| Several models explain technological adoption and innovation. Most of these models focus on how the technology is adopted by an individual, a business unit, or an organization. However, Interorganizational Systems (IOS) technological innovations change the way business is conducted. Many organizations now concentrate on their core competencies, and develop partnerships with other businesses for their support activities. Some of these partnerships include: outsourcing, strategic alliances, application service providers, and electronic data interchange (EDI). The decision to adopt an IOS must be made by both parties in the relationship. They must form a partnership.; To contribute to the knowledge required for managing the adoption of an IOS, a case study using grounded theory, was used to examine the EDI implementation projects of four components of an aerospace company. The formation of the relationship from the perspectives of the initiators was studied and then verified with the implementation partners.; Initiators and adopters rated and then ranked the importance of factors necessary to form a successful IOS e-business partnership. It was found that initiators rated and ranked management support, adequate financial resources, and technical factors (e.g., user friendly, HW/SW infrastructure, standards, technical skills, and training) as important. Adopters rated technical factors as most important. However, in the rankings, economic, social, and technical factors were all considered to be important.; The adoption rate was primarily driven by the initiators' implementation strategies. The initiators intentionally targeted a limited number of partners. The dissertation develops a normative implementation strategy utilizing the factors identified by both partners as important to the formation of an IOS e-business strategy. Relationships with a high volume of transactions and low level of data transmission complexity are best suited for true machine-to-machine IOS e-business partnerships.; The internal, external, and mixed influence adoption models were statistically tested for prediction of the actual rate at which partnerships were formed. The external influence model provided a good fit for the aerospace component that began the EDI initiative, whereas, the internal influence model provided a good fit for the remaining three components. |
