Electronic Commerce: A Resource-Based View

Management needs to know the benefits that electronic commerce can provide and the resources needed to make its e-commerce applications successful. A resource-based view can help it do so. Human resources, business resources, and information technology resources will serve as independent variables in this study of the application of the resource-based view to e-commerce. Firm performance will serve as dependent variable. Support for the view can help managers make decisions about the resources needed in their organizations for the successful application of e-commerce

The Effect of Electronic Commerce in Business Value and Supply Chain Process: Evidence from Iran

This paper aims to develop and test a model to analyze the relationships between three aspects of technical electronic commerce (EC)-based information system (IS) resources and, the supply chain process integration, and business value. The paper is consistent with the perspective on IS-enabled organizational capabilities and resource based view of the firm. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted to collect data from 204 supply chain, logistics, or procurement/ purchasing managers of manufacturing firms. Findings show that supply chain process integration, a key EC-enabled organizational capability, can enhance business value. Additionally, the capability serve as a catalyst in transforming technical EC-based IS resources (technical quality of EC applications, EC advancements, EC alignment and E-branding) into higher value for a firm. Our results suggest that supply chain process integration is an important intermediate organizational capability through which value of EC-based IS resources can be materialized. However, the technical aspects of EC-based IS resources needs to developed to effectively form supply chain capabilities.Key words: Supply chain integration; Business value; Electronic commerce; Business performance; Resource-based view; Information system; E-brandin

Competitiveness of Manufacturing SMEs and eCommerce Strategies: An Exploratory Empirical Research in Mexico

Faced with the rapid development of electronic commerce in Mexico and in many parts of the world, it becomes increasingly necessary to rely on theoretical-empirical studies that include both qualitative and quantitative analysis, to help us understand the many faces of electronic trading activity. As SME’s are playing a very important role in the world economy, this research is aimed to analyze the relationship between the TOE model by Tornatzky & Fleisher (1990), and the competitiveness of manufacturing SME’s Electronic Commerce (EC) strategy. This research is divided into three parts: The first part reviews the Resource Based View (RBV); the TOE model for innovations’ adoption; and how concepts on competitiveness create a framework to support analysis on EC strategies’ competitiveness - and discusses the link between them. The second parte discusses the results of an exploratory empirical study aimed to identify key factors and variables involved in the success of the SME’s EC strategies. A Probit model was used to evaluate the relationship between the TOE factors and the ability of the company to develop effective EC strategies, preceded by a confirmatory factor analysis to specify the most important variables embedded in these three factors

Contribución del comercio electrónico al desempeño de las PyMEs industriales: un modelo estructural

El rol que juegan las Tecnologías de la Información y comunicación (TIC) para lograr un mejor desempeño organizacional aún requiere de un análisis más profundo entre las pequeñas y medianas empresas (PyMEs) de los países en desarrollo. Este estudio pretende ampliar la literatura empírica sobre la relación entre TIC, comercio electrónico y desempeño de las PyMEs en países en desarrollo. Para alcanzar este objetivo, utilizamos una muestra de 87 empresas manufactureras de la ciudad de Bahia Blanca, Argentina correspondiente al año 2015. Mediante la estimación de un Modelo de ecuación estructura, se obtiene que la adopción del comercio electrónico posee una influencia positiva y significativa en las ventas de las PyMEs la cual es potenciada por el nivel de uso de las TIC. Otros factores organizacionales tales como el tamaño de la empresa y los programas públicos explican el desempeño, pero no son predictores significativos de la adopción del comercio electrónico.The role Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) play in achieving a better organizational performance still needs further analysis among small and medium sized enterprises (SME) from developing countries. This study aims to extend the empirical literature on the relationship between ICT, electronic commerce and SME performance in developing countries. To achieve this goal, we employ a sample of 87 manufacturing firms from the city of Bahía Blanca, Argentina in the year 2015. By estimating a structural equation model, we obtain that electronic commerce adoption has a positive and significant influence on SME sales which is reinforced by the level of ICT use. Other organizational factors such as firm size and public programs explain performance, but are not significant predictors of the electronic commerce adoption.Fil: Alderete, Maria Veronica. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Economía; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Economía. Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales del Sur; Argentin

Added Value-based Approach to Analyze Electronic Commerce and Mobile Commerce Business Models

In this contribution we propose to apply the theory of informational added values (IAV) on electronic commerce (EC) and mobile commerce (MC). We state that for the success of electronic and mobile offers it is not sufficient to merely make a conventional offer available with new media. Instead, the use of electronic and mobile communication technology is only remunerative if it results in obtaining distinct supplementary IAV. This depends on the exploitation of certain faculties of the used technology. For EC, we call these the four electronic added values (EAV): reduction of temporal and certain spatial limitations, reduction of technical limitations, multi-mediality of access and egalitarian access. For MC, we call these the four mobile added values (MAV): ubiquity, contextsensitivity,identifying functions and command and control functions. We can find EAV and MAV as typical properties of EC or MC applications. EAV are the basis for the superiority of Internet applications compared with offline solutions. The relationship between the separate EAV and IAV will be explained and analyzed. Proceeding analogously for mobile applications, we analyze the relationship between MAV and resulting IAV. The outcome is an extension of the theory of informational added values with the concept of electronic and mobile added values. This allows for an application of the theory to both EC and MC in order to analyze and qualitatively evaluate any given business model. For determining its crucial added value we have to identify the EAV/MAV which are capitalized and can deduce the IAV resulting for each party involved. The concept put forward is a suggestion to approach business models, with the focus on typical evaluation criteria for Internet/mobile business models. It is also suitable to compare different business models and to put their added value for the involved parties in a context. In this way, objective criteria are established reducing subjectivity and allowing to make certain predictions. The paper ends with a critical review and the perspective for further research

In search of the drivers of high growth in manufacturing SMEs

Though considerable attention in the extant literature has been devoted to growth and performance of firms, there is a dearth of research on high growth firms. Furthermore, the majority of literature in this area focuses on large firms while research on high growth small firms is underdeveloped. This paper investigates the drivers of high growth in manufacturing SMEs. Following a number of focus group interviews with six managing directors of manufacturing firms, a number of drivers of high growth were identified and investigated in a sample of 207 manufacturing SMEs. The results of this study indicate that high growth firms place a greater emphasis on external drivers such as strategic orientation, their operating environment and the use of e-commerce compared with firms having static or declining sales. The analysis shows that high growth firms compete largely on the basis of price. While high growth firms have increased their sales by over 30% during the past three years or longer, it is questionable if manufacturing firms can sustain their competitive advantage without recourse to greater research and development, and innovation in the longer term

A user perspective of quality of service in m-commerce

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2004 Springer VerlagIn an m-commerce setting, the underlying communication system will have to provide a Quality of Service (QoS) in the presence of two competing factors—network bandwidth and, as the pressure to add value to the business-to-consumer (B2C) shopping experience by integrating multimedia applications grows, increasing data sizes. In this paper, developments in the area of QoS-dependent multimedia perceptual quality are reviewed and are integrated with recent work focusing on QoS for e-commerce. Based on previously identified user perceptual tolerance to varying multimedia QoS, we show that enhancing the m-commerce B2C user experience with multimedia, far from being an idealised scenario, is in fact feasible if perceptual considerations are employed