Pressuring trading partners to adopt a business-to-business connectivity platform – stick or carrot?

The paper examines the impact of external pressure in act onboarding trading partners to business-to-business (B2B) connectivity platforms. Articulating different forms (enticement and enforcement) drawing on a survey 121 organizations, it effect three enticement factors enforcement firms’ decision adopt B2B platform. In general, measures (“sticks”) were found be more effective than (“carrots”). Two exceptions are presented: works better persuading organizations with high invoicing intensity or heavy use cloud technologies. authors discuss overall finding theorize light empirical study’s context, wherein platform generates asymmetric benefits (i.e., an organization receiving transaction document delivered through harnesses most benefits). findings’ implications for research practice considered.