Abstract
This study aims to investigate the critical factors of e-procurement implementation process. The e-procurement has become one of the important enterprise internet applications for effective integration of internal and external resources of a firm. The reported benefits include not only operation efficiency and cost reduction but also transaction accuracy and stakeholder satisfaction. However, its implementation involves a lot of change management so that it requires careful planning in advance and thoughtful execution to increase the odds for a success. Based on Kwon and Zmud’s “diffusion of innovation” six-staged model, we examine the critical factors on each stage of the e-procurement system. An empirical study was conducted to validate the proposed model. A questionnaire set was mailed to each of the top 500 enterprises in Taiwan. Among them, 58 sets were returned and tallied. The results indicate that operating procedure & inventory management are the major concerning factors on the initiation stage (first stage). The assurance of data accuracy & easy integration of information technology are the key factors on the second stage (adoption). For the stages of adaptation (the third stage), acceptance (the fourth stage), routinization (the fifth stage) and infusion (the sixth stage), the operating procedure improvement is also the key factor for each. In general, wider spectrums of factors are influencing the process of the infusion stage than that of other stages.Keywords: diffusion of innovation, e-procurement, critical factor