The fit between organizational B2B e-commerce policy, IT maturity and evaluation practices on B2B ecommerce performance in Australian healthcare organizations

Abstract

Healthcare organizations have started to make use of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce technologies in
overcoming many of the challenges they face. However, healthcare executives have found it increasingly difficult to
justify rising IT expenditures and are often under pressure to find a way to evaluate the contribution of their B2B ecommerce investments to business performance, as well as to find reliable ways to ensure that the business
benefits from the investments are actually realized. Despite high expectations for the value of IT in healthcare, its
adoption remains poorly understood and is also a relatively under-researched area. Hence, a case study approach
was conducted: (1) to examine the relationships between organizational B2B e-commerce policy and strategy,
organizational IT maturity, and evaluation practices and their effects on B2B e-commerce performance among
Australian healthcare organizations; and (2) to develop a framework which can assist healthcare organizations in
realizing B2B e-commerce benefits and satisfaction within the Australian healthcare organizations. A key
contribution of this study is the development of a B2B e-commerce benefits and satisfaction framework which can
be used by healthcare executives in examining the relationships between organizational B2B e-commerce policy
and strategy, organizational IT maturity, IT evaluation practices, and e-commerce benefits and satisfaction.