The effects of EDI on industrial buyer-seller relationships: a network perspective. (electronic data interchange)

BACKGROUND

This article deals with the effects of a rapidly developing phenomenon at the intersection of the converging fields of computing technology and telecommunications - namely, electronic data interchange (EDI). EDI is the computer-to-computer exchange of standard business documentation in machine-processable form. The most common applications today are purchase orders and invoices. The justification for use of EDI is that a large part - perhaps 70 percent - of all business documents are printed from one computer and later rekeyed into another computer.[1] Consequently, by linking computers via telecommunication, the potential for administrative cost reduction ...