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3. Governmental Actions

To comprehend the structural features, the initiatives at the local level of government, and the organizational initiatives, we propose to distinguish between actions by the government that are either direct or indirect in scope. Direct actions are targeting EDI usage by subsidizing the direct investment for ongoing EDI use, for example, by defining protocols for EDI use by customs and port authorities. Indirect actions capture initiatives which aim at increasing EDI "awareness" or acceptance, accomplished through public procurement as well as participation in EDI councils, international committees and special interest groups(Andersen, 1997).

We view both direct and indirect actions as having four modes (Damsgaard and Lyytinen, 1997; Andersen and others, 1998c). Whereas, the first three modes encompass the traditional government actions, organizational management is equally important:

  1. pedagogical,
  2. economic,
  3. normative initiatives for the use of EDI in general, and
  4. organizational management for the public sectors' own organizations
In many countries such as Denmark, the public sector may be a more avid user of EDI than the private sector. Consequently, government actions may affect both the demand-pull as well as the supply-push for EDI in the private sector. Accordingly, when we address the question "how does government intervention affect the EDI-diffusion process", both the public sector’s diffusion and the private sector’s adaptation are of equal interest(Southern, 1997; Graham and Lobet-Maris, 1994).

A plethora of instruments reflects how complicated it is to stimulate the diffusion of EDI and to estimate how government intervention affects the process. For example, the TradeNet in Singapore did not achieve success status merely by bottom-line analysis and top-down steering. On the contrast, this example showed the need to stimulate and evaluate EDI diffusion in its organizational context, public or private regardless. Also, local government and quasi-governmental organizations might be just as successful, or even more so, in initiating low-cost EDI solutions compared with central government.

We believe this is a very important observation given that governments have multiple forms, as well as the fact that the distinction between private and public is no longer as clear as it was decades ago. Such political and commercial changes in the environment pose challenges for the successful diffusion of EDI. However, these notions are all too often ignored (Saxena and Wagenaar, 1997; Scala and MacGrath, Jr., 1993).

Accordingly, governments should not see it as their primary role to pursue top-down steering or legislation of the EDI diffusion process. Using such crude strategy might stifle innovation, discourage competition, and eventually leave the national economy worse off. Instead, central government should move onward on a large variety of fronts, including fostering conditions that tear down obstacles for effective EDI use. More specific examples could be encouraging legislation for digital signatures, investing and building an information technology infrastructure, as well as organizing a watchdog against monopoly practices.

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@ Juul, Andersen & Bjørn-Andersen: Electronic Commerce in Denmark, Proceedings of the 3rd USENIX Workshop on Electronic Commerce, Boston, September 1998. are never based on EDIFACT, except category 3.

EDIFACT-based standards
that include