| Electronic Commerce (EC) represents one of the most promising directions for generating competitive advantage at the micro level of the organization and for increasing productivity at the macro level of the economy. This cross-sectional survey explores two basic research questions. First, it draws on diffusion of innovations theory and Rogers' framework of innovation diffusion to explore how well they explain the initiation, adoption, and implementation of Internet/Intranet/Extranet (NET) technologies for electronic commerce applications. Multiple regression analysis and logistic regression is applied to investigate the relationships between each of the dependent variable and main elements of Rogers' framework that are relevant to EC.;Second, this study explores how firms can evaluate the qualitative and quantitative factors of a strategic decision to invest in a particular EC technology in order to assess its business value. The preferences of members of top management team of independent, non-diversified firms involved in electronic commerce are examined using analytical network process (ANP) (a more general form of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP)) for decision structuring and decision analysis. ANP is used to model the complexities involved in integrating EC innovation issues into the firm's overall strategic planning.;The optimal electronic commerce strategy is chosen using "systems-with-feedback" where the electronic commerce strategy level may both dominate and be dominated, directly or indirectly, by the business strategy level. The interdependencies between four Internet strategies (i.e., virtual information space, virtual communication space, virtual distribution space, and virtual transaction space) and the two generic business level strategies (i.e., cost leadership and differentiation) are explored using the ANP methodology. The relative importance of the three dimensions of the differentiation strategy (i.e., innovation, marketing, and response time) is also determined in this study using AHP's pairwise comparisons technique. |
