Post-Adoption Variations in Usage and Value of E-Business by Organizations: Cross-Country Evidence from the Retail Industry

Abstract

G rounded in the innovation diffusion literature and the resource-based theory, this paper develops an integrative research model for assessing the diffusion and consequence of e-business at the firm level. Unlike the typical focus on adoption as found in the literature, we focus on postadoption stages, that is, actual usage and value creation. The model thus moves beyond dichotomous "adoption versus nonadoption" and accounts for the "missing link"-actual usage-as a critical stage of value creation. The model links technological, organizational, and environmental factors to e-business use and value, based on which a series of hypotheses are developed. The theoretical model is tested by using structural equation modeling on a dataset of 624 firms across 10 countries in the retail industry. To probe deeper into whether e-business use and value are influenced by economic environments, two subsamples from developed and developing countries are compared. The study finds that technology competence, firm size, financial commitment, competitive pressure, and regulatory support are important antecedents of e-business use. In addition, the study finds that, while both front-end and back-end capabilities contribute to e-business value, back-end integration has a much stronger impact. While front-end functionalities are becoming commodities, e-businesses are more differentiated by back-end integration. This is consistent with the resource-based theory because back-end integration possesses the value-creating characteristics of resources (e.g., firm specific, difficult to imitate), which are strengthened by the Internet-enabled connectivity. Our study also adds an international dimension to the innovation diffusion literature, showing that careful attention must be paid to the economic and regulatory factors that may affect technology diffusion across different countries.

An evaluation model for the implementation of hospital information system in public hospitals using multi-criteria-decision-making (MCDM) approaches

“…It has been applied to understand the adoption of many IS applications or technologies such as interorganizational systems, e-business, electronic data interchange, open systems, and enterprise systems. However, each study used slightly different factors as measures for each of the framework's dimensions [5], [73], [83]. In addition, according to Table 1, it can be demonstrated that in order to explain the adoption of several diverse IS innovations; TOE framework can successfully be utilized.…”

“…In addition, according to Table 1, it can be demonstrated that in order to explain the adoption of several diverse IS innovations; TOE framework can successfully be utilized. Likewise, the TOE model was applied and tested in Asian, European, and American, in addition to both developed and developing countries [73], [83][84][85]. To all intents and purposes, the experts generally agree on the three TOE dimensions suggested by Tornatzky and Fleischer [76], including the effect of environment, organization and technology adoption.…”

“…One of the popular antecedents to IS diffusion is financial resources [83], [128]. In the same line, one of the strongest predictors for successful adoption and implementation is sustainable funding available for implementing and continuing an innovation [129].…”

Journal of Strategic Information Systems

“…The TOE theory has been used by a large number of studies to investigate the adoption of, for example, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) (Kuan and Chau, 2001), open systems (Chau and Tam, 1997), and e-business (Zhu and Kraemer, 2005). The main contribution of TOE is that it encourages the researcher to take the broader context into account in which innovation takes place.…”

“…Following what Zhu and Kraemer (2005) have suggested, we mainly focus on the financial aspect of commitment which refers to the commitment of financial resources to Green IT as a proportion of total organizational resources. In the particular context of Green IT, we tend to adopt and tailor such measurable indicators as Green IT operating budget as percent of total revenue and Green IT spending as percent of total revenue as recommended by Zhu and Kraemer (2005) to denote the degree to which the financial aspect of commitment represents overall organizational resources. The literature of IS adoption and innovation has indicated that financial resources is another important antecedent to IS diffusion (Iacovou et al, 1995;Ramamurthy et al, 1999;Zhu and Kraemer, 2005).…”