[eccr] EM CFP - Vertical Industry Information Technology Standards and Standardization

Dear Colleagues:

EM - Electronic Markets is a leading scientific journal for advancing the understanding and practice of electronic markets and commerce (http://www.electronicmarkets.org).

EM Vol. 15, No. 4 - Vertical Industry Information Technology Standards and Standardization, is open for submission.

Guest Editors:
Prof. M. Lynne Markus, University of Pittsburgh
Prof. Charles Steinfield, Michigan State University
Prof. Rolf T. Wigand, University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Information systems (IS) standards -standardized business documents, data definitions, item description and identification, and business processes -have been seen as key to effective interorganizational commerce since the 1980s, when electronic data interchange (EDI) became the technology of choice for business-to-business coordination. Vertical information systems standards are designed to promote communication and coordination among the organizations comprising a particular industry sector.

Unfortunately, despite much promotion, EDI standards achieved only limited adoption; an estimated 2% of the world’s businesses, including just 300,000 US companies have adopted EDI. Low penetration of electronic interconnection standards, particularly around business semantics, is believed to hinder electronic business and supply-chain integration.

Recently, the availability of open Internet protocols and technologies, particularly eXtensible Markup Language (XML), has given a boost to both the adoption of EDI and the development of vertical (that is, industry-specific) XML-based data and process standards. Vertical efforts to develop such standards have emerged in electronics (RosettaNet), mortgage (MISMO), chemicals (CIDX), insurance (ACORD), petroleum (PIDX), and several other industries. Many observers expect these developments to lower the cost of electronic connection and spur adoption, particularly among smaller firms. However, some analysts believe that there may be public goods problems associated with the development of industry wide standards. Larger companies with larger capital bases invest in the creation and maintenance of the standards, while smaller companies benefit from their adoption.

Despite considerable prior economics research on standards and standardization, many important theoretical and empirical problems remain such as: How can industries successfully balance competing interests to encourage cooperation in the development of vertical IS standards? What factors influence the adoption and non-adoption for smaller and larger businesses with well functioning proprietary interests? Furthermore, prior literature does not address the aspects of standardization from the perspective of IS research, such as the tendency of companies to modify EDI standards to facilitate doing business with key business partners and the barriers to adoption posed by the companies’ legacy IS.

The editors invite authors to submit theoretical/ conceptual and theoretical/empirical manuscripts investigating the development, adoption, usage, and impacts of vertical IS standards in enterprises, markets and industries. Manuscripts could also provide a critical assessment of the present state of the theoretical debate on vertical IS standards and standardization efforts.

Focus: Business-to-business industry-specific IS standards, such as RosettaNet and industry-specific EDI standards, and cross-industry IS standards such as ebXML, NIST collaborations, RFID, and EAN. (Technical IT product standards such as TCP/IP, Java and .Net are explicitly excluded from the focus of this special issue.)

Topics:
Submissions might include theoretical and empirical studies (including case studies) dealing with the development, adoption, use and the impact of vertical IS standards but are not limited to the following topics:
• Vertical IS standards developm