During the mid to late 1990s, shaping diffusion of B2B e-commerce was a key priority for governments and business associations. Viewing e-commerce as the key to continuous economic growth and a vehicle for transformation to the digital economy, national action plans were formulated to accelerate the standard development and adoption of e-commerce. This chapter argues that the Danish EDI Action Plan from 1996 cemented structural problems for the ongoing adoption and diffusion of newer B2B technologies due to a discrepancy between goals and actions, imbalanced partner allocation in standard development and an overwhelming focus on the public sector despite ambitions to fuel the overall business adoption of B2B e-commerce.
Standards have proven themselves indispensable to the industrial revolution. How are standards developed today? What does the economics of standards tell about the impact of standards upon economic growth and productivity? Do standards influence industry innovation? How are the standardization processes in the field of ICT taking place? How and why do open standards differ from other types of standards? How may open standards influence ICT government policy and the reverse: How will government need to take action in the face of the international trend toward open standards in ICT?
