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Determinants of adoption of IS-based service innovations in government to create public value
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to propose a conceptual framework showing factors favoring the adoption of information systems (IS)-based service innovations in the public sector at the organizational level.
Design/methodology/approach
The research design is based on the development of a theoretical framework from the technology–organization–environment framework and from a case study of an outsourced IS-based electronic document management system from six different ministries in the same state in Mexico.
Findings
Strong contrasts in the degree of adoption of the service innovation appeared among various ministries involved in state government, revealing differences in the presence or absence of key variables, integrated into theoretical framework, including perception of external pressure; perception of benefits and risks and organizational readiness; and political, sociotechnical and economical inertia in given institutional conditions, leading to different public value outcomes associated with intraorganizational efficiencies and to the relationship between public administration and politicians.
Practical implications
Public managers must consider process mapping and sources of political, sociotechnical and economical inertia in given institutional conditions, to ensure a satisfactory adoption of service innovations in public administration and create public value. The promotion of a more structured and enduring professional career system in such context is another key to the adoption of innovations.
Originality/value
Based on theoretical and empirical grounds, the main contribution of this paper is to emphasize, through an integrated theoretical framework, the relatively unexplored roles of process mapping in organizational readiness and of political, sociotechnical and economic sources of inertia in relation to specific agents in the adoption of public sector service innovations at the organizational level in the context of the public administration in Mexico to produce public value.
... For about two decades, the next chapter of public sector reform has been predominantly related to digitalization (Layne and Lee, 2001;Wimmer, 2002), and many positive developments have come along with this transformation (Cordella and Bonina, 2012;Janssen et al., 2012;Scholta et al., 2019). However, despite this growing interest in research and practice, we can still see public organizations struggling with digitalization (Duhamel et al., 2023), the permeation of e-government across agencies (Ramadani et al., 2022) and the corresponding organizational transformation (Nograšek and Vintar, 2015). This is also reflected in an insufficient maturity of public sector digitalization in several countries (United Nations, 2020). ...
... Consequently, the overall measure of its task performance is not maximizing profit and output by considering pure economic measures but the contribution to societythe public value (Moore, 1994(Moore, , 1995. For e-government, this positive societal impact has already been specified (Duhamel et al., 2023;Twizeyimana and Andersson, 2019). Therefore, it is important to point out the unique role of the public sector. ...
... Therefore, the degree to which public administration is capable of fulfilling stakeholders' requirements in terms of digital public services has an immediate effect on the overall perception of public administration (MacLean and Titah, 2022;Schwab et al., 2017) and even on the amount of trust individuals and businesses place into the government (Tolbert and Mossberger, 2006). These considerations in particular, but even the considerations regarding the original purpose of administration, providing public value (Moore, 1994(Moore, , 1995, must be taken into account when contemplating e-competence acquisition (Duhamel et al., 2023). Therefore, our results mediately also impact the public officials' competence to fulfill stakeholder requirements, maintain government trust and generate public value. ...
Purpose: One impediment of e-government implementation is the lack of e-(government) competences among public officials, especially because foundational education programs fail to teach them. Therefore, this study suggests massive open online course (MOOC)-based continuous education. It aims to design and evaluate a MOOC and MOOC platform for acquiring e-competence in the public sector and principles for such platforms to capture their inherent design knowledge.
Design/methodology/approach: The study uses design science research incorporating qualitative and quantitative methods and draws on established patterns of formulating design principles (DPs).
Findings: The core results are a physically instantiated MOOC platform and six DPs: DP of 1) easy access and easy use, 2) professional exchange, 3) protected space, 4) domain focus, 5) cooperation with higher education institutions and 6) promotion from higher government level.
Research limitations/implications: This study contributes to e-government research by extending the design knowledge for the construction of domain-specific MOOC platforms. Moreover, the study contributes to platform economics by discussing existing theses and outlining new opportunities. The research also entails limitations, as the authors have solely considered MOOCs and neglected complimentary offers to sustain learning success.
Practical implications: This study provides practitioners with design principles they can use in their efforts to construct education platforms for the public sector. Moreover, the study presents a working MOOC platform instantiating these DPs, and thus provides an exemplary reference.
Social implications: Not fulfilling expectations regarding digital public services comes with a risk of decreasing trust in public organizations and the overall government. The results of this study contribute to enabling public officials fulfilling stakeholders' expectations and generating public value.
