Introduction


During the last decades, governments and business associations throughout the world have recognized the significance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for businesses and public administration. The result has been institutional initiatives aiming to support diffusion of ICT among businesses and public agencies (e.g., Teo, Tan, & Wei, 1997; Klein, 1995; Damsgaard & Lyytinen, 2001). The Singapore NII initiatives (Neo, King et al., 1995; Wong, 1996), the Malaysian Information Rich Society plan (Raman & Yap, 1996), the Japanese Super Information Highway, the Al Gore Information Highway, and the European Information Society policy documents (Commission, 2001; Brousseau, 2002) are some recent examples of governmental interest in ICTs. B2B e-commerce has been an important part of the policy plans and has been given a high degree of policy saliency with various institutional initiatives to fuel development and uptake.

The objective of this chapter is to focus on institutional initiatives used to promote diffusion of EDI in the Danish business community. EDI is the ICT application presented in this chapter. We view EDI as a technology construct rather than as a business imperative (Markus & Robey, 1988; Sampler, 1996). A particular action plan that focused on diffusion of EDI in the Danish business community and the public sector (Ministry of Research and Information Technology, 1996a) is assessed by comparing actual uptake of EDI to the underlying discourse, which originally drove the action plan. It is our claim that an analysis of the content of the EDI agenda and its underlying discourse will be of value to governments, especially due to the continuous use of action plans for regulating diffusion of a given technology. In the context researched in this chapter, there are three reasons for paying particular interest to the analysis of the discourse embedded in the EDI agenda.

First, the Danish context is significant because relations between market and government are unique compared to other nations where market forces play a much more critical role. The Danish practice of ICT adoption and exploitation is stimulated by early coordination and commitment from both government and business associations to help fuel adoption and exploitation of ICT as a competitive instrument (Andersen, Bj rn-Andersen, & Dedrick, 2003a) in line with the Porter (2001) terminology. The case presented in this chapter also reveals the reverse side of a close interplay between government and industry. Following this approach, we are not only facing the challenge of getting the important domestic players on board; the global industry players and their (proprietary) standardization work are equally challenging.

Second, the Danish case is of interest since the role of ICT in governmental units' own operations has been just as important as using ICT to gain competitive advantage. The urgency of government to ensure accessibility, transparency, efficiency, and accountability in its operations has pushed the use of ICTs. Although we find similar motives in other countries, the Danish governmental sector is unique due to its employment of one-third of the total labor force and its reallocation of 70% of the GDP. To reduce the burden of administrative costs in the public sector, the motivation to use ICT in its communication with the private sector has been very strong.

Third, an early acknowledgment of digital divide issues (Dybkj r & Christensen, 1994; Bj rn-Andersen, Earl, Holst, & Mumford, 1982) and policy commitments to address the issues, also in the business community, form the third interesting aspect of the Danish approach to regulation of B2B e-commerce. It has been a deliberate policy decision to target micro and small businesses based on an economic growth model where demand pressure tends to come from the SMEs rather than the MNCs (Andersen et al., 2003a).

In the following we summarize the major ICT research perspectives and the significance of institutional regulation of diffusion of ICT, we present a framework for analysis of the Danish EDI Action Plan, and we define the central elements presented in the chapter. The next section focuses on the policy context, which fueled the EDI Action Plan. After describing the seven key elements in the Danish EDI Action Plan, we evaluate the outcome of the plan in the respective business sectors. The chapter concludes by discussing the implications of the substantive findings from the institutional regulation attempts on EDI.




Social and Economic Transformation in the Digital Era
Social and Economic Transformation in the Digital Era
ISBN: 1591402670
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 198

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