E-Procurement Adoption: A Case Study about the Role of Two Italian Advisory Services
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Department of Management and Law, Faculty of Economics, University of Rome Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy
2
School of Management, Cranfield University, Cranfield, Bedford MK43 0AL, UK
3
Institute of Management, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, 56127 Pisa, Italy
4
Institute for Research on Innovation and Services for Development (IRISS), National Research Council (CNR), 80134 Naples, Italy
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sustainability 2020, 12(18), 7476; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187476
Received: 8 August 2020 / Revised: 8 September 2020 / Accepted: 9 September 2020 / Published: 11 September 2020
(This article belongs to the Section Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability)
This paper aims to analyze e-procurement adoption projects with specific focus on the Italian market. E-procurement adoption is critical for organizations, both for its internal efficiency and for the deep impact on sustainability issues. E-procurement adoption, however, is a complex journey as its implementation deals with various obstacles and the adoption costs can limit the overall organizational performance. Advisory services can support organizations in reaching the overall benefits of the e-procurement solution also by reducing the setbacks related to low technology literacy of end-users. Accordingly, we analyze adoption of e-procurement, its main variables and outputs, by focusing on a comparative case study based on an exploratory-inductive investigation of two Italian leading providers. The data have been collected through primary (semistructured interviews) and secondary (companies’ internal documents and companies’ websites) sources. Results highlight that when firms decide to adopt e-procurement, advisory services have an enabling role that can support them into implementation, and particularly for overcoming barriers and helping them to achieve the expected benefits.
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Keywords:
e-procurement; Italian market; excellence; sustainability; change; strategy; advisory services
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MDPI and ACS Style
Belisari, S.; Binci, D.; Appolloni, A. E-Procurement Adoption: A Case Study about the Role of Two Italian Advisory Services. Sustainability 2020, 12, 7476. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187476
AMA Style
Belisari S, Binci D, Appolloni A. E-Procurement Adoption: A Case Study about the Role of Two Italian Advisory Services. Sustainability. 2020; 12(18):7476. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187476
Chicago/Turabian StyleBelisari, Sara, Daniele Binci, and Andrea Appolloni. 2020. "E-Procurement Adoption: A Case Study about the Role of Two Italian Advisory Services" Sustainability 12, no. 18: 7476. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187476
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