Adoption of Technology Standards in Supply Chains: A Case of Adopting RosettaNet Standards

This paper represents research work in progress. The factors that influence an individual’s decision to begin using a certain type of technology have come under much study. Several theoretical models, commonly referred to as technology adoption models, have been developed to understand these factors in hopes of successfully predicting the use of an information system prior to launching the costly systems development effort. The purpose of this research is to leverage the successful ingredients from existing technology adoption models, and extend the framework into a technology standards adoption environment. The theoretical foundations of this new model are presented and the constructs include perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, economic, norms, and compatibility. RosettaNet is a non-profit consortium of more than 400 of the world's leading Information Technology, Electronic Components, Semiconductor Manufacturing and Solution Provider companies working to create, implement and promote open ebusiness process standards. A field study utilizing the adoption of RosettaNet’s Partner Interface Process standards is presented and a summary of findings is provided. The major contributions of this work will be to compare and contrast results of prior technology adoption models to the adoption of technology standards (as opposed to a specific type of technology). This paper will also assess how significant determinants of technology adoption models change between members along the supply chain. Special consideration is given to the economic construct. Based on preliminary results from the field study thus far, significant determinants of technology standards adoption include perceived usefulness, norms and economic constructs. Also, based on the preliminary results thus far, the set of significant determinants towards adoption did differ between the manufacture and distributor along the supply chain.