Originality/value: By linking e-government competence education with MOOC platform design, this research approximates an important research gap. Scholars previously investigated e-competences and focused on alone-standing MOOCs to convey those. The results of this study offer the potential to construct platforms to centralize such fragmented solutions, maximizing their impact among public officials.
... This has an impact on the small percentage of innovation success (Pradana et al., 2022a). These cannot be separated from the complexity of the process and implementation of innovation in public organizations, starting from the political environment, institutional managerial, external factors of the institution and the characteristics of the innovation itself (Duhamel et al., 2023;Hartley and Knell, 2022;Pradana et al., 2022a). ...
... Innovation studies in the public sector continue to develop in various aspects (van der Wal and Demircioglu, 2020b). For example, De Vries et al. (2016), Walker (2014) and Demircioglu and Audretsch (2017) focused on innovation processes and internal and external antecedents, improvement of organizational performance and capacity (Nählinder, 2013), governance and public service (Hartley, 2005), innovation characteristics of individual leadership, managers and apparatus (do Adro and Leitão, 2020;Demircioglu, 2023;Demircioglu and Van der Wal, 2021;Khan and Khan, 2019), smartness and information technology (Meijer, 2015;Velsberg et al., 2020), influences of socio-economic political in the adoption of public sector innovation (Duhamel et al., 2023), collaborative governance to innovation (Torfing and Ansell, 2017;Torfing and Peter, 2016) and innovation measurement (Arundel et al., 2019). ...
Purpose
In recent years, public sector innovation practices have continuously penetrated central and regional governments. Observations show that many new innovation ideas are abandoned after initial implementation. Therefore, this study aims to examine the dark side of local public sector innovation through the case of the Mobile Application System of Local Tax (SAMPADE) innovation.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used the concept of the dark side of public sector innovation with a focus on SAMPADE innovation. Qualitative study cases were used, and empirical data were collected from semistructured interviews and observations. Secondary data were collected from published primary study sources, including peer-reviewed journals, case studies, government newsletters, online newspapers and books.
Findings
Referring to local findings, this study noted the weaknesses of public sector innovation caused by the failure of policymakers to consider any negative effects.
Research limitations/implications
This study only focuses on the dark side of one example of public service innovation. The results or other conclusions may vary depending on the unfavorable phenomena of public sector innovation.
Originality/value
The dark side of public sector innovation is a theme that many scholars have not analyzed. This study will contribute to the discourse, particularly in the context of local governance and developing countries.
... Local governments' adoption of digital technologies, including digital twins, depends on several factors and issues relating to the technology itself, the organisation within these local governments, and external factors (Duhamel et al., 2023;Rim, 2023). These factors either propel or hinder the adoption of technologies; therefore, despite the potential of digital technologies, local authorities must consider or meet certain criteria and be open to the adoption of such technologies. ...
Purpose-This study aims to understand and explain factors that influence how, when and under which conditions local governments adopt digital technologies for citizen collaboration. It discusses what these findings mean for city digital twin adoption.
Design/methodology/approach-This research uses the systematic literature review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) process to collect and evaluate evidence needed to answer the research questions. It uses the technology-organisation-environment (TOE) framework and proposes an additional dimension: "stakeholders" as the analytical framework.
Findings-Critical influential factors identified include the technology dimension: security and privacy; organisation dimension: top management support; environment dimension: political influence; and stakeholders' dimension: technological experience.
Research limitations/implications-This research extends the TOE framework and comprehensively analyses those factors which relate to citizens but significantly impact local government's decision to adopt digital tools for collaboration purposes. This research posits that in the context of local government technology adoption for collaboration, both the organisation and stakeholders' dimensions are critical.
Social implications-This research contributes to the government-citizen discourse and provides a constructive understanding of technological transformation in collaborative planning. The findings are helpful for local governments, researchers and geospatial industries as they offer a critical understanding of digital technology adoption, particularly city digital twins, for collaborative planning.
Originality/value-This study extends the TOE framework to include aspects relating to citizens. It provides a nuanced understanding of the influential factors and intricacies of technology adoption by local governments for citizen collaboration. It also discusses relevant issues of city digital twins’ adoption by local governments for citizen participation.
