Determinants of EDI adoption in the transportation industry

This study examines the impact of various environmental, organizational, and technological factors on the adoption of innovation in the context of electronic data interchange (EDI). Based on research in information technology (IT) adoption, organizational studies and marketing a comprehensive research model is developed. The model identifies eleven variables, under three broad categories (environmental, organizational, and innovation characteristics), that could potentially influence the adoption of EDI. The research variables are operationalised using multi-item indicators and data collected from a large scale field survey of 950 firms in the trucking industry. A total of 181 firms responded to the survey with near equal number of adopters and non-adopters. Multivariate discriminant analysis is used to determine the impact of each of these variables on EDI adoption. The results of data analysis indicate that four factors are important to discriminate adopters from non-adopters of EDI in the transportation industry. They are: size of the firm, competitive pressure, customer support, and top management support.