AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF FACTORS AFFECTING ADOPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF B2B E-COMMERCE IN AUSTRALIAN HEALTH CARE ORGANIZATIONS

For the health care industry, the adoption and implementation of business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce (e-commerce) systems can lead to many benefits, such as an increased accessibility to providers, reduction in supply chain and inventory costs, and reduced medical errors. However, despite high expectations for realizing the benefits of B2B e-commerce in health care, its adoption remains poorly understood and is a relatively under-researched area. Although B2B e-commerce provides these organizations a wealth of new opportunities and ways of doing business, it also presents a series of challenges. Hence, the case study approach was utilized (1) to identify B2B e-commerce adoption and implementation critical constraint-minimization factors for organizations within the health care industry; and (2) to develop a framework to manage these critical constraint-minimization factors. A key contribution of the paper is to propose a framework in which critical constraint-minimization factors faced by health care organizations undertaking B2B e-commerce activities can be identified, examined, and managed.