An Empirical Investigation of E-business Standa rdization Initiatives: Enablers and Barriers of Industry-Wide Collaboration in Industry Standard Consortia

摘要

E-business standards are important to electronic commerce. In many industries, they are collaboratively developed in a neutral consortium. To a larger extent, the sustainability of an industry standard consortium depends upon its members' financial and technical contribution. Therefore, it is imperative to understand factors that motivate or hinder firms' collaboration in e-business standards consortia. We propose an organization-industry standard consortia-environment framework to investigate enablers and barriers of industry-wide collaboration in standard consortia. We will validate the framework using survey data collected from members of multiple neutral e-business standard consortia. We expect to make both theoretical and managerial contributions. Theoretically, we can understand firms' motive behind the private provision of a public good, as many e-business standards provided by industry standard consortia are freely available and thus exhibit public good properties. Managerially, we will help consortia find effective ways to encourage firms' contribution and help firms to value their consortia membership.