Mediation effect of business process and supply chain management capabilities on the impact of IT on firm performance: Evidence from Chinese firms

Motivated by the seeming presence of the productivity paradox in China, this research revisits the question of how information technology (IT) affects firm performance. Leveraging the process-based view of IT, we establish a theoretical framework for the mediation factors for the relationship between IT capabilities and performance. Based on a survey of 127 companies in China, we find that a firm's management capabilities to manage both its internal and external business processes fully mediate the impact of IT on firm performance. The two management capabilities in this study are business-process management capability and supply-chain management capability. Our results show that only the coherent integration of IT capability with firm’s ability to optimize business processes and to improve management of supply chains can enhance firm performance. Firms should avoid the fallacy that IT investments are solely responsible for better firm performance. Based on our findings, we discuss the implications for research and practice.     

Enabling innovation in the face of uncertainty through IT ambidexterity: A fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis of industrial service SMEs

Taking a configurational approach, this paper investigates the causal configurations of IT ambidexterity (i.e., IT capabilities for exploitation and exploration), dynamic capabilities (i.e., innovation and networking capabilities) and environmental uncertainty that are associated to service innovation performance in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Results from a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) of 63 industrial service SMEs show that these firms attain high service innovation performance with three different configurations under conditions of high uncertainty. Two configurations highlight the importance of IT exploration capabilities (combined with the absence of innovation and networking capabilities in one configuration and with the absence of networking capabilities and IT capabilities for exploitation in another), whereas another configuration accentuates the importance of IT exploitation capabilities (combined with the presence of innovation and networking capabilities). Our study contributes to the literature in multiple ways. For instance, due to the equifinal properties of the configurational approach, our results suggest that SMEs can attain high innovation performance through both sequential and simultaneous IT ambidexterity, thus providing a starting point for reconciling competing views of IT ambidexterity. Other contributions to theory and practice and avenues for future research are also discussed.     

IT/IS implementation risks and their impact on firm performance

There has been considerable theoretical work on the role of information systems (IS) in creating competitive advantage and enhancing organizational performance. The literature identifies a consistent lack of success by organizations in achieving business benefits from their IS investments and in particular their difficulties in obtaining a sustainable competitive advantage. A great deal of debate appears to exist nowadays related to the participation of information technology (IT) risks to organizational performance. Previous research has dealt with the examination of the existing relationships between the implemented information technology and firm's performance variables. This research focuses on the IT impact on firm's non-financial IT risk. The research was conducted using questionnaires that were sent to world's five hundred largest corporations as they were published in the fortune magazine (European edition, No. 14, 2003) and to Greek companies. The results indicate that IT risk factors affect mainly coordination and partially information ability but not productivity. Furthermore, the most significant risk factors affecting business performance are management ability, information integrity, controllability and exclusivity.     

中国大企业国际化进程的反思与突破

对中国大企业国际化进程及相关研究进行了简要回顾，结合国外企业国际化的研究现状，提出了企业国际化战略控制力的问题。在剖析中国企业国际化战略控制力的表现基础上，提出了培育中国大企业国际化战略控制力的一些对策建议。     

信息技术赋能创业:IT 能力对创业绩效的影响

大数据、人工智能等新一代信息技术正不断渗透和改变着创业行为和结果,为新创企业发展带来机遇与挑战。目前,企业的信息技术能力对创业活动的影响研究仍处于探索阶段。本文基于创业机会理论与资源依赖理论,考察IT能力对创业绩效的影响机制,探讨创业机会识别与开发的中介作用以及数字化业务强度的调节作用。实证分析发现：IT设施运用能力、IT业务跨越能力和IT前瞻性立场等三种IT能力均有助于提升创业绩效;创业机会识别与开发在3种IT能力与创业绩效间扮演中介角色;数字化业务强度在IT能力和创业机会识别与开发间发挥正向调节作用,并进一步调节创业机会识别与开发在3种IT能力与创业绩效间的中介作用,即：数字化业务强度越高,创业机会识别与开发的中介效应越显著。本研究丰富了信息技术赋能创业的研究内容,有助于推进信息技术在创业理论与实践中的运用。     

