The Adoption of Artificial Intelligence in the E-Commerce Trade of Healthcare Industry

Abstract

The increasing digital and emerging technologies have changed the value creation of traditional industrial chain to a great extent, and also affected the transaction mode between enterprises. The combination of AI and B2B supply chain has been accepted and adopted by medical field to improve supply-chain efficiency as well as automated e-procurement, or electronic B2B (business-to-business) trade, resulting in significant financial benefits for firms. However, although the e-commerce model of health care industry has brought significant benefits to enterprises and customers, the B2B industry supply chain system of health care industry does not use artificial intelligence as other fields, such as B2C medical field. In our research, intention to adoption an innovation is driven by many factors including transparency of the data, cost pressure, relative advantages, legal regulation. Therefore, one of the contributions of this paper is to fill the gap in the adoption of toe framework related literature in the field of B2B medical model. We also use ‘technology-push’ (TP) and ‘need-pull’ (NP) concepts to examine the potential factors that impact the adoption of artificial intelligence in healthcare industry. How we tackle issues from AI intention to implementation will be probably have great impacts for the future practice of AI in B2B industry.

Appendix A. Scale Items

Relative advantage Please specify the extent to which you agree or disagree with the following statements: 1. Strongly Disagree 2. Somewhat Disagree 3. Neutral 4. Somewhat Agree 5. Strongly Agree
1. An AI system helps us to provide better customer services by giving them quick and latest information about our products and services	1	2	3	4	5
2. An AI system has the ability to provide timely and accurate information for decision-making	1	2	3	4	5
3. An AI system helps generate competitive advantage	1	2	3	4	5
Competitive pressure
4. Some of our competitors have already started using B2B e-commerce systems	1	2	3	4	5
5. The competition among companies in the industry, which my firm operating in is very tense	1	2	3	4	5
6. Our firm thinks that AI has an influence on competition in our industry	1	2	3	4	5
7. Our firm is under pressure from competitors to adopt AI	1	2	3	4	5
Government support
8. The local government is helping in giving all kinds of assistance to help to businesses to use AI system in B2B electronic market	1	2	3	4	5
9. The government often inform us about the good points of e-commerce and doing business using the AI systems	1	2	3	4	5
10. Support from government is important to encourage us to use more of AI in business	1	2	3	4	5
11. Government has provided adequate financial assistance to implement and use AI in business	1	2	3	4	5
Cost-effectiveness
12. Initial cost in AI systems relatives to the benefits from AI	1	2	3	4	5
13. The cost and benefit of training enterprises to use AI effectively are related	1	2	3	4	5
14. Costs of integrating new AI systems with other information systems in the firm relative to the benefits from such integration	1	2	3	4	5
AI adoption intention
15. Our company is contemplating to adopt AI in a year’s time	1	2	3	4	5
16. Our company is likely to adopt AI in a year’s time	1	2	3	4	5
17. Our company is expecting to adopt AI in a year’s time	1	2	3	4	5
18. Our company intends to adopt AI with our key business partner in the near future	1	2	3	4	5
19. It is likely that our company will take some steps to adopt AI with our key business partner in the near future	1	2	3	4	5
Dependency
20. Our firm thinks that our business partner is important to our future performance	1	2	3	4	5
21. It would be difficult for us to replace our business partner	1	2	3	4	5
22. We depend on our business partner	1	2	3	4	5
Absorptive capacity
23. Members of our firm have a common language to deal with new practices our organization intends to adopt	1	2	3	4	5
24. Our firm had a vision of what it was trying to achieve through the transfer of new practices	1	2	3	4	5
25. Our firm has the necessary skills to implement the new practices	1	2	3	4	5
26. Our firm has the technical competence to absorb the new practices	1	2	3	4	5
Technological turbulence
27. The technology in our industry is changing rapidly	1	2	3	4	5
28. Technological changes provide big opportunities in our industry	1	2	3	4	5
29. It is very difficult to forecast where the technology in our industry will be in the next two to three years	1	2	3	4	5
30. A large number of new product ideas have been made possible through technological breakthrough in our industry	1	2	3	4	5

Demographics

• 1. What is your firm size (number of employees)

  (1) 1–500 (2) 500–1000 (3) 1000–2000 (4) 2000+

• 2. What is industry type of your firm?

  (1) Manufacturing (2) Information Technology (3) Financial Services (4) Construction/Real Estate (5) Retail/wholesale Distribution (6) Public Administration and Social Work (7) Transport, Communication (8) Others

• 3. What is your job title?

  (1) Top Manager (2) Middle Manager (3) Operations Manager (4) Others

• 4. What is total revenue of your company?

  (1) About $1–$1,000 million (2) About $1,000–$10,000 million (3) About $10,000–$30,000 million (4) Over $30,000 million

• 5. What is your firm age?

  (1) Less than 10 years (2) 11–20 years (3) 21–40 years (4) over 41 years

• 6. What is the stage of AI implementation in your company?

  (1) Non-adoption (2) Awareness (3) Consideration (4) Intention to adopt (5) Adaptation (6) Infusion