Efficiency and Innovation Oriented Business Value of Enterprise Systems Interoperability -- An Empirical Investigation

The establishment of interoperability of enterprise IS with the ones of trading partners (e.g. customers, suppliers, business allies) is regarded, based on a variety of theoretical arguments, as an important source of business value associated with efficiency gains and innovation. However, there is a lack of empirical investigation of this business value. This paper presents an empirical study of the effect of adopting two types of IS interoperability standards for exchanging electronic data with trading partners, the industry-specific and the proprietary ones, on the benefits firms obtain from their ICT infrastructures, and finally on their business performance. Furthermore, it examines what part of these effects is through increasing effectiveness of existing business process for producing existing products and services, and what part of them is through driving innovation. It is concluded that the adoption of both these types of IS interoperability standards for exchanging electronic data with trading partners has positive effect on the benefits gained from ICT infrastructures, with the effect of the industry-specific standards being much higher than the effect of the proprietary ones. Also, it has been found that a large part of these effects (46% for the industry-specific standards and 62% for the proprietary ones) is through driving innovation.