Enterprise Information Portals (EIPs) have been widely adopted as platforms for the integration of knowledge management and information technology (IT). This study has been conducted from the knowledge management perspective in order to examine the influence of EIPs on collaborative commerce in the automobile industry. This study explores the integration of internal and external business processes and the coordination of collaborative design teams. An initial qualitative investigation explores the practical applications of an EIP in an automobile company. A research model is then formulated and tested using a questionnaire survey of the R&D department of a motor company in Taiwan. The results of the data analysis reveal that presence of EIPs can help a company realize the benefits of c-commerce. EIPs also can improve collaborative commerce performance by promoting the degree of integration of the enterprise process and by strengthening the process innovation and communication of collaborative design teams. The results suggest that managers should reinforce important factors, including knowledge management tools, process integration, and the quality of design teams, in order to achieve success in collaborative commerce.
Collaborative commerce (c-commerce) is a set of technologies and business practices that allows companies to build stronger relationships with their trading partners by integrating complex, cross-enterprise processes that are governed by business logic, rules, and workflows (Chen, Zhang, & Zhou, 2007). Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is the transaction activity of products, information, and services that is conducted through the electronic media. Activities outside of order arrangement, order fulfillment, account receivables, and account payables do not fall within the scope of e-commerce. C-commerce is more extensive than e-commerce, and often includes general information sharing, integration between enterprises, and the formation of extended value chains of mutual benefit (Lee, Pak, & Lee, 2003).
Many enterprises attempt to apply information systems, known as portals, to the integration of internal and external operation processes. There are often many portals designed for different purposes in a company, resulting in fragmented information access. An unintegrated intranet is not only inconvenient to the user but is also expensive to maintain; the distributed information that it holds cannot be integrated into valuable knowledge. Enterprise Information Portals (EIPs) are designed to integrate diverse sources of information and provide knowledge workers with a single gateway, login, and user-friendly browser interface to their personal working platforms (Dias, 2001).
C-commerce has been forecast to replace e-commerce as the current, trendy buzzword, which reflects real growth in its importance. The integration of views and skills from different organizations or individuals is necessary for an enterprise to promote its business efficiently and successfully. Therefore, for modern enterprises, it is important to investigate the key factors that affect c-commerce and their relationship to each other. The EIP is an important knowledge management tool for the effective integration of information and the management of intelligence capital; it can create valuable knowledge for enterprises (Carroll, 2001). C-commerce emphasizes interactive information exchange (Centola, Myer, Raisinghani, & Virgil, 2004). Therefore, it is of interest to determine whether a company can promote c-commerce through the knowledge management function of its EIP. However, despite interest in the relationship between c-commerce and EIPs, this appears to be a neglected research topic. Therefore, in the hope of gaining some insight into this relationship and perhaps understanding the factors of successful implementation, this study will investigate how the EIP knowledge management tool assists the practice of c-commerce.
In order to explore the relationship between EIP and c-commerce and construct an interactive model of some of the main c-commerce influences, three core questions are proposed. First, does the function of an EIP influence c-commerce? Second, does the use of an EIP help a company obtain the benefits of c-commerce through the integration of business processes? Three, for EIP function, do the features of the collaborative design team play an important role in the performance of c-commerce? We will attempt to identify key factors and build a model to test their correlation to c-commerce performance.
The research results of this study have been revealed by quantitative and qualitative analysis. In qualitative analysis, the case study demonstrated some instances in which practice did not correspond with expectation. Firstly, the EIP in the case study organization has been designed mainly for the use of internal employees. It is only one of a number of separate information systems set up by suppliers for different purposes. This limits its effectiveness generally in data integration and specifically in promoting c-commerce. Taiwan's auto manufacturers do not have a highly integrated relationship with their suppliers as Toyota does; this is partly because they are unable to offer suppliers a sufficient sales volume to sustain a special relationship and partly because of their dependence on foreign designs. This dependence means that the specifications of components are pre-determined. However, since this result comes from the specific investigation of a single case, the results cannot be generalized to other companies or countries. In the present case, the limits on external process integration were administrative rather than technical (such as security or political considerations).