... The electronic management is characterized by the abolition of the paper archive and its replacement with the electronic archive system, the correct of the errors at high speed, the processing of data in a large amount within a short time and little effort, simplification of procedures and speed of completion, raising the level of service performance, and providing services to the largest number of citizens at one time (Duhamel et al., 2022) . Nada (2022) defined government administration as: the center of thinking and decision-making in the general administrative construction of the state. ...
In the modern era governments compete to provide services to citizens based on the digital environment in order to provide services to the largest possible number of citizens, in the fastest time and the highest quality in order to achieve the public interest of the government and society. The study aimed to identify the impact of the electronic management on the government administration through digital leadership as a mediating variable, an applied study on the Ministry of Labor in the Central Region of Jordan. I followed the descriptive approach and the analytical approach, depending on a questionnaire distributed to the offices of the Ministry of Labor in the in the Central Region of Jordan. A sample of (97) individuals was selected, and the sample consisted of (manager or assistant manager, department head, supervisor or inspector, administrative officer) in the offices of the Ministry of Labor. The study relied on statistical methods such as the descriptive statistics represented by (percentages and frequencies, arithmetic averages and standard deviations) and analytical statistics represented by (multiple regression test), and the hypotheses of the study.
Today, digital innovation represents a determining factor in value creation, both for the digitalization of processes and activities within public institutions, but also for the creation of value for the public administration stakeholders. Digital technologies become transversal in the activities carried out by public institutions and involve a critical analysis of the ethical implications. This chapter investigates the triptych relationship between digital innovation—value innovation—and ethics. The article identifies the factors that define, enable, and condition the three elements in the context of public administration. The chapter qualitatively examines how digital technologies and innovations influence value creation in public institutions, explores the ethical dilemmas that arise from digital innovation, and discusses the ethical perspectives that guide the transition to digital value creation in these institutions.
This research article aims to provide an in-depth examination of the complex aspects of digital transformation, from an organizational management perspective. The study offers an overview of the prominent research interests and trends in this field, shedding light on organizational changes brought by digital transformation, and on the strategic shifts it requires. To achieve these objectives, the research utilizes bibliometric analysis techniques, specifically performance analysis and science mapping. The analysis is conducted using the VoSviewer software application, which efficiently integrates data from multiple databases, including Web of Science and Scopus. The findings reveal that digital transformation, within the context of organizational management, encompasses diverse research directions and themes that play a central role in its success. Key areas of focus include innovation, leadership, dynamic capabilities, digital innovation, and change management. These themes highlight the pressing need for organizations to navigate and thrive in the digital age. The research contributes to the understanding of digital transformation and its implications for organizational management, both in private and public organizations, highlighting the differences between the two.
Purpose
There is an assumption that innovative culture is considered to contribute to improving human resource management (HRM) practices. However, very little is known about this topic as well as innovations within the context of the government sector. Based on that, this study aims to investigate, theoretically and empirically, the impact of innovative culture on HRM practices with the moderating role of knowledge sharing in this association.
Design/methodology/approach
The data was obtained from government agencies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This study used structural equation modelling to test the proposed hypotheses and SPSS to perform a preliminary analysis.
Findings
The findings show that innovative culture significantly and positively affects HRM practices. Moreover, knowledge sharing plays an important moderating role between innovative culture and HRM.
Research limitations/implications
The findings have several theoretical and practical implications. The study provides useful insights into the significance of innovative culture and knowledge sharing in stimulating HRM. The findings will help government agencies improve their employees’ capabilities by customising knowledge sharing and creating a culture that supports innovative activities within their agencies.
Originality/value
Private-sector organisations are concerned about factors that enhance innovative activities as one of the factors of development, improvement and enhancement of competitive advantage. However, in government, especially in the UAE, research into the part played by innovation remains uncommon, particularly into the role of knowledge sharing and innovative culture in enhancing HRM practices. To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, this is one of the pioneer studies to examine the impact of both innovative culture and knowledge sharing on HRM in a government environment context.
