Business technology complementarities: impacts of the presence and strategic timing of enterprise resource planning on business-to-business e-commerce technology efficiencies

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations have the potential of significantly complementing the use of business-to-business technologies. We consider the sources of this complement by drawing on transaction cost economics, and the theory of swift even flow. Analysis of 115 firms shows that perceived transactional efficiencies are greater for B2B e-commerce technologies in the presence of ERP, and are in fact magnified when ERP implementation specifically precedes B2B e-commerce initiatives. These findings imply a distinct system adoption strategy for firms pursuing e-commerce opportunities.