Theoretical Impediments to Understanding B2B Electronic Commerce

This paper proposes that the lack of a theoretical framework able to address policyissues on the firm as well as the industry level in an integrated manner contributes toa failure of developing effective e-commerce policies. Specifically, theoreticalapproaches fall into the two broad categories of market and organization theory witha gaping chasm in between. We elaborate on our proposition by outlining three areasof e-commerce policy formulation plagued by this conceptual problem and illustrateour argument by three case examples. We then discuss the potential of four selectedtheories to overcome the conceptual chasm between organization and markettheories, namely industrial organization theory, evolutionary approaches,coordination theory, and industry life cycle theories.