Digital innovative technologies have enabled organisations to create opportunities to support their competitive advantage. In this regard, realising the dynamics influencing the adoption of these technologies becomes critical to their success. While much attention has been focused on the technological development, implementation and employees’ adoption, little has been done to examine the specifics of digital innovation influencing technology uptake in organisations. Drawing from Technology Organisation and Environment framework, this paper examines the factors affecting innovation dynamics adoption in the context of cloud computing for SMEs. The findings obtained from IT and senior managers highlight that while innovative IT capabilities, organisational innovativeness, perceived innovation risk, perceived innovation barriers influence the likelihood for SMEs adopting cloud computing as an innovative solution, IT innovation-driven competitiveness has limited influence. As such, this demonstrates how understating the specifics of innovation dynamics can help in offering the required support for SMEs in sustaining success.
This study examines 83 IS qualitative studies in leading IS journals for the following purposes: (a) identifying the extent to which IS qualitative studies employ best practices of justifying sample size; (b) identifying optimal ranges of interviews for various types of qualitative research; and (c) identifying the extent to which cultural factors (such as journal of publication, number of authors, world region) impact sample size of interviews. Little or no rigor for justifying sample size was shown for virtually all of the IS studies in this dataset. Furthermore, the number of interviews conducted for qualitative studies is correlated with cultural factors, implying the subjective nature of sample size in qualitative IS studies. Recommendations are provided for minimally acceptable practices of justifying sample size of interviews in qualitative IS studies.
This article brings together empirical academic research on public sector innovation. Via a systematic literature review we investigate 181 articles and books on public sector innovation, published between 1990 and 2014. These studies are analysed based on the following themes: (1) the definitions of innovation, (2) innovation types, (3) goals of innovation, (4) antecedents of innovation and (5) outcomes of innovation. Based upon this analysis, we develop an empirically-based framework of potentially important antecedents and effects of public sector innovation. We propose three future research suggestions: (1) more variety in methods: moving from a qualitative dominance to using other methods, such as surveys, experiments and multi-method approaches; (2) emphasize theory development and testing as studies are often theory-poor; and (3) conduct more cross-national and cross-sectoral studies, linking for instance different governance and state traditions to the development and effects of public sector innovation.
Exploring boundaries and meanings of public value, the authors seek to identify some of the impediments to progress in the study of public values. The study of public values is often hamstrung by more general problems in the study of values. The authors begin by identifying analytical problems in the study of values and public values. Then they take stock of the public values universe. To identify public value concepts, relevant literature is reviewed and interpreted. Finally, the analytical questions posed in the first section are addressed, focusing specifically on issues related to the hierarchy, causality, and proximity of public values.
The use of Performance-Based Management (PBM) by French public organizations has sharply accelerated over the last few years. Moreover, very few studies have analyzed this change. The object of this article is thus to conduct an in-depth analysis of the dynamics of managerial innovation in three French local authorities via the study of the factors that foster the adoption and implementation of PBM by this type of organization. We demonstrate a tendency to overestimate the explanatory power of the neo-institutionalist theories. Indeed, our analysis illustrates a balanced vision of the human, technical and contextual factors at the origin of this type of managerial innovation.
A common assertion within public management is that management capacity drives policy outcomes. This study tests that argument, focusing on an important policy outcome—innovation. Data were drawn from the Korean government to examine the impact of government's management capacity for the adoption and implementation of innovation. The results confirm that both managerial behaviors and structures are drivers of government innovation. The adoption and implementation of innovative projects require full-scale management capacity, encompassing innovative leadership, a quality workforce, appropriate structures/systems, and the ability to manage external influences. These results suggest that public management capacity drives innovation in government by changing managerial behaviors and structures. Implications of these results for managing government innovation are discussed.
Studies of the association between innovation characteristics and innovation adoption at the level of organization are scarce. This study develops direct and moderating hypotheses for the relationship between innovation characteristics, manager characteristics, and innovation adoption in public organizations. The hypotheses are tested using survey data on the adoption of 25 innovations in 725 local governments in the United States and data from a panel of experts. The findings suggest that both innovation characteristics and manager characteristics influence the adoption of innovation; however, they do not reveal significant moderating effects of manager characteristics on the relationship between innovation characteristics and innovation adoption. The implications of the findings are discussed for further research on innovation adoption in the public sector.