Secondly, Taiwan's auto manufacturers do not develop new vehicles in-house but undertake the limited ‘localization’ of designs from a foreign mother factory. For this reason, collaborative design teams are composed of staff of the domestic R&D departments and the mother factory; the participation of suppliers and distributors is limited and deferred until after detailed local specifications have been arrived at.
In addition, because of the lack of independence of design among Taiwan's auto manufacturers, collaborative design is the only option that can create considerable benefits by way of reduced time-to-market and reduced development cost. Although c-commerce literature often emphasizes the desirability of customer participation in the early design stages, since so much of design among Taiwan's auto manufacturers is pre-determined abroad, such participation is limited. However, Taiwan's auto manufacturers now intend to increase customer participation and they are striving to reach this objective.
In the quantitative analysis, all the hypothesized relationships have been verified to be statistically significant, except for H4a. First of all, the results show that EIP positively affects enterprise internal process integration. Iyer et al. (2005) consider that EIP has a significant impact on the business processes of today's organizations. Benbya et al. (2004) state that EIP can provide an ideal environment in which to integrate business process aspects with knowledge processes. Their assertions are consistent with the findings of this study. Similarly, the results show that EIP positively affects external process integration. This finding is consistent with the research of Lancioni et al. (2000) and Garcıa-Dastugue and Lambert (2003) which holds that information systems such as EIPs have the ability to integrate business processes electronically with other supply chain members.
Secondly, the empirical results revealed that EIP positively influences the process innovation capability of the collaborative design team. Cowan et al.’s (2007) research proves this finding. They consider that the EIP system can assist the operations of the collaborative design team because it transcends geographical limitations, provides information exchange and provokes innovation through the recombination of knowledge held by its collaborative partners. Additionally, the EIP positively influences the communication and coordination capabilities of the collaborative design team. This finding is in accordance with the findings of Nerkar and Paruchuri (2005) and Shen et al., 2008. Their findings hold that by facilitating the creation, flow, and use of information within a firm, portals can function as coordination and communication spaces for the exchange of ideas and know-how and the discovery of other experts in the company.
Thirdly, the results indicate that the EIP has a positive effect on the performance of collaborative commerce. Lancioni et al. (2000) state that EIPs can provide several cost-reduction and service-improvement opportunities. Dias (2001) and Li et al. (2007) also state that the corporate portal allows users to access corporate information in an easier and customized manner, resulting in reduced costs, increased productivity, and competitiveness. These assertions correspond to the findings of this study.
Fourth, the results of this study indicate that external process integration has a positive influence on the performance of collaborative commerce. This finding is in accordance with those of Bala and Venkatesh (2007) and El-Gohary and El-Diraby (2010), which hold that the support of collaborative coordination requires the integration of work processes across various stakeholders, disciplines, and projects. Cooperation partners require system models that enable and support information and process integration, and thus, improve collaboration (Iyer et al., 2005).
However, the results show that internal process integration does not have a significant influence on the performance of collaborative commerce. The probable reason for this is that in collaborative commerce, intra-enterprise process integration is stressed much less than the cooperative relationship between enterprises. The relationship between enterprises includes information exchange, upstream and downstream coordination, and workflow integration. In fact, although prior research asserts that a lack of systems and process integration will hinder collaborative and mutually beneficial partnerships (Bala and Venkatesh, 2007 and El Amrani et al., 2006), it does not explicitly refer to either internal or external process integration focus. This study clearly indicates that external process integration has a greater and more significant influence on collaborative commerce than has internal process integration.
Finally, the results indicate that the process innovation feature of the collaborative design team positively affects the performance of collaborative commerce. This finding corresponds with Fliess and Becker's (2006) argument that companies can develop and maintain a competitive advantage by using suppliers’ skills and capabilities especially their greater design responsibilities and innovative features to reduce costs and cycle time. In addition, the communication and coordination capability of the collaborative design team has a positive effect on the performance of collaborative commerce. This finding is keeping with Tseng and Lin's (2005) claim that by means of communication between people, the production procedure can be decreased, time-to-market can be accelerated and production costs can be reduced.
