Title: EDI-based and XML-based business-to-business integration: a statistical analysis

Authors: Juha-Miikka Nurmilaakso

Addresses: Frends Technology Oy, Taivaltie 5, 01610 Vantaa, Finland

Abstract: This paper analyses six factors that are expected to facilitate Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)-based or Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based Business-to-Business (B2B) integration. Following the Technology-Organisation-Environment (TOE) framework, the paper focuses on one technological factor, four organisational factors and one environmental factor. An e-business framework is a standard for business documents, business processes and messaging interfaces in B2B integration. Six hypotheses on the use of EDI-based or XML-based e-business frameworks are based on the literature. These hypotheses are tested using logistic regression analysis. The data involve 3619 European companies. Large numbers of enterprise information systems and company employees facilitate the use of e-business frameworks. A high volume of sales and educational level of the employees in the company facilitate especially the use of XML-based e-business frameworks. Moreover, if the company primarily has other companies as customers, it is more likely to use an e-business framework. The number of sites in the company has no effects on this use.

Keywords: electronic business; e-business; electronic data interchange; EDI; Extensible Markup Language; XML; standards; business-to-business integration; B2B integration.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2009.026696

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2009 Vol.4 No.6, pp.639 - 654

Published online: 23 Jun 2009 *

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