Ali et al. The Adoption of Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce Technologies: Bahrain Versus Australia Proceedings of the Nineteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems, Chicago, Illinois, August 15-17, 2013. 1 The Adoption of Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce Technologies: Bahrain versus Australia Mazen Ali University of Bahrain mali@uob.edu.bh Sherah Kurnia University of Melbourne sherahk@unimelb.edu.au ABSTRACT Business-to-Business Electronic Commerce (B2B EC) technologies have been widely adopted by organizations in developed countries to improve the management of supply chain activities. However, organizations in Middle Eastern countries have been slow in adopting B2B EC technologies. To enrich our understanding of the reasons for this slow uptake, this exploratory study compares the experience of Bahraini and Australian organizations with the adoption of B2B EC technologies. This study employs a multiple case study with a total of 14 organizations from the grocery industry of both countries. From the case comparison, we identify some reasons for the reluctance of organizations in Bahrain to adopt B2B EC technologies, although the national environment and the organizational capability generally support the adoption. We particularly highlight the importance of the positive mutual interactions between organizations and their trading partners within the industry for the adoption of B2B EC, which is currently lacking within the Bahraini grocery industry. Keywords B2B EC, Middle Eastern Countries, Comparative studies, EDI, VMI, CPFR. INTRODUCTION Business-to- Business Electronic Commerce (B2B EC) is concerned with the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to conduct or facilitate business transactions electronically. In developed countries, many organizations have embraced various B2B EC technologies and have gained many benefits (Subramani 2004; Hartono, Li et al. 2010). Benefits obtained range from operational and managerial benefits such as enhanced accuracy, cost reduction, higher level of visibility, better inventory management and cycle time reduction to strategic benefits including improved trading partner relationships, improved flexibility and responsiveness to market changes and business expansion (Prekumar, Ramamurthy et al. 1994; Mentzer 2004; Subramani 2004; Hartono, Li et al. 2010). Many organizations in developed countries are extending their supply chain to some developing countries such as India, China, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia. Organizations in these developing countries are expected to implement B2B EC technologies to maintain their relationships with companies in developed countries. However, organizations in developing countries are slow in adopting technologies. This is typically due to unfavorable national environments that are related to political, economic, social and technological conditions of the countries. Although there are Middle Eastern countries that have favorable conditions, they are still behind in B2B EC adoption (Gibbs, Kraemer et al. 2003). For organizations in developed countries that have trading partners in these countries, the situation hinders them from achieving advanced supply chain management and leveraging their investment in EC technologies (Johnston and Mak 2000). Since the importance of developing countries for the global economy is increasing, there has been a stream within the IS adoption literature that is dedicated for developing country studies. This stream of the literature covers various technology related aspects within the emerging economy context including exploring the adoption of B2B EC technologies and other technologies in general, to better understand the situation and to identify possible ways to encourage the adoption (Mann 2000; Hawk 2004; Molla and Licker 2005; Qureshi and Davis 2007; Kurnia 2010). However, studies that investigated B2B EC in Middle Eastern countries are limited. While there is a study that compares the adoption experiences of organizations between developing countries (Kurnia and Ali 2012), to the best of our knowledge, there are no studies that have compared adoption experiences between a developing and developed country specifically. To provide a better understanding why Middle Eastern countries are behind in the adoption of EC technologies, this study compares the adoption experiences between a Middle Eastern country and a developed country. In particular, this study compares the adoption experience of organizations within the grocery industry in the Kingdom of Bahrain and Australia. Australia is chosen because it is considered as a typical example (Yin, 2008) of a developed country with a strong and sustainable economy, a low unemployment rate, stable political condition and a fast rate of technological development.