B2B Standards Implementation : Issues and Solutions

Sammanfattning: Interoperability between organisations involved in Business-to-Business (B2B) electronic commerce requires a common understanding and a common language. For this purpose, standards are required. B2B standards are in the thesis defined as guidelines for how communication and information sent between companies should be structured and managed. Three problem areas exist for B2B standards: the development of standards, the standards specifications, and standards implementation. The research and development focus regarding standards has so far been on either technological aspects or the development of standards and specifications. Less is known about the implementation process. This work addresses this lack of knowledge, and hence its aim is to explore the world of B2B standardisation in order to identify and describe issues and solutions concerning B2B standards implementation. The research aim was addressed by firstly dividing the aim into three objectives, which are to be regarded as actions to take to realise the aim. Both theoretical and empirical material has been gathered. Theoretical material refers to existing scientific publications, while the empirical part covers four stakeholder perspectives: standards users, developers, software organisations and researchers. The approach taken, which is reflected in the thesis objectives and structure, is top-down. This means a life cycle perspective is addressed before the implementation process as such is considered. The result of the research is a series of contributions, stemming from all parts of the thesis. The contributions have been used to create a list of guidelines for B2B standards implementation. The 45 guidelines are separated into five sections: concepts review, standards selection and comparison, life cycle influence, stakeholder identification, and implementation process. The guidelines can be used in the planning and preparing for implementation projects, as well as for increasing the level of knowledge about standards and the implementation thereof.