Regional adoption of business-to-business electronic commerce in China

Adoption of B2B e-commerce is a powerful driver of economic success in developed and developing countries. However, adoption rates in developing countries lag far behind. This paper draws on the perceived e-readiness model and research on the influence of interorganizational relationships and economic-cultural contexts to explain the importance of three factors - interorganizational power dependence, cooperativeness, and regional economic-cultural differences - for achieving higher levels of Internet-based electronic data interchange (EDI) in the developing country of China. We employ survey data to empirically test both the individual and joint influence of these factors. The findings suggest that beyond intraorganizational and external factors, managers and policymakers wanting to promote Internet-based EDI adoption in developing countries must also account for the interorganizational relationships of firms and the economic and cultural circumstances of the regions in which they operate.