Benefits Realization of B2B e-Commerce in Hospitals and the Connection with IS Capability, IS Expertise, Resources Allocation, and Top Management Support

Benefits Realization of B2B e-Commerce in Hospitals and the Connection with IS Capability, IS Expertise, Resources Allocation, and Top Management Support

Despite high expectations for the value of business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce (e-commerce) in hospitals, its adoption remains poorly understood. Effective utilization of B2B e-commerce in hospitals may lead to many benefits such as increased accessibility to pharmaceutical and medical products, improved process efficiency, enhanced quality of healthcare services, decreased scheduling conflicts, and reduction in healthcare costs. However, many hospitals have discovered that they have not yet fully reaped the expected benefits from their B2B e-commerce investments. Drawing on the social-technical systems (STS) perspective, the main objectives of this paper are to examine the relationships between top management support, IS expertise, IS resource allocation, and IS capability as well as their impact on the realization of B2B e-commerce benefits. A key contribution of this paper is the development of a research framework to examine the factors affecting the realization of B2B e-commerce implementation for Taiwanese hospitals. The results will guide hospital executives to develop their own approaches or strategies to manage and evaluate the various organizational factors which exist in Taiwanese hospitals.