دستیابی به قابلیت های رقابتی در خدمات الکترونیکی

What implications does the Internet have for service operations strategy? How can business performance of e-service companies be improved in today's knowledge-based economy? These research questions are the subject of this paper. We propose a model that links the e-service company's knowledge-based competencies with their competitive capabilities. Drawing from the current literature, our analysis suggests that services that strategically build a portfolio of knowledge-based competencies, namely human capital, structural capital, and absorptive capacity have more operations-based options, than their counterparts who are less apt to invest. We assume that the combinative capabilities of service quality, delivery, flexibility, and cost are determined by the investment in intellectual capital. Arguably, with the advent of the Internet, different operating models (e.g., bricks-and-mortar, clicks-and-mortar, or pure dot-com) have different strategic imperatives in terms of knowledge-based competencies. Thus, the new e-operations paradigm can be viewed as a configuration of knowledge-based competencies and capabilities.

The Internet is fast becoming an important new channel for businesses in many sectors, raising e-services as the emergent business paradigm in the industrialized world. E-services, according to Roth [1] and [2], “are comprised of all interactive services that are delivered on the Internet using advanced telecommunications, information, and multimedia technologies.” In this paper, we discuss the challenges and opportunities for providing e-services (e.g., those delivered over the Internet) and attempt to answer the following research questions: What implications does the Internet have for service operations strategy? How can business performance of e-service companies be improved in today's knowledge-based economy? In the past decade, services have faced intensified competition that can be characterized by substantial deregulation, technological progress, continuous fragmentation of markets, evolving customer expectations, shorter product life cycles, and the enormous growth in telecommunications and inexpensive computing power [3], [4] and [5]. High quality and competitive prices are necessary, but they are no longer sufficient requirements for commercial success in the “hypercompetitive” market place of e-services [3] and [6]. Speed, whether defined as time to new products, real time information, or quick and flexible customer response, is increasingly becoming a standard, and hence, it is a pivotal capability in such a dynamic environment. Determining how best to take strategic advantage of Internet economics is an increasing concern for modern business.

Our general proposition is that acquiring and maintaining requisite intellectual capital is a necessary antecedent for acquiring strategic agility (or combinative competitive capabilities) that impact business performance, and is especially important for managing complexity in the emerging click-and-brick service environment. We aim to increase our understanding of how e-services create and sustain competitive advantage in an increasingly complex environment that is created in part, by the advent of the Internet—a disruptive technology. We examine the KBV of the firm, which is emerging in the areas of economics, management, and organizations to provide the theoretical underpinnings for e-service delivery system design. The KBV emphasizes the role of intellectual capital for the development of economic activities, thereby contesting the orthodox understanding of the firm and the economy. It appears that the increased complexity and volatility of operating a “click-and-brick” service calls for higher levels of knowledge stocks and accelerated flows. This is especially the case, where tighter integration of operations, marketing, and human resources are required in order to achieve the requisite strategic agility to compete effectively [10]. We build upon previous work (e.g., [12] and [44]) that studies the importance of knowledge-based investments on company success.