The Growth of E-procurement in American State Governments: a Model and Empirical Evidence

This article examines the development of the Internet and electronic procurement or e-procurement in American state governments. I am interested in discerning the extent of adoption of e-procurement, especially as it relates to the use of the Internet in the procurement function. Specifically, eprocurement is examined with data from a national survey of state procurement officers. The first part of this article demonstrates an e-government growth model as a way of modeling the development of e-procurement. The second part examines the existing literature on e-procurement development and challenges associated with its implementation. The third part constructs an eprocurement index, which measures the adoption rate of electronic procurement in each of the states. This e-procurement index is tested against management, organizational, and economic predictor variables. The results of the eprocurement model indicated positive support for electronic procurement on state management capacity and IT management capacity, indicating that high performing management is a critical catalyst for e-procurement development.