the current lack of knowledge about the differences between proactive and reactive EDI adopters. Secondly, this research addresses the lack of knowledge about the inter-organisational factors which affect the EDI adoption decision. Thirdly, this research addresses the lack of understanding about the environmental factors which distinguish proactive EDI adopters from reactive EDI adopters. As well as addressing these gaps, this research provides future researchers with an inter-organisational technology adoption model, which can be used to gain insight into other inter-organisational technology adoption decisions.