Research Report: Empirical Test of an EDI Adoption Model

This paper is the first test of a parsimonious model that posits three factors as determinants of the adoption of electronic data interchange (EDI): readiness, perceived benefits, and external pressure. To construct the model, we identified and organized the factors that were found to be influential in prior EDI research. By testing all these factors together in one model, we are able to investigate their relative contributions to EDI adoption decisions. Senior purchasing managers, chosen for their experience with EDI and proximity to the EDI adoption decision, were surveyed and their responses analyzed using structural equation modeling. All three determinants were found to be significant predictors of intent to adopt EDI, with external pressure and readiness being considerably more important than perceived benefits. We show that the constructs in this model can be categorized into three levels: technological, organizational, and interorganizational. We hypothesize that these categories of influence will also be determinants of the adoption of other emerging forms of interorganizational systems (IOS).1