An exploratory study to identify the critical factors affecting the decision to establish Internet-based interorganizational information systems

The Internet, with its unprecedented growth, is a promising platform to exchange information along the business channels. The purpose of this study was to determine the factors that are critical to organizations in their adoption decision of Internet-based interorganizational information systems (IBIS). Using a field-based survey, the researchers obtained findings that suggested that the factors that significantly affect the adoption decision of IBIS are pressures felt from trading partners, pressure felt from competitors, establishing costs, network reliability, data security, scalability, complexity, support from top management, and trust between trading partners. This research highlights the similarities as well as the differences between IBIS and Electronic data interchange (EDI). The study showed that IBIS and EDI are similar in terms of the significant effect of factors such as pressure from trading partner, pressure from competition, establishing cost, top management support, and trust on the adoption decision. However, the results show that there are differences between IBIS and EDI in terms of establishing costs, scalability, and complexity.