Nowadays, Interorganizational Information System(IOIS) after being recognized as a strategic weapon to create and sustain the competitive advantage, has become a part of firms' general infrastructure. These firms are seeking for a new way of utilizing...
Nowadays, Interorganizational Information System(IOIS) after being recognized as a strategic weapon to create and sustain the competitive advantage, has become a part of firms' general infrastructure. These firms are seeking for a new way of utilizing IOIS beyond normal application in order to differentiate them from their competitors. Some researchers suggest developing the capability of expertise exploitation for the effective use of IOIS or using IOIS as a key means to support inter-organizational collaboration.
This dissertation develops the concept of ‘electronic collaboration’ based on the collaborative inter-organizational relationships to create and sustain a new competitive advantage of the firm with a new perspective of exploiting IOIS. This concept refers to improving the firms' capability of exploiting IOIS more than simply using it for sharing operation information.
Specially, this study focuses on the electronic relationship between a supplier i.e. a SME(Small and Medium-sized enterprise) and a dominant buyer(Large enterprise), which is received relatively little attention by the researchers. Moreover, the previous research didn't pay the deserved attention to the less powerful SMEs. This research recognizes the increasing need of such kind of relationships timely.
The objectives of this study are as follows:
First, we explain what the components of ‘Inter-organizational Electronic Collaboration’ are, and how to define them operationally to measure.
Second, we investigate the impact of the variables of 'Relational Dimension' on the inter-organizational electronic collaboration.
Third, we explain whether the two factors such as information sharing and electronic cooperation enhance the performance of a firm. Fourth, we explain the role and impact of the firm's capability of expertise exploitation derived from inter-organizational electronic collaboration.
To answer these research questions, we developed the research model and the hypotheses using the key variables drawn on the three theories such as Transaction-Cost Theory, Sociological Perspective, the Resource-based View, which have been used in many previous IOIS related research works. This study also integrated the accomplishments of the prior research works.
More specifically, this study expands the discussion as to the governance mechanism of the transaction-cost theory for developing the concept of electronic collaboration. This study also draws on three key factors such as asset specificity of transaction-cost theory, inter-organizational trust and the influence of social perspective, in order to develop the 'relational dimension' with an integrated perspective. The study examines the role of the electronic collaboration, and explains how the role of the capability of individual firms in developing expertise exploition.
To test empirically the proposed model and hypotheses, we conducted both internet-based survey and paper-based survey on the suppliers using an IOIS implemented by one large buyer. The responses from 169 organizations were used for analysis.
The findings of the statistical analysis are summarized as follows:
First, we found that the three variables, such as inter-organizational influence, trust, and asset specificity of the 'relational dimension' embedded in dyadic inter-organizational relationships are statistically significant in expanding the electronic collaboration. The variables used in this study are different from those of the prior research in the Innovation Diffusion Theory, in which comparative advantage, costs and complexity are helpful in explaining IOIS adoption.
Second, we found that information sharing and electronic cooperation have the mediating role between the 'relational dimension' and the firm's performance. The results indicate that the variables of relational dimension lead to inter-organizational electronic collaboration which improves the performance of a firm.
Third, we found that the capability of expertise exploitation mediated the link between the electronic collaboration and the firm's performance. Information exploitation capability of the firm differentiates the result oriented firms from those firms which just engage in the electronic collaboration. In other words, the firms without the capability can't enhance the performance. Although many firms executed similar activities like information sharing and electronic cooperation, their outputs were different because they had the different level of capability internally. In conclusion, potential companies should strive to develop the capability of information exploitation and apply it to decision making process as well as it's critical business processes.
Based on the results of the empirical testing, we could suggest several important implications of the IOIS exploitation for both researchers and practitioners. A key contribution of this study is that after expanding the concept of inter-organizational electronic collaboration and developing the capability of information exploitation of a firm, we specify the role and impact of them on the firm's performance empirically.
These findings have several implications for future research. Based on the results of this study, a researcher can study electronic collaboration in depth, especially focussing on the perspective of the suppliers using the IOIS dominated by one large buyer.
Second, this study has implications for employing the variables of the sociological perspective, which has began to get an attention of researchers recently to explore the effect of 'relational dimension' on electronic collaboration.
Third, we have also shown the evidence that information exploitation capability of a firm in electronic collaboration helps in attaining a new competitive advantage, which can be explained with the help of the resource-based view.
We infer following implications for the practitioners:
First, this study contributes to the practitioners by providing evidence that SMEs can benefit by engaging actively in the electronic collaboration and by enhancing the capability internally to leverage information.
Second, a large company initiating IOIS should offer various policies for SMEs to encourage their active participation in the electronic collaboration
At the end, governmental organizations need to develop various policies to support inter-organizational informationization for making a bridge that leads from individual firms to their industry as a whole.