قابلیت استفاده کسب و کار الکترونیکی و رقابت سازمانی: مطالعه موردی از صنعت فولاد و آهن در چین

With the aim of identifying a mechanism that enables e-business technology to improve enterprise competitiveness, the authors conducted a case study of three large iron and steel manufacturing enterprises in China. This paper proposes the concept of application capability of e-business from a process-oriented perspective, and investigates the impact of the application capability of e-business on the relationship between e-business resources and enterprise competitiveness. The results show that e-business resources are necessary, rather than sufficient, to enhance enterprise competitiveness. We also found that an enterprise can use e-business technology to significantly enhance its competitiveness only when its e-business resources and application capability of e-business (particularly the core application capability) are efficiently and effectively synthesized. We conclude that differences in the enterprise application capability of an e-business eventually determine the effectiveness of an e-business technology.

The strategic use of e-business technology helped enterprises to gain competitive advantage in today's Internet economy, thereby enhancing enterprise competitiveness. Therefore, more and more enterprises are investing considerable resources in e-business technology in order to improve enterprise competitiveness by deploying internal value chain and external supply chain e-business activities. However, the gap between spending on IT—particularly on Internet-related technologies—and a widespread perception about the lack of value from e-business, has triggered a wave of debate about the “IT value paradox” [1]. Thus researchers should seek explanations for a phenomenon related to e-business practice: why do some enterprises with rich e-business resources see their e-business fail, for example, eToys, Boo.com, Chemdex.com, and Verticalnet.com? Among successful enterprises, why do some use e-business technology only to raise productivity and economic performance, while others significantly improve their enterprise competitiveness, e.g., Cisco, GE, Dell, eBay, and Google? Previous research—whether an IT resources-based view (RBV) [2], [3] and [4] or an IT process-oriented perspective [5]—tried to answer these questions but failed to provide reasonable explanations. Identifying answers to these questions will in large part determine the effectiveness of an e-business technology. Combining the RBV and IT process-oriented perspective, this study suggests that improved organizational performance through the use of e-business technology ultimately depends on creatively exploiting the application capability of e-business to build and use e-business systems. We selected three large iron and steel manufacturing firms in China, then undertook an exploratory case study to investigate the impact of the application capability of e-business on the relationship between e-business resources and enterprise competitiveness.

Although e-business technology resources and complementary resources require enormous investments, researchers and practitioners still do not understand how this investment improves enterprise competitiveness. Therefore, a case study such as ours is helpful for highlighting some important discoveries and practical implications. • The application capability of e-business plays a decisive role in using e-business technology to improve enterprise competitiveness. Practitioners not only need to invest in e-business technology resources, but also should pay more attention to sustainable investment in the construction, use, and evaluation activities of e-business systems, and should it give long-term attention. It is important to redesign organizational structures and business process before building and implementing e-business systems. The assimilation of IT enables e-business to become competitive, which makes the differences between organizational capabilities and structures even more critical [1]. • This study supports previous studies, which suggest that e-business resources or investment per se cannot improve enterprise competitiveness. However, our study found that the exploration and use of the application capability of e-business require that firms make appropriate investment in e-business. Unquestionably, Company C would not now enjoy its excellent performance except that it made a major investment in technological, human, and organizational resources. Therefore, practitioners should not focus too much on financial metrics when they demonstrate the feasibility of e-business projects and evaluate customer value from the use of e-business. Necessary and appropriate e-business investment should balance financial and non-financial metrics, offline and online metrics, and internal and external stakeholders’ metrics. • The application capability of e-business shows significant difference in value creation. Lacking the core application capability of e-business Company B (and others like it) merely improved its productivity and cost-effectiveness, but did not significantly enhance the firm's competitiveness. Therefore, in order to obtain and maintain long-term competitiveness, enterprises should pay more attention to nurturing their core application capability that is inimitable and cannot be substituted, or at least is very costly to imitate or substitute. • The application capability of e-business is a dynamic learning capability. This dynamism makes the core application capability of e-business more flexible rather than rigid, which ensures that adopted e-business technologies can sustainably support business strategy, and therefore maintain long-term competitiveness. Furthermore, such learning behaviors, including different hierarchies and fields—especially the collaborative and learning behaviors between business partners—help an enterprise achieve the full potential of its e-business.