Title: A comparative analysis of EDI integration in US and Japanese automobile suppliers

Authors: Seiji Manabe, Kenzo Fujisue, Sam Kurokawa

Addresses: Faculty of Business Administration, Yokohama National University, 79–1 Tokiwadai, Hodogaya-ku, Yokohama, 240–8501, Japan. ' Department of Systems Innovation, School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. ' Department of Management, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University 101 N, 33rd St., Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

Abstract: This paper examines EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) integration in US and Japanese automobile suppliers. The paper constructs several hypotheses based on our literature survey, and tests these hypotheses in 76 US suppliers and 93 Japanese suppliers. Our study found that: Japanese firms were more likely to make relation-specific investments into their suppliers than the US firms were; Japanese firms were likely to receive parts from their suppliers more frequently than the US firms were; Japanese firms were more likely to schedule their production right before their actual production than the US firms were; US firms were more likely to emphasise expanding their transactional bases in using EDI than Japanese firms were; US firms were more likely to integrate their customers by EDI, while Japanese firms were more likely to integrate their suppliers by EDI; EDI integration had a positive impact on EDI effectiveness in the USA, while there was no such relationship between EDI integration and EDI effectiveness in Japan.

Keywords: electronic data interchange; EDI integration; business-to-business; B2B; e-commerce; electronic commerce; automobile industry; automotive suppliers; technology adoption; USA; United States; Japan; EDI effectiveness.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTM.2005.006713

International Journal of Technology Management, 2005 Vol.30 No.3/4, pp.389 - 414

Published online: 04 Apr 2005 *

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