ICTs Adoption and Knowledge Management: The Case of an E-Procurement System

The purpose of the research is to articulate a framework for analysing the effects of e-procurement adoption in terms of knowledge management. Starting from this position, a case study in a leader firm in electronics devices was developed and a consolidated knowledge perspective was adopted. Empirical evidence confirms that it is not information and communication technology itself that can provide positive or negative effects on organizations but how the technology is used in conjunction with complementary human resources. In fact, according to the case study, two different phases emerged in the e-procurement (EP) adoption. Both are characterized by the same technology but different behaviours that determined very different results. While the framework can be applied to read EP development in several contexts, it would be a mistake to generalize the results from this example. While multiple informants from different hierarchical levels, triangulation using different types of data sources and a systematic data analysis serve to attenuate many of the problems with reliability, generalizability remains more of an issue. Finally, it is worth noting that studying adoption of inter-organizational systems-like EP systems are, has proved to be, difficult because such systems span the company boundaries. Consequently, future developments will aim at broadening the research along the entire supply chain. The proposed framework could be a useful tool to check an EP project in progress and to motivate the involved actors by suggesting a means to interpret how the project is impacting on organization, keeping in mind that effects on KM anticipate improvements in traditional procurement performances. Copyright (C) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.