Towards a B2B E-Commerce Evaluation Management Model to Assess Organizational Drivers in Hospitals

Abstract

Effective utilization of business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce (e-commerce) in hospitals may lead to many benefits such as increased accessibility to healthcare providers, improved process efficiency, enhanced quality of healthcare services, increased responses to changes, decreased scheduling conflicts, and reduction in administrative costs. However, many hospitals have found that they have not yet fully reaped the expected benefits from their B2B e-commerce investments. Despite this, there has not been much discussion in the literature with respect to the relationship between the organizational drivers on B2B e-commerce benefits for hospitals. Hence, a mixed-method of case study and survey was conducted to examine the relationships between B2B e-commerce benefits, IT evaluation resources allocation, IT investment evaluation methodologies, IT maturity, and user information requirements determination process. A B2B e-commerce evaluation management model was developed to test these relationships. The results provided empirical evidence in support of our proposed model and revealed that hospitals' IT evaluation resources allocation practices mediated the relationship of IT investment evaluation methodologies, IT maturity, and user information requirements determination process with B2B e-commerce benefits. The results also showed that the level of IT maturity had a significant impact on the adoption of IT investment evaluation methodologies.

Prioritizing the factors affecting adoption of e-commerce using multi-criteria decision making techniques in Tehran hospitals in 2021

“…The ability of hospitals to allocate resources required to evaluate information technology have mediating effects on the relationships between other organizational drivers such as methods of evaluating information technology investments, the process of determining user information needs, the maturity of information technology, and the realization of B2B e-commerce. [ 14 ] The four main factors of human, technology, organization, and environment influence the decision-making to adopt technology and e-commerce. One should also emphasize the factor of external pressures as a vital concept that affects the adoption of technology and e-commerce in the hospital setting.…”

“…To solve these problems, researchers suggested that it is essential for decision-making and policy-making managers, especially senior IT managers of hospitals, to precisely assess all the influencing factors on B2B e-commerce investments and ensure the accurate assessment of the maturity level of information technology, the adoption of appropriate methods for the evaluation of an investment in information technology, the processes for determining user information needs, and the level of information technology evaluation resources. [ 14 15 ]…”