Impact of experience on open inter‐organizational systems adoption

Purpose – Little research to date has investigated how firm experience and industry experience in related inter‐organizational systems (IOS) affect the adoption of open IOS. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue. Design/methodology/approach – Based on large‐scale archival data from European countries, logistic regression was used to test the research model. Findings – It was found that firm experience in EDI and experience in proprietary IOS positively affect the adoption of open IOS; industry experience in EDI and experience in proprietary IOS have a negative effect on the adoption of open IOS; and industry experience in open IOS has a positive effect on the adoption of open IOS. Research limitations/implications – One main limitation is that the measures of the variables are based on single‐item and dichotomic scales. Also, this study only focused on the industry level and alternative explanations for the results have not been ruled out. The main implication is that IOS experience at firm and industry levels should be distinguished, as they can have different effects on the adoption of open IOS. Originality/value – This paper is among the first that examines how the experience in prior generations of IOS affects the adoption of open IOS. Furthermore, the authors expand the literature by distinguishing IOS experience at two levels – firm level and industry level and show that it is necessary to recognize the different roles of different types of experience.