How Does Information Technology Impact on Business Relationships? : The Need for Personal Meetings

• The paper raises the question of if and how information technology impacts on social exchange relationships. The aim of the study is to investigate changes of social interaction patterns due to information technology in business relationships, by analyzing one specific aspect of interaction in business relationships, namely the effect of information technology on the need for personal meetings. The theoretical view is constructed on interaction, focusing on the need for personal meetings and information technology. The method employed is statistical and a total of 354 business relationships on the Swedish business to business market are collected and analyzed. Information technology in business relationships is examined by the level of use of information technology and the influence its use has on the need for personal meetings of the business relationship. The result shows that business relationships in which information technology increases or decreases the need for personal meetings to higher extent also have a relatively higher level of use of information technology in the exchanges. However, the relation between the level of use of information technology and its effect on the need for personal meetings is not linear, which means that although the need for personal meetings changes with higher levels of information technology use in exchanges, it is unknown when or why the need for meetings increases or decreases.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Företagsekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Business Administration (hsv//eng)

Keyword

business relationships

IT

personal meetings

social interaction

Business studies

Företagsekonomi

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)