Global production aspirations and internationalization by state-owned enterprises: A Co-evolutionary view of state-driven industrialized economy

The study aims to explore whether internationalization by state-owned enterprises is a curse or blessing in the context of aspirant industrial economies, such as China. What do state-owned enterprises' global production aspirations, such as outward foreign direct investment, bring into their home country? To answer this question, this study proposes a unique, co-evolutionary perspective of the state-driven industrialized economy by leveraging insights from economic discoveries such as Adam Smith's wealth of nations, David Ricardo's comparative advantage, and Michael Porter's competitive advantage. This view suggests that an outward foreign investment strategy may likely provide state-owned enterprises with access to resources and advanced production technologies, enhance innovation capabilities, gain more competitive advantage, and achieve superior performance, thus leading to spillover effects on their home country's wealth, comparative advantage, and competitiveness. This study discusses China's grand policies, economic performance, and successful cross-border industrial acquisitions.     

Data quality management,data usage experience and acquisition intention of big data analytics

Big data analytics associated with database searching, mining, and analysis can be seen as an innovative IT capability that can improve firm performance. Even though some leading companies are actively adopting big data analytics to strengthen market competition and to open up new business opportunities, many firms are still in the early stage of the adoption curve due to lack of understanding of and experience with big data. Hence, it is interesting and timely to understand issues relevant to big data adoption. In this study, a research model is proposed to explain the acquisition intention of big data analytics mainly from the theoretical perspectives of data quality management and data usage experience. Our empirical investigation reveals that a firm's intention for big data analytics can be positively affected by its competence in maintaining the quality of corporate data. Moreover, a firm's favorable experience (i.e., benefit perceptions) in utilizing external source data could encourage future acquisition of big data analytics. Surprisingly, a firm's favorable experience (i.e., benefit perceptions) in utilizing internal source data could hamper its adoption intention for big data analytics.     

网络能力、组织隐性知识获取与突破性创新绩效

运用网络能力高效获取外部社会网络中的组织隐性知识,对提升KIBS中小企业突破性创新绩效有重要意义。通过理论分析及对浙江省内213家KIBS中小企业的问卷调查和实证检验,研究发现:网络规划、配置、运作和占位能力对组织文化型和根植型隐性知识获取均有显著正向影响;两类组织隐性知识获取对突破性创新绩效均有显著正向影响;组织隐性知识获取对网络运作、配置能力与突破性创新绩效关系起部分中介作用,对网络规划、占位能力与突破性创新绩效关系起完全中介作用。     

The impact of IT on supply chain agility and firm performance: An empirical investigation

This study investigates the impact of information technology (IT) on supply chain agility measured by the ability to sense and respond to market changes, and the impact supply chain agility has on firm performance. Data were collected from supply chain executives at 193 U.S. manufacturing firms. The results suggest that IT improves the supply chain's ability to sense market changes by improving the adequacy, accuracy, accessibility, and timeliness of the information flows among members of the supply chain. IT also increases the supply chain's ability to respond to market changes by reducing the cost, and improving the quality and timeliness of developing and executing coordinated plans to respond to market changes throughout the supply chain. Importantly, the results indicate that enhanced supply chain agility has positive impacts on the firm's sales, market share, profitability, speed to market, and customer satisfaction.     

The effects of alliance portfolio characteristics and absorptive capacity on performance: A study of biotechnology firms

In many high technology industries, strategic alliances have become important for improving a firm's financial performance by providing knowledge that can be used to develop the capabilities needed to introduce new products. Therefore, researchers have examined those characteristics of alliances that can contribute to the performance of high technology companies. There is agreement that the structure and knowledge flows within alliances can affect a firm's innovativeness. However, to date, researchers have studied alliances as individual events or transactions, failing to recognize their synergistic effects as a coherent portfolio. Viewing alliances as a portfolio of strategic agreements, we suggest that portfolio characteristics will be associated with a high technology firm's innovative and financial performance. Also, we suggest that portfolio characteristics will influence absorptive capacity. We test these propositions using a sample of 2456 alliances formed by 143 biopharmaceutical firms. The results indicate that alliance portfolio characteristics and absorptive capacity jointly influence performance. The implications of these findings for high technology firms are discussed.     