Innovation in public administration (PA) has played a pivotal role in building good governance and has attracted significant attention in the academia. The literature on PA innovation is burgeoning; however, this article argues that there is ‘a missing link’ in the extant literature in that the impacts of variation in context on PA innovation have not been sufficiently investigated. This article elaborates the analytical perspectives on the influences of various contexts over PA innovation and the mechanisms through which impacts may take place. Both theoretical and methodological complexities and challenges are apparent in disentangling contextual influences from other factors. The article proposes a research agenda for a context‐orientated comparative analysis of PA innovation and offers a brief illustration regarding contextual differences between China and the European Union in existing studies. The article calls for further studies in this direction.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that affect the adoption of electronic invoices and in turn the impact of these factors on the tax compliance process efficiency of companies.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire survey was distributed to 276 users who adopted electronic invoicing. Partial least squares regression was used to analyze the collected data.
Findings
This study found that perceived benefits and trust in e-government had a positive influence on the adoption of electronic invoices. At the same time, the adoption of electronic invoice was found to have a positive impact on the overall efficiency of the tax compliance process. Moreover, the factors affecting adoption of electronic invoices can have a mediating effect on that adoption and tax compliance process efficiency.
Research limitations/implications
This study only explored these influencing factors on companies that have adopted electronic invoicing. Future research should distinguish between adopters and non-adopters.
Practical implications
The results of this study can guide tax authorities and other electronic invoice suppliers when promoting the adoption of electronic invoicing.
Social implications
This research can provide guidance to tax authorities to improve their own electronic invoice system by creating a workforce that have the skills to strengthen citizen’s trust in the electronic invoice system.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the electronic adoption literature by examining those factors that impact tax compliance processes efficiency.
Why public organizations adopt and abandon organizational innovations is a key question for any endeavor to explain large-scale developments in the public sector. Supplementing research within public administration on innovation with the related literature on policy diffusion, this article examines how external factors such as conformity pressure from institutionalized models, performance information from other organizations, and political pressure affect innovation adoption. By the use of two survey experiments in very different political contexts – Texas and Denmark – and a difference-in-differences analysis exploiting a reform of the political governance of public schools in Denmark, we find that public managers respond to political pressure. We find no indications that they emulate institutionalized models or learn from performance information from other organizations when they adopt organizational innovations. The results thereby point to political pressure as an important factor behind large-scale adoptions of organizational innovations in the public sector.
Government transparency and information disclosure have received increasing attention from both academics and practitioners with the development of information technologies (ITs) and the Internet. Moreover, the popularity of social media applications has provided governments, especially governments in China and other developing countries, with new opportunities and challenges associated with the administrative shift toward open innovation. The official document exchange via microblogging (ODEM) of the Haining Bureau of Justice is a practical case of government open innovation in the social media context. Based on the ODEM case, this study uses the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework to explore the factors that drive open innovation in China. We find that the support of top managers, the access and competence of IT personnel, and the regional economic and social environments are key determinants of the emergence of open innovation in the public sector.
In the public sector, the strategic quest for IT-based innovation often starts by hiring a successful private sector CIO and hoping his or her prior experience will transfer. However this often ignores the existence and influence of other entities and IT governance structures that form the innovation ecosystem. Applying the legal view of agency theory to the U.S. state innovation ecosystem and using a crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) approach, we investigate factors that are associated with public sector IT-based innovation. We find that CIO characteristics, structural oversight mechanisms, CIO relationships with authorities, and the state environment combine to form configurations that lead to both high and low performance.
With an emerging interest in open government data (OGD) around the world, there has been an increasing need for research on the determinants of OGD adoption. This study examines factors influencing the adoption of OGD among government agencies in Taiwan to fill the existing knowledge gap. Accordingly, based on previous research on innovation adoption, we develop a research model that integrates the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework and the following four factors that are central to adoption decisions: perceived benefits, perceived barriers, organizational readiness, and external pressures. We examined this model through survey data from 342 government agencies of the Executive Yuan in Taiwan. The results show a significant positive relationship among perceived benefits, organizational readiness, and external pressures and the adoption of OGD by government agencies. This study creates a valuable reference for other countries in the early stages of OGD initiatives and has significant implications for governmental policy practitioners.
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand why, and under which circumstances, enterprise architecture (EA) planning adoption improves information systems (IS) planning and supports administrative transformation in government.
Design/methodology/approach
About 12 cases in the USA were approached with a preliminary theoretical framework derived from the extant literature. Theory building had affinities with grounded‐theory approaches and came out of numerous iterations between the “deep cases” and the extant theory.
