RFID Adoption

摘要

Technology vendors increasingly praised RFID technology to improve tracking and replenishment in supply chain management (Vervest et al. 2004). Many companies, especially retailers, announced plans for quick RFID adoption. Despite obvious technology advantages, RFID adoption made only little progress in today’s supply chains. This paper explores the discrepancy between RFID announcements and reality. From a literature review, the paper derives three theoretical concepts and ten associated factors of organizational technology adoption and diffusion. It then describes the RFID adoption by a fashion retailer that started with an RFID pilot and stretched the RFID roll-out process over several stages. In the description, the paper also briefly touches upon RFID diffusion in the fashion supply chain. Finally, the paper discusses to what extent each of the ten factors derived from the literature apply to RFID adoption and diffusion in the fashion industry. It discovers some factors, crucial for adoption and diffusion and others which play only a minor role. The paper closes with some conclusions and suggestions for further research.