Dance with your business partners : An empirical study about what factors influence the adoption of the ITapplications between the company and its global dealers from differentcountries, and among them which factor/factors are more importantthan others.

Sammanfattning: Date: June 2010Course: EIK 034 Master thesisAuthor: Xiaokun YangTutor: Ole LiljeforsTitle: Dance with your business partnersIntroduction: Through the web conference project of Volvo Construction Equipment(VolvoCE, www.volvoce.com), the author analyzed what factors influence theadoption of IT applications between the global company and its dealers in differentcountries, and among these factors which ones are more important than others.Research question: What factors influence the adoption of the IT applicationsbetween the company and its global dealers from different countries? Among themwhich factor/factors are more important than others?Methodology: The case study method was adopted in this master thesis, which wasbased on the web conference project of VolvoCE, thus much empirical data aboutthis project was collected and used. At the same time the author searched andsummarized some different literatures and articles and deduced the criticalliterature review part. At last, both the theoretical data and empirical data wereanalyzed to answer the research question.Conclusion: Based on the web conference project of VolvoCE, all those factors thatmentioned in the analysis part should be considered when implementing the ITapplications between company and its dealers or other business partners. Have agood understanding about all these factors can improve the success possibility of theIT projects between the global company and its business partners, and thus IT canworks as the dancing music for both the global company and its dealers in thebusiness world. At last among these factors the top business executives’ support andIT infrastructure are more critical than others.Key words: Web conference, Microsoft Live Meeting, dealer, VolvoCE, Wainhouse, ITsystem, Business partner, Inter organization, extended network, Internet ServiceProvicer (ISP).