Findings
Three adoption patterns illustrate that the adoption of a new IS planning innovation does not create administrative or political transformation in itself. Compliance and imitation primarily drives the adoption process, while fundamental transformation to the tasks performed in government is only achieved if the institutional force at the micro‐and macro‐level promotes transformation.
Research limitations/implications
The neoinstitutional perspective proposed can be of value to other IS researchers as a basis for empirical work in other situations; the implications of the case study can be taken as starting point for further research into the important topic of IS‐based administrative transformation.
Practical implications
The research illustrate that EA adoption is an emergent, evolving, embedded, fragmented, and provisional social production that is shaped as much by cultural and structural forces in the organizational context in which they are implemented as rational technical and economic ones. The findings helps public organizations better understand and manage the adoption of new IS planning innovations.
Originality/value
In the IS literature, very few have recognized the contribution of “new” institutional theory. Thus, this paper helps us understand how administrative and political transformation is adopted in government from a new perspective.
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption of managerial innovations in the public sector, identifying the reasons why their uptake and use may fail.
Design/methodology/approach – The problem is investigated empirically through a case study approach. The change processes resulting from the adoption of two managerial innovations within the same Italian Central Government Institution are illustrated in detail.
Findings – Both cases represent a failure in the adoption and use of managerial innovations, attributable to a complex interplay of external and organisational forces. The empirical investigation points out the relevancy of individuals' actions and choices. The real explanation for the failure of both projects in fact seems to be key individuals' inability: first to “make sense” of what the innovation was about and second to communicate this “sense” throughout the organisation.
Research limitations/implications – The findings are based on data from the Italian Central Government, and as such are not extendable elsewhere. However, the mechanisms of change examined here may be of wider interest to other public sector organisations.
Originality/value – The paper analyses a real-world attempt to deploy managerial innovations in the public sector, and the resultant impact. A theoretical framework based on institutional theory and its recent advances is used to better understand the plural factors influencing the use of managerial innovations.
Recent studies highlight the importance of institutions in shaping information technology (IT) initiatives in government settings. Based on a survey of Mexican federal government managers, this paper explores the relationships among institutional arrangements, organizational forms, information technologies, and the results of Mexican IT initiatives. Overall, we found that there are important interactions among institutional arrangements, organizational forms, and enacted technology and some similarities exist between developed countries and other realities such as Latin America. The research presented here contributes to the field by empirically testing causal relationships often cited in the digital government literature, but with little empirical quantitative exploration. Moreover, understanding those relationships offers guidance in the implementation of interorganizational IT applications in government, potentially increasing their probalities of success and the benefits for citizens and other stakeholders.
This paper describes the process of inducting theory using case studies-from specifying the research questions to reaching closure. Some features of the process, such as problem definition and construct validation, are similar to hypothesis-testing research. Others, such as within-case analysis and replication logic, are unique to the inductive, case-oriented process. Overall, the process described here is highly iterative and tightly linked to data. This research approach is especially appropriate in new topic areas. The resultant theory is often novel, testable, and empirically valid. Finally, framebreaking insights, the tests of good theory (e.g., parsimony, logical coherence), and convincing grounding in the evidence are the key criteria for evaluating this type of research.
Many EDI researchers and practitioners have recognized the importance of high penetration levels for the success of EDI. Unfortunately, such penetration is partly impeded by the resistance of small companies to become EDI capable. To investigate this issue, we identify three major factors that influence the EDI adoption practices of small firms. These factors are: organizational readiness (because of the low levels of IT sophistication and resource availability of small firms), external pressures to adopt (because of the weak market positions of small firms and the network nature of the technology), and perceived benefits (because of the limited impact that IT has on small firms due to under-utilization and lack of integration). By combining the anticipated effects of these factors, we developed a framework of EDI adoption by small businesses. The applicability of this framework is empirically demonstrated using the results of seven case studies. Lastly, recommendations are made for the development of successful EDI partner expansion plans. These include the development of a long term EDI partner expansion plan from the very beginning, the individual assessment of each partner's EDI preparedness level, and the selection of appropriate influence tactics to expedite adoption by small partners. Specifically, it is suggested that EDI initiators pursue promotional efforts to improve partners' perceptions of EDI benefits, provide financial and technological assistance to partners with low organizational readiness, and carefully select and enact influence strategies to reduce resistance.
How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability