The Shaping Of Inter-Organisational Information Systems : Main Design Considerations Of An International Comparative Research Project

Based on a critical analysis of the literature on the development and adoption of interorganisationalinformation systems (IOIS) we propose a new unit of analysis for IOISstudies, define levels of analysis based on this unit in order to organize a large set ofvariables pertinent to the study of IOIS, and show how this design will be implementedwithin an international collaborative research project. The main goal of our research isto shed light on the interaction between characteristics of IOIS and their developmenttrajectories on the one hand and characteristics of industries and countries on the otherhand. We expect that both, industry characteristics and characteristics of nationalenvironments have a significant influence on the type and development of IOIS but submitthat understanding of these relationships is in its infancy and that significant new insightscan be gained by carefully specifying the network level of analysis. Better understandingof the way IOIS are shaped can greatly assist in evaluating the extent to which adoptionexperiences in one industry or country can be validly used to inform policy choices inanother industry or country.