Participation in setting technology standards and the implied cost of equity

This study empirically investigates the financial market's reaction to firms’ participation in standard setting organizations (SSOs) in terms of firms’ implied cost of equity capital – the discount rate applied by investors to a firm's expected future cash flows. Our analysis utilizes a panel of 3350 US public firms and their membership of 183 SSOs operating in a range of technology domains between 1996 and 2014. It shows a significantly lower cost of equity for SSO participants. We then empirically document a causal link between SSO membership and a firm's cost of equity, by exploiting exogenous variations in membership count linked to SSO closures and an instrumental variable measuring SSO availability. Our results underscore the important role of SSO membership in mitigating the perceived riskiness of a firm, particularly when it faces high degrees of technological uncertainty, product-market uncertainty, and information asymmetry.     

企业信息技术能力度量与功效 ——本土模型的构建和实证研究

 通过对IT能力相关文献以及实地调研访谈从而总结出其由IT体系惯例、IT基础设施、人力IT资源、IT关系资产四个要素构成并构建了IT能力的测量指标体系,然后通过因子分析等实证检验方法进行了统计意义上的探索与验证,最后检验了IT能力对企业绩效的贡献,结果表明,IT能力对企业绩效有正向作用,不同能力因子的作用存在一定差异性。     

The role of IT in achieving operational agility: A case study of Haier,China

Operational agility has increasingly become essential for survival and prosperity for contemporary organizations. Given its significant role in a turbulent business environment, this concept has garnered considerable research attention over the past ten years. However, due to the complex nature of operational agility, how to achieve this important organizaitonal capability is still not clearly understood. Thus the present study attempts to open this black box through examing a case study of Haier, the largest household appliances producer in China. The findings of this case highlight the significant role played by IT leveraging competence in achieving operational agility. It shows that IT leveraging competence helps enhance firm's ability to process information in a turbulent business environment, which results in information processing efficiency and information processing effectiveness. With the enhancement in the ability to process information, the focal firm is capable to sense and respond to market changes more readily.     

Leveraging electronic collaboration to promote interorganizational learning

By combining research on interorganizational learning (IOL) with that on IT-enabled collaboration, this study examines the role of electronic collaboration (e-collaboration) enabled through the use of interorganizational information systems in the development of a firm's capabilities such as IOL. Moreover, this study examines IOL as a capability posited between electronic collaboration and firm performance. Finally, we conceptualize IOL as a multidimensional construct composed of information sharing, relationship-specific knowledge memory, and the development of shared meaning and verify the relationships between them. The study provides an empirical analysis of the proposed model and hypotheses by considering data from various industries. The results indicate that e-collaboration was positively related to all three components of IOL. In terms of the relationships between these components, information sharing had a positive effect on relationship-specific knowledge memory, which in turn facilitated the development of shared meaning. Only the development of shared meaning had a significant effect on firm performance. Discussions and implications of the results are provided.     

国际化程度和企业绩效M型曲线关系研究

企业在开展国际化业务的过程中呈现出明显的阶段性特征。现有研究基本认同国际化程度和企业绩效满足S型或倒S型的曲线关系,即"三段论"理论。基于对"三段论"理论的探讨和整合,利用140家国内汽车产业中小企业2005—2009年的特征面板数据,实证证明现有理论无法完整描述中小企业在国际化扩张的同时企业绩效的变化趋势。结论显示,企业的国际化过程有4个明显阶段,国际化程度和企业绩效的相关关系在这4个阶段不尽相同,二者呈现M型曲线关系。"四段论"在预测中小企业国际化过程中企业绩效的变化情况比"三段论"更为有效。     

Web knowledge sharing and its effect on innovation: an empirical investigation in SMEs

This paper extends previous studies on knowledge management by analysing factors affecting Web Knowledge Sharing (WKS) in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In addition, the impact of WKS on organizational innovation and the moderating effect of IT skills on this relation are analysed. Grounded in the technology-organization-environment (TOE) theory and the resource-based view (RBV), this paper develops an integrative research model, which analyses these relations using structural equation modelling on a data set of 535 Spanish SMEs. Results suggest that technological and organizational factors – IT expertise and commitment-based human resources practices – positively influence WKS, while the contrary is found for environmental factors (customer power). In addition, results show that WKS contributes positively to organizational innovation, though support for the moderating effect of IT skills in this relation is not found. The main conclusions of this research can be valuable to SMEs that use or intend to use Internet technologies for knowledge management.     

