Adoption of E-business and Industry-Specific Factors

Abstract

Arguably ICTs are the most pervasive technologies developed in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The applications of ICTs cut across geographical and industrial boundaries and they have diffused far faster than what was envisaged in the early phases of development. Although ICTs now seem to be everywhere, we do not fully understand the dynamics of their application across industrial sectors. For instance, while ICTs might be used for peripheral activities in one sector, they might be the driver of core activities in another. In this chapter, we examine whether industry-specific factors have influenced the intensity of the adoption of ICTs in business applications. Our focus in this chapter is on the application of ICTs in core enterprise production, and for this reason we designate ICTs in business applications as e-business.