The development of information technologies relies on the creation of compatibility standards. They, like technical artifacts, result from interactions between different actors who have their own interests, strategies, and motives and are bound by structures that enable them to engage in activities, while at the same time imposing constraints on available options to them. This orientation toward social shaping of technical standard casts new light on standard research that, while generally confirming the national policy or analysing effects of standards on economy, has had less success accounting for social factors affecting standardization process. The analysis of EDI systems in the Korean automotive industry highlights a complex social process aiming at the closed systems and resulting in the failure of an industry-wide EDI standard. The power of manufacturer, as part of Chaebol, and his strategy to have its own system combined with the collectivist Korean culture - closed collectivism and authoritarianism -, the hierarchically organised manufacturer-supplier-relationship, and the dependence on foreign technology constituted not only the basis of the closed EDI systems, but also created barriers that hindered all efforts of third parties to achieve an economically reasonable standardization of EDI for the entire Korean automotive industry. In order to overcome the weakness of standardization, it is needed to first of all improve cooperation between relevant actors. This calls for the developing of intermediating organizations like industry associations. They offer institutionalized standardization arena that can lead to the democratic participation of actors and the achievement of a common solution by negotiation.