Organizations' competitiveness and success are no longer dependent solely on their own performance, but rather are dependent on the competitiveness of the supply chains in which they participate. Increasingly, these supply chains are globally distributed introducing the possibility of greater benefits, as well as greater risk. This study examines the countervailing impact of a global supply chain partner's business-to-business e-commerce business risk and absorptive capacity on an organization's willingness to commit to and share information with that supply chain partner. We survey 207 organizations on their perceptions of specific offshore outsourcing and supply chain partners across dimensions of risk, absorptive capacity, commitment, and information sharing. The results support the theorized relationships indicating that a supply chain partner's increased levels of perceived risk has a strong negative effect on an organization's commitment and information sharing; conjointly, increases in a supply chain partner's absorptive capacity has a strong positive effect on commitment and information sharing. For both risk and absorptive capacity, commitment partially mediates the relationship with information sharing. Testing for systemic effects from geographical/cultural location on the relationship factors provides no evidence of a regional effect on measured items.

The focus of this study is to identify the critical risk factors that can be used to assess the impact of B2B e-commerce on overall enterprise risk. We apply the Khazanchi and Sutton (2001) framework for B2B e-commerce assurance as the organizing conceptual model for the study. The framework focuses on three primary risk components: (1) technical risks, (2) application-user risks, and (3) business risks. To identify a critical set of B2B risk factors, structured focus groups applying a nominal group technique were conducted with three internal constituency groups (corporate groups consisting of IS security, internal IT audit, and e-commerce development managers) and two external constituency groups (ecommerce consultants and external IT auditors). Tests of consistency between the groups confirm strong agreement on the identified critical B2B risk factors. Tests were also conducted on participant groups' perceived relative importance of the critical B2B risk factors. The only substantial inconsistencies were between the internal constituency groups and the ecommerce consultants' group for the business risk factors. This would appear to indicate that the priorities of internal groups might be different from the e-commerce consultants who appear more focused on management support of projects than on active involvement of trading partner staff with systems integration. Subsequent testing of the three-component B2B risk assurance model with a follow-up questionnaire suggests that the identified risk factors support the model, including theorized interrelationships among the three risk components.

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As organizations increasingly face the need to compete for market share by building highly integrated global supply chains, governance of these complex relationships becomes a major strategic challenge. Research reporting high failure rates for collaborative alliances with supply chain partners makes formation of global supply chains a high-risk venture. This study examines the influence of strategic enterprise risk management (ERM) processes on improving supply chain capability while mitigating risks. ERM has become a major strategic management focus, and researchers suggest this momentum arises from the need for governance mechanisms that counter the ineffectiveness of government intervention and cooperation in cross-border relationships. We survey 207 organizations on their perceptions of their own ERM processes and a specific supply chain partner's absorptive capacity, B2B e-commerce business risk, and the global business risk associated with that partner relationship. The results support theorized relationships positing that stronger ERM promotes higher levels of partner absorptive capacity, lower B2B risk, and lower associated global business risk. Results further show that associated global business risk is reduced through managing and controlling partner absorptive capacity and B2B risk. Additional analyses show that stronger ERM is associated with partners being from countries with cultural traits conducive to strong supply chain performance.