TREAT: Promoting SME Adoption of EDI through Education

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), an example of an InterOrganisational System @OS), has the potential to provide companies with tangible benefits, such as improvements to overall e#iiiency and cost efsectiveness, and strategic advantages, including the strengthening of trading partner relationships and the redesigning of internal procedures. Many organisations more notably small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) however, have been slow to adopt EDI due to factors including the costs associated with implementing EDI and the need for education/training concerning its use/l; see also 21. This paper bri@ly summarties the major factors contributing to the slow diffusion of this technology by SMEs to emphasise the potential of eflective education/training in addressing this problem. The paper then justifies the need for participatorybased approaches to EDI education/training and briefly outlines a course called TREAT (Teaching Realistic EDI and Telecommunications) which requires participants to use real EDI software and telecommunications facilities to operate organisations within a laboratory-based international trade environment. The paper then discusses a research programme we propose to investigate whether and how laboratory-based educatio&raining can be used to raise SME owner/managers’ awareness of EDI and to promote adoption of this technology. We anticipate that this investigation will extend the limited empirical research which studies the use of education/training to promote EDI adoption.