How does IT affect design centricity approaches: Evidence from Spain’s smart tourism ecosystem

Little or no prior work has examined how information technology enables the development of a design centered digital ecosystem. To examine this research question, we employ a capabilities lens and identify the pathways through which IT drives the development of a design centric smart tourism ecosystem. We analyzed archival data and data collected from interviews conducted in Spain, a country which has embarked on smart destinations projects and topped the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Competitiveness Index. From our analysis, we delineate and identify specific IT-enabled capabilities important for a country implementing smart tourism projects. We find that many of the IT resources available help develop key capabilities necessary for creating a design centric smart tourism ecosystem.     

风险投资、国际化战略与企业创新绩效——基于中国创业板上市公司的研究

    运用2010—2016年在我国深市创业板上市企业的面板数据,通过将国际化战略进行深度与广度的二维细分,实证考察了风险投资对企业国际化战略的影响效果,并进一步探讨了企业实施国际化战略能否提升企业创新绩效以及风险投资如何影响国际化战略对企业创新绩效的作用效应。研究发现：（1）风险投资介入对企业国际化深度与广度战略的制定和实施均具有积极作用。（2）企业实施国际化深度发展战略能够对企业的创新绩效产生显著的提升效应,而国际化广度发展战略却未能对企业的创新绩效产生积极影响,风险投资介入增强了国际化发展战略的创新增值作用,提高了国际化深度与广度战略对企业创新绩效的积极影响。（3）风险投资对国际化战略与企业创新绩效关系的调节作用会由于企业上市后风险投资机构是否继续持有股份以及风险投资机构背景特征和投资契约特征的不同而有所差异。     

Intellectual property rights,non-market considerations and foreign R&D investments

Prior research has focused on how firms use a variety of organizational mechanisms to protect their R&D investments from misappropriation risks in foreign countries. Little is known, however, about how firms can rely on non-market factors to induce preferential treatment by host government authorities, thereby protecting their intellectual property overseas. In this paper, we investigate two such non-market factors, one at the country level, the other at the firm level, that are likely to influence the choice of where firms locate their innovation activities: host country inclination towards the firm's home country and the firm's political capabilities, respectively. We thus examine how IPR policies and non-market factors interact in protecting firm innovation from misappropriation and in making countries more attractive for innovation-related activities. We find support for our predictions in a sample of 1,341 foreign R&D investments made by 163 firms from 14 home countries over the period 2003–2016.     

Business intelligence and analytics as a driver of dynamic and operational capabilities in times of intense macroeconomic turbulence

Despite growing investments in Business Intelligence and Analytics (BI&A), the business value generation process associated with the adoption of these technologies is still unclear. Consequently, managers face difficulties in justifying such initiatives and subsequently evaluating their results. For companies that operate in extremely turbulent environments, the outcomes of BI&A investments may be even harder to estimate. In this study, we propose and statistically evaluate a causal model that connects the availability of BI&A resources and capabilities in a company to its operational marketing capabilities. Marketing processes are critical for the generation of innovations in products and services, and operational revenues, and thereby, for a firm's performance and competitiveness. In order to assess our model, we applied structural equation modeling techniques to data collected in multiple units of a large Brazilian telecommunications company during the worst economic and institutional crisis faced by the country. Our results suggest that the dynamic capabilities of a company fully mediates the positive effect of BI&A resources and capabilities on its marketing capabilities. In contrast to what is usually found in the literature, turbulence did not moderate the effect of dynamic capabilities on marketing capabilities.