An Empirical Study of Standards Development for E-Businesses: A Social Network Perspective

Research on the nature of e-business standards and the organizational context in which they are developed has received little attention in the literature of IT standards and standardization. This study investigates communication patterns in online standards groups to provide insights into the nature of group dynamics among standards decision makers and its relation to the standards context. Email data is used from the ebXML standards initiative. Findings suggest that standards groups operating on the Internet appear to form a cohesive structure, despite the fact that they tend to consist of large group of participants coming from various backgrounds and industries, while their communication patterns are influenced by standards orientation. Policy implications for managers in online standards groups are presented.