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E-business Model Design: IT Resource Antecedents And Performance Consequences

Posted on:2011-06-29Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:Q ChenFull Text:PDF
GTID:1119360308468523Subject:Management Science and Engineering
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With the rapid development of economy globalization and information technology, enterprises are facing increasingly changing external environment. On one hand, traditional way of operation is not adaptable to such turbulent environment, and thus enterprises need to find a new advantageous way to respond to fast-changing market demands and growing competition. On the other hand, e-commerce, emerging from the application of internet in business, impacts industrial operation in a large degree. Since e-commerce is characterized by openness, globalization, low-cost, and high-efficiency, more and more firms realize that business model based on e-commerce will be an effective way to achieve competitive advantage nowadays. In other words, e-commerce provides opportunity for firms to break through original market boundary and enhance competitive advantage. Regarding the existing studies on the application of e-commerce inside firms, despite key influential factors have been indentified in the process of e-commerce application, different influences of contexts and characteristics of e-commerce business model on firms'competitive advantage, and how IT resource plays a role in the application process are still under investigation and do not yet reach an agreement.Taking sample from the firms which have deployed e-commerce in China, this dissertation investigates three research questions as follows from the perspective of business model. First, under the circumstances of environmental dynamism and relational embeddedness, how do dissimilar e-commerce business models impact firm performance differently? Second, how does IT resource affect firms'E-business model design? Third, under the context of knowledge integration capability, how does IT resource influence business process redesign differently? In correspondence with the three questions, this thesis focuses on three studies:(1) After positing the conceptual model and hypothesis of how E-business model design impacts firm performance, the first study conducted empirical analysis with factor analysis and multiple regression analysis based on questionnaires firstly collected from 202 firms.(2) The second study further explored how IT resource affects E-business model design with the contingency approach and validated the related hypothesis with factor analysis and multiple regression analysis in terms of questionnaires secondly collected from 210 firms.(3) The third study investigated the impact of knowledge integration capability on the relationship between IT resource and business process redesign, and empirically validated the related hypothesis based on the secondly-collected 210 questionnaires as well.Through the above-mentioned studies, the following conclusions can be reached:(1) Efficiency-centered and novelty-centered business model designs are positively related to firm performance.In terms of firstly-collected 202 firm samples, this study empirically validated that both efficiency-centered business model design and novelty-centered business model design enhance firm performance significantly when firms apply e-commerce. This finding is coincident with previous literature as to the relation between e-commerce and firm performance.(2) Environmental dynamism and relational embeddedness have moderating effect on the relationship between e-business model design and firm performance.This thesis introduced environmental dynamism and relational embeddedness to demonstrate the contingence effect of e-business model design on firm performance. Based on statistical analysis of firstly-collected 202 samples, efficiency-centered business model design is more positively related to firm performance when environment is more dynamic than environment is less dynamic; novelty-centered business model design is more positively related to firm performance when the firm has high relational embeddedness than the firm has low relational embeddedness.(3) Business process redesign mediates the effect of IT resource on e-business model design.Based on in-depth case study of five firms and statistical analysis of secondly-collected 210 samples, it was found that IT resource impacts e-business model design through two ways. On one hand, IT resource influences e-business model design directly. On the other hand, IT resource affects e-business model design through business process redesign. Specifically speaking, IT resource can be categorized into IT human capital, IT infrastructure, and IT relationship quality.(4) Knowledge integration capability plays a moderating effect on the relationship between IT resource and business process redesign.When applying e-commerce, firms need to make use of IT systems for business process redesign. In terms of the secondly-collected 210 samples, empirical analysis displayed that with possession of strong knowledge integration capability, firms are able to better arrange various IT systems in business process redesign by integrating IT knowledge and business knowledge, and further promote business process redesign using IT infrastructure.In sum, this dissertation contributes in three aspects:First, this dissertation demonstrated how e-business model design impacts firm performance differently under the context of environmental dynamism and relational embeddedness when firms deploy e-commerce. Second, this dissertation investigated how IT resource impacts e-business model design and ascertained that business process redesign mediates the effects of IT resource on e-business model design during the process of e-commerce application in firms. Third, this dissertation illustrated the different impacts of IT resource on business process redesign under the context of knowledge integration capability when firms deploy e-commerce.
Keywords/Search Tags:e-business model design, IT resource, environmental dynamism, relational embeddedness, knowledge integration capability
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