دیدگاه مبتنی بر منابع در تجارت الکترونیک

A management theory known as the resource-based view of the firm states that resources foster organizational success. Our study of e-commerce retailers applied this theory to examine the effects of human, business, and e-commerce technology resources on firm competitiveness. An e-mail and Web-based survey used 458 responses from site managers. Business and e-commerce technology resources, as well as the individual business resource of process redesign, were found to predict e-commerce performance, whereas human resources did not. E-commerce performance, in turn, predicted firm performance. These findings partially support the resource-based view and coincide with differences between physical and e-commerce retailing.

Few organizations today debate whether to participate in e-commerce. Instead, they are concerned about how and how much to do so. To decide, managers need to identify the resources that make e-commerce successful. By understanding and then strengthening these resources, they can improve performance in their organizations. Researchers are also interested in resources that make e-commerce successful. A management theory, a resource-based view of the firm, states that resources foster organizational success [3]. It provides an organized way to study and understand the resources by categorizing, comparing, and contrasting them. The theory has not been used much in e-commerce literature. The purpose of our research was to use a resource-based view to answer management's question: what resources make e-commerce successful?

E-commerce technology and business resources predict e-commerce performance. By implication, managers should cultivate those resources in their firms and identify those that they consider their strengths and weaknesses. In effect, the constructs and items of our model provide checklists for managers. Managers should give high priority to process redesign and should be careful not to over- or underemphasize any other ways of enhancing performance. Likewise, the lack of significance for any e-commerce technology resources suggests that no one of them plays a particularly important role and thus managers should be careful not to over- or underemphasize any. Surprisingly, human resources failed to predict e-commerce performance. So probably managers should disregard open organization/communications, CEO commitment, and flexibility in their efforts to improve e-commerce performance. However, this may be a premature conclusion. Perhaps managers should closely examine the role of the resources in their organization in an attempt to find their shortcomings and hence their value