Electronic data interchange for process change in an integrated supply chain

Many companies have adopted electronic data interchange (EDI), often with results inconsistent with the expectations of the company. In these instances, it is often the mismatch between expectations and the company’s activities undertaken to achieve the desired performance gain that fuels their dissatisfaction with EDI. This same mismatch often causes academic research into EDI and supply chain management to lose focus. This article presents a framework of EDI benefits in a supply chain management context that can be used to match a company’s EDI efforts with its desired outcomes from EDI use. The framework states that two critical factors to understanding EDI’s impact on supply chain management are the span of management control of the business process in question and whether EDI directly or indirectly influences that same business process. The proposed framework is then used to develop a research agenda for EDI and supply chain management. We suggest possible directions for research methods, measure development and hypothesis generation that can be used in future research studies.