| In the last few years, people have witnessed phenomenal growth in the business activities on the Internet. By taking advantage of the unique characteristics of the Internet, a new generation of IOS provides great efficiency for B2B business transactions and is much more affordable than traditional ones. Little systematic research has been conducted to study the adoption of new IOS systems. Moreover, a paucity of literature exists that has attempted to contribute insightful theories or comprehensive models to this area. To partially fill this void, this research intends to investigate the adoption phenomenon of IOS. To facilitate this study, Internet EDI (I-EDI) is used as an exemplar IOS technology to examine multiple factors impacting IOS adoption. Innovation Diffusion Theory, Organizational Climate Theory, Transaction Cost Economy Theory, Social Exchange Theory, and Trust theories are extended for studying the adoption of IOS. The extension will explain a large portion of the factors that lead to an organization's adoption of IOS.; This research utilizes the field survey as the primary research methodology. Results from an online survey of 219 organizational respondents indicate that the proposed theoretical model is able to explain and predict organizational adoption of IOS substantially well. In addition to providing new theoretical grounds for studying the IOS adoption phenomena, this dissertation also supplies new measurement instruments for organizational constructs and interorganizational factors. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the implications of this work to both researchers and practitioners. |
