Wong, C H and Sloan, B (2006) An empirical survey of the UK construction SME e-procurement readiness from the e-legal aspects. Journal of Construction Research, 7(1), pp. 81-97. ISSN 1609-9451
Abstract
Empirical evidence shows that e-commerce activities such as electronic transactions, project monitoring and tracking have all been successfully implemented in the banking, retail and manufacturing sectors. However, the benefits in the construction industry remain relatively new and have yet to be fully harnessed, particularly in small to medium-sized (SME) construction firms. Currently the construction industry has little knowledge and expertise of how to deal with the legal aspects of e-procurement when trading on-line. Recognising this, the research aims to explore the current state of knowledge and the differences in opinion held by SME contractors with regard to the legal issues about formation of a legal contract when trading on-line. The discussion will focus on the acceptance (or otherwise) of electronic mail, digital signatures and EDI for use in construction e-procurement, compared to the conventional (paper-based) methods in construction contracting environments. Results from the UK SMEs survey show that although the e-legal frameworks and initiative well founded and supported by the UK government there appears to be little enthusiasm from the surveyed construction SMEs to adopt e-procurement in practice. The paper concluded with discussion of the survey findings and recommendations for the construction SMEs e-procurement uptake.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | electronic contracting; 'click wrap' contracts; digital signatures; EDI contacts; SMEs |
| Index terms: | legal issue, e-commerce, construction industry, digital signatures, banking, survey, construction firm, evidence, project monitoring |
| Subjects: | organization, evaluation and assessment methods, economic analysis, legal systems, digital commerce, data security, data collection methods, control systems, industry analysis |
| Topics: | Digital Applications, Research Practice, Business Strategy, Legal Issues, Project Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 5 PCTEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here