Understanding the manifold forms of B2B integration - A transaction cost perspective

The need for collaboration within value chains is rapidly increasing and drives enterprise to align and electronically integrate their business processes with their business partners. As technologies evolve, manifold forms of B2B integration have emerged – from e-mail communication to customer or supplier portals, the exchange of EDIFACT- to XML documents, and Web Services. Although serviceoriented architectures (SOA) are considered the future of inter-organizational linkages, no empirical studies have been found which surveyed the impact of SOA on B2B integration costs and benefits. From a research perspective, we still lack a systematic analysis that explains how a specific B2B integration technology impacts the effectiveness of B2B integration. Building on transaction cost theory, this research analyzes the different forms of B2B integration with regard to their impact on connectivity and coordination costs. Based on a field study from the automotive industry, it demonstrates that there is economic rationale for preferring supplier portals to machine-to-machine integration based on EDIFACT or XML messages. Compared to prior technologies, SOA reduces the costs of external integration by eliminating separate B2B integration infrastructures and improving connectivity of internal applications. However, we find that prior literature tends to overestimate the impact of open Internet and Web service technologies on connectivity costs

Understanding the manifold forms of B2B integration - A transaction cost perspective

This paper investigates the characteristics of federal and modular organizations and elicits conclusions on their requirements for IT controlling through a literature review. The literature review showed that different organizational structures create specific conditions concerning IT and IT controlling. Although experience in the regulation and controlling of IT in large and complex organizations has been reorted, the characteristics of these specific organizational conditions and the resulting requirements for the design of an IT controlling concept have not been extensively researched. Creating the missing link between the characteristics of federal and modular organizations and their requirements regarding IT controlling may serve as a foundation for future research and the development of a comprehensive IT controlling concept which encompasses the characteristics and key drivers of this specific organizational for