| More and more manufacturing firms are actively implementing the digital transformation of their supply chains,and establishing interorganizational information technology(IT)capability to govern multiple interorganizational relationships and leverage external resources to gain and sustain competitive advantage.Although some firms have begun to use specific IT tools to coordinate knowledge integration and transformation across the entire value chain,the existing literature has not fully explored the importance of interorganizational IT capability for external knowledge management in supply chain digitalization.The literature on the knowledge-based view shows that knowledge acquisition and sharing,knowledge exploration and exploitation,and knowledge integration and transformation are three important aspects of knowledge management.Therefore,based on the knowledge-based view,this study explored how interorganizational IT capability can help manufacturing firms solve the challenges in the above three aspects in the context of supply chain digitalization.In terms of effective knowledge acquisition and sharing,an important challenge for manufacturing firms is how to effectively obtain and share the increasing amount of information scattered in the supply chain.Existing studies mainly focus on the impact of interorganizational IT capability on information sharing,while little attention has been paid to the impact of partners’ interorganizational IT capability on the consensus on information sharing.Given this,study 1 investigated the mechanism of improving consensus between a dominant manufacturing firm and retail firms in evaluating retailers’ information sharing in an interorganizational information system.Based on organizational information processing theory,study 1 investigated the influence mechanism of trust and interorganizational IT capability of retail firms on the consensus on information sharing between a dominant manufacturing firm and retail firms,and analyzed the internal influencing mechanisms of the interaction between goodwill trust and interorganizational IT capability and the interaction between competence trust and interorganizational IT capability on the consensus on information sharing.Furtherly,study 1 verified the impact of the consensus on information sharing on supply chain performance.By analyzing the questionnaire data of head water heater manufacturer H and its authorized 428 retail firms,study 1 found that retailers’ interorganizational IT capability,goodwill trust,and competence trust in the dominant manufacturer were positively related to the consensus on information sharing.The interaction between retailers’ interorganizational IT capability and goodwill trust was negatively related to the consensus on information sharing,whereas the interaction effect of retailers’interorganizational IT capability and competence trust was positive.Furthermore,the consensus on information sharing was positively related to supply chain performance.In terms of knowledge exploration and exploitation,one of the key challenges facing manufacturing firms is how to effectively explore and exploit external information to gain an advanced understanding of the market.Past studies have made a preliminary exploration of the relationship between interorganizational IT capability and knowledge absorption,but few studies have focused on the impact of interorganizational IT capability on market learning.Given this,based on organizational learning theory,study 2 explored the influence mechanism of interorganizational IT integration capability and interorganizational IT reconfiguration capability on exploratory market learning and exploitative market learning,and examined how interorganizational IT integration capability and interorganizational IT reconfiguration capability affect exploratory market learning and exploitative market learning under different levels of customer-based structure.Study 2 also verified the impacts of exploratory market learning and exploitative market learning on firm performance.By analyzing questionnaire data from 165 manufacturing firms,study 2 found that interorganizational IT integration capability positively influenced exploratory market learning.Interorganizational IT integration capability and interorganizational IT reconfiguration capability positively influenced exploitative market learning.Customer-based structure had a significant and positive moderating effect on the positive relationship between interorganizational IT integration capability and exploratory market learning.Customer-based structure had a positive moderating effect on the positive relationship between interorganizational IT integration capability and exploitative market learning,while customer-based structure had a negative moderating effect on the positive effect of interorganizational IT reconfiguration capability and exploitative market learning.In addition,exploratory market learning and exploitative market learning had positive influences on firm performance.In terms of knowledge integration and transformation,one of the core challenges faced by manufacturing firms is how to effectively integrate and transform external knowledge to develop customer-centered mass customization capability and product quality-centered manufacturing quality capability.Although past studies have examined how IT affects mass customization capabilities and manufacturing quality capabilities,few studies have investigated how interorganizational IT capability helps manufacturing firms improve mass customization capability and manufacturing quality capability.Given this,from the perspective of dynamic capability theory,study 3 investigated the direct impact of interorganizational IT integration capability and interorganizational IT reconfiguration capability on mass customization capability and manufacturing quality capability,and analyzed the moderating mechanisms of incremental innovation capability and radical innovation capability on the relationship between interorganizational IT integration capability and mass customization capability and the relationship between interorganizational IT reconfiguration capability and mass customization capability.Study 3 also examined the effects of mass customization capability and manufacturing quality capability on firm performance.By analyzing questionnaire data from 177 manufacturing firms,study 3 found that interorganizational IT integration capability and interorganizational IT reconfiguration capability were significantly and positively related to mass customization capability.Interorganizational IT integration capability and interorganizational IT reconfiguration capability were significantly and positively related to manufacturing quality capability.Incremental innovation capability weakened the positive relationship between interorganizational IT integration capability and mass customization capability,and strengthened the positive relationship between interorganizational IT reconfiguration capability and mass customization capability.Radical innovation capability strengthened the positive relationship between interorganizational IT integration capability and mass customization capability,and weakened the positive relationship between interorganizational IT reconfiguration capability and mass customization capability.In addition,mass customization capability and manufacturing quality capability had positive influences on firm performance.By drawing on organizational information processing theory,organizational learning theory,dynamic capability theory,and so on,this study revealed the value creation mechanism of interorganizational IT capability in supply chain digitalization from the aspects of knowledge acquisition and sharing,knowledge exploration and exploitation,and knowledge integration and transformation.This study provided useful decision guides for manufacturing firm managers to develop interorganizational IT capability to improve consensus on information sharing,market learning,mass customization capability,and manufacturing quality capability.This study mainly has the following theoretical implications.First,based on the organizational information processing theory,this study emphasized the role played by goodwill trust,competence trust,and interorganizational IT capability of retail firms and their interactions,and expanded knowledge about firm-level consensus.By deeply dissecting the mechanisms that lead to consensus between manufacturing firms and multiple retail firms,this study extended the research on consensus on information sharing in the context of interorganizational information systems and answered the question of how interorganizational IT capability can be useful in terms of knowledge acquisition and sharing in dyadic relationships.This study also provided novel insights into the information sharing literature by investigating the consensus on information sharing between information senders and recipients.Second,based on the organizational learning theory,this study revealed the importance of market learning in the context of supply chain digitalization and expanded the understanding of the relationship between interorganizational IT capability and market learning.Furthermore,this study answered the question of how interorganizational IT capability can play an effective role in the firm’s knowledge exploration and exploitation and added new knowledge to the interorganizational IT value creation literature.In addition,this study explored the impact of organizational structure factors on the relationship between interorganizational IT capability and market learning,and expanded the boundary conditions that affect the value creation of interorganizational IT capability.Third,this study,combined with the dynamic capability theory,explored how interorganizational IT integration capability and interorganizational IT reconfiguration capability respectively affect mass customization capability and manufacturing quality capability,answered the question of how interorganizational IT capability can play an effective role in the firm’s knowledge integration and transformation,and enriched the literature on the antecedents of mass customization capability and manufacturing quality capability.In addition,by identifying the moderating role of innovation capability,the boundary conditions of the relationship between interorganizational IT capability and mass customization capability were expanded. |
PDF Full Text Request