Key Factors Affecting the B2B E-Commerce Evaluation and Outsourcing Practices in Australian and Taiwanese Hospitals

Abstract

In recent years, hospitals around the world have started to invest more heavily in business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce (e-commerce) in an attempt to control their escalating operating costs as well as to maximize their revenue. However, relatively little research has been conducted to examine how hospitals evaluate their B2B e-commerce investments and to what extent their B2B e-commerce benefits are realized. To remain competitive, hospitals must also enhance and maintain their IT/B2B e-commerce systems through both internal and non-internal sourcing activities. Hence, we take a multi-case study approach to investigate the practices and processes of B2B ecommerce evaluation and benefits realization and their relationships with outsourcing and various organizational factors in Australian and Taiwanese hospitals. The findings suggest that a significant proportion of the Australian and Taiwanese hospitals had used a formal or semi-formal IT/B2B investment evaluation methodology or process to evaluate their B2B investments. A key contribution of this study is the identification and examination of key B2B e-commerce investment evaluation and outsourcing practices issues and challenges faced by the Australian and Taiwanese hospitals.