Electronic Data Interchange: Research Review and Future Directions

For nearly two decades, electronic data interchange (EDI) has been widely viewed as a technology pivotal to supply chain management that has also provided benefits to firms on multiple levels. Despite a substantial body of literature, there are a number of conflicting and inconclusive research results in this field. In this study, we synthesize the diverse body of research in EDI by organizing the literature into an initial theoretical framework. Based on a meta-analysis of results from the empirical literature, we seek to clarify conflicting results from the literature in order to develop a more unified theoretical framework of contextual variables associated with EDI adoption factors and outcomes. From a managerial standpoint, our literature-based framework offers a set of guidelines for making successful EDI adoption and implementation decisions.