A Framework for Analysis of B2B Electronic Contracting Support

Contracts are fundamental to all economic production and exchange processes. The fast introduction of IT into the business domain both facilitates and requires changes in core business processes and relations between business organizations. In the context of the latter, the use of IT in business-to-business contracting processes aims at optimisation and globalisation of these processes by improving their speed, efficiency and reach. Electronic contracting can thus be used on the one hand to improve existing business relationship paradigms and on the other hand to enable new forms of contractual relationships. In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework for business-to-business e-contracting support. The framework provides a complete view over the contracting field. It allows positioning research efforts in the e-contracting domain, placing their goals into perspective, and overseeing future research topics and issues. It is the basis for drawing conclusions about basic requirements to contracting systems and can be used for establishing a common terminology and improving mutual understanding among users and domain researchers.