Application of established and emerging B2B e‐commerce technologies: Australian empirical evidence

Draws on data collected from 553 Australian companies and focuses on differences in the adoption of established (e.g. EDI) and emerging (e.g. the Internet) technologies for the management of supply chains. Overall, the use and adoption of existing technologies can be characterised as restricted, apparently costly, and perceived to be limited in terms of potential benefit. On the other hand, adoption and use of emerging technologies such as the Internet would appear not to be suffering from these traditional restrictions. The limitation of EDI to large companies is not evident in the use and adoption of the Internet, neither is the limitation on use at the manufacturing end of the supply chain. Concludes that there is evidence that the adoption of emerging Internet‐based technologies for the management of supply chains does not appear to be subject to many of these constraints. However, it is not clear whether this ease of adoption will mean that the benefits will also flow as easily to these companies.