ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of e-commerce and e-commerce technologies presents extant e-commerce literature in construction and explores the drivers and barriers to the adoption of e-commerce within the construction industry. The use of e-commerce in the construction industry is steadily growing when compared to other industrial sectors, however, in some cases it is becoming a mainstream method of transactions such as procurement and payment of commodities between companies. The emergence of e-commerce can be associated with electronic data interchange (EDI), which was used mainly for data transfer between organisations. The development of electronic funds transfer (EFT) also enabled businesses to do the electronic transactions over the computer networks. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) introduced a data exchange standard, ASC X12 for sharing business documents over the computer networks. The development of communications networks such as Advanced Research Projects Agency Computer Network (ARPANet) and the terminal interface processor (TIP) helped to revolutionise the network communications in late 1970s.
