This article analyses the moderation effect of co-operation on electronic data interchange (EDI) adoption, and the influence of EDI use on the co-ordinating activities in the automotive supply chain. The empirical results from a survey of 116 Spanish automotive suppliers indicate that EDI adopters perceive more operational benefits, more external pressure and mutual understanding, and fewer technical and organisational difficulties than do non-adopters of EDI. The use of EDI is greater among suppliers that perceive more strategic benefits and fewer cost and organisational difficulties, have a proactive management, are less dependence on suppliers, and adopt EDI earlier. Co-operation is a moderator of organisational difficulties for EDI adoption and use, and strategic benefits for the use of EDI. The results also show that companies use EDI to become more co-ordinated with suppliers and customers. Extensions to this research should include longitudinal studies. We have used cross-sectional data but this makes it difficult to establish causal relationships between the variables. Pending future research, the results of this study could be carefully generalised to other sectors. The study confirms the usefulness of the research framework for studying adoption of technological innovations. The decision to adopt an interorganisational technology like EDI is not primarily based on the characteristics of the technology itself but upon other factors related to the internal organisation and the external environment. Thus, we expect that our research framework is able to explain the application of the findings in other industries where interorganisational co-operation plays a significant role like in the automotive industry. Besides, the measure of performance improvements due to the use of co-ordination activities and EDI within the automotive supplier industry may be another interesting future line of research.
The use of EDI for interorganisational co-operation and co-ordination in the supply chain
Integrated Manufacturing Systems ; 14 , 8 ; 642-651
2003
10 Seiten, 1 Bild, 4 Tabellen, 27 Quellen
Article (Journal)
English
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