Adoption of e-procurement in the government departments

The purpose of this study is to explore the enabling and inhibiting factors that affect the adoption of electronic procurement (e-procurement) in government departments of Orissa in India. Reviewing the literatures on adoption of e-procurement in government and private organisations, this paper first brings out a number of key factors contributing to the adoption of e-procurement. Based on these factors, a questionnaire survey was conducted among the government officers. An analysis of the responses to the questionnaire survey, together with the use of principal component analysis and factor analysis, helped in framing six constructs: reduction of imperfections, effective procurement, internal resistance, quality software design, IT-readiness and management policy effectiveness. Using these constructs, ten hypotheses were developed and tested in the framework of structural equation modelling. The results indicate that management policy effectiveness and IT-readiness encourage the adoption of e-procurement and simultaneously reduce imperfections and enhance effective procurement in the government organisations.