Electronic procurement adoption, usage and performance: a literature review

Despite the substantial research in the domain of electronic procurement adoption, usage and performance (EP AUP), there is no structured review of these studies and most of the literature is in fragmented form. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate and synthesize EP AUP research in the past two decades and map key research approaches, prevailing theories and antecedents used by researchers to study EP AUP at the individual user and organizational level.

To evaluate and comprehend past and current patterns/themes in the EP AUP research area, a systematic literature review is undertaken. Significant peer-reviewed studies covering three categories – adoption, usage and performance and seven classification criteria are critically reviewed.

The findings reveal that most investigators mainly used “technology acceptance model,” “technology–organization–environment” framework and their extensions, demonstrating that “perceived ease of use,” “perceived usefulness,” “trust,” “organizational size,” “organizational readiness” and “behavioral intentions” are the most critical drivers of EP AUP.

For researchers and practitioners, the review highlights a taxonomy of contextual factors to be considered for successful EP AUP. It further makes suggestions for future research meeting challenges of Industry-4.0.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic literature review undertaken in the field of EP that studies it from three different perspectives. It further builds on the determinants of EP AUP and classifies them in four distinct categories: organizational, individual, information system level and environmental.