Technological Factors Relevant to Continuity on ERP for E-Business Platform: Integration,Modularity, and Flexibility

ABSTRACT

Most enterprise systems (ES) solutions have evolved with the technological factors of flexibility, modularity and integration embedded to fit both business and information technology (IT) requirements for many organizations. Recently, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and business-to-business electronic business (e-business) have received much attention within both the practitioner and academic communities, especially concerning the technological factors. The purpose of this study is to develop a framework that could be used to investigate a possible relationship between ERP and other ES systems with the factors of flexibility, integration and modularity for e-business.

In the 1990's, ERP systems were introduced to fulfill some of the technological requirements across functional areas within a corporate boundary. Moreover, with the exponential growth of Internet technology and the emergence of e-business, the focus of ERP systems has changed from an integrated functional focus within an organization to one reaching outside the organization throughout the value chain system. It is expected that an ERP system can facilitate an e-business effort of an organization.

In order to serve as a platform for e-business, an ERP system must also be able to be extended to support a range of external constituents for a firm. The process must involve an investigation of ERP technological factors along with any other emerging ES solution of the firm. This study investigates ERP and other ES systems for e-business with a focus on the technological factors of flexibility, integration, and modularity.     

E-Business Adoption by SMEs--Prerequisites and Attitudes of SMEs in a Swedish Network

The context for this research is the transformation process of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from traditional (t-) businesses toward e-businesses and the accompanying development of the knowledge and competence among employees. SMEs constitute a great part of the Swedish industry and economy. This and the fact that they have special prerequisites concerning human and technology resources makes SMEs an interesting research focus when looking at the transformation process toward e-business. The aim of this research is to investigate SMEs with the purpose of designing, implementing, and evaluating information technology-supported activities that will allow SMEs to approach e-business. This article presents results from parts of an ongoing study, that involves seven SMEs. This study will be conducted in two main phases: first, informative and preparatory activities and second, business transformation and competence development activities. This article focuses on the first phase of the study, but an insight in its current status and further research is given. The underlying prerequisites for SMEs as well as the research approach are described. A working model is presented that illustrates stages of maturity for taking an enterprise toward e-business. The last sections present the research design, that is, planning, actions, observations, and reflections of the study up until now. New actions to take are discussed at the end of this article.     

Investigating a neglected part of Schumpeter’s creative army: what drives new-to-the-market innovation in micro-enterprises?

This paper tests a theoretical model to evaluate e-business capability and value in the fast growth small-to-medium enterprise (SME) context. We propose that e-business value depends on how fast growth SMEs deploy IT resources, strategic planning, culture, and business partnerships to develop e-business capability and business process competence which help these companies to achieve outstanding business performance. Structural equation modelling is employed to test our theoretical conceptualization on a cohort of 310 Australian fast growth SMEs across different industrial sectors. The results show that IT resources, strategic IT alignment, market orientation, and business partnerships do contribute significantly and indirectly to SME performance through the development of e-business capability and business process competence. Our study provides an initial empirical evidence to understand the relationship between IT and entrepreneurial SME performance. These findings have important implications for research and business practices.     

BPR与电子商务

在企业管理模式和管理手段改造的实践过程中,要想借助电子商务系统改善生产经营,需要对企业原有业务流程进行重组;通过电子商务系统的应用,可以更好地支撑和固化新的业务流程。企业也只有以系统的眼光看待企业业务流程重组,注重电子商务与BPR同步进行,在流程重组中开发电子商务的应用潜能,真正发挥电子商务的作用,才能真正实现企业流程重组。     

E-business's impact on organizational flexibility

Organizations are finding that their ability to respond to unpredicted changes in the market is becoming a key factor in survival. The ability to adjust e-business processes to customer preferences (flexibility) has become a necessity for online systems. Despite the interest in e-business flexibility the academic literature has not kept pace with industrial developments. This research study builds upon previous work through two investigations. First, the results of five case studies are used to develop a seven (alliance/joint decision management and intelligence, enterprise-wide change management, organizational learning, process oriented agility, network centric information management, leadership of transformation and knowledge exchange meetings) factor model that depicts the influences of flexibility on organizational effectiveness in e-business environments. Second, this paper illustrates how the model can be used as a benchmarking tool and has the potential to become a key learning mechanism. The authors discuss the conclusions and managerial implications of the findings.     

The Process of Trust Formation in E-Business: Insights from Case Studies of Two Small Firms

Purpose: The purpose of this research is to investigate and theoretically explain the process of trust formation in high risk e-business.

Methodology/approach: The interpretive case-based approach has been used in this study. Inductive analysis of interview data helped to develop the process model of trust formation in the context of business-to-business e-market transactions by two small firms.

Research implications: This research explains how and why trial outcomes influence trust formation. The findings also indicate the importance of the trialing process as a legitimate means of determining trustworthiness of the other party and the e-business platform. These findings add to the existing body of knowledge on trust in e-business and have important implications for further research.

Practical implications: The practical implication is that if sponsors of business-to-business e-markets can support initial trials, it would foster trust and lead to more active usage of e-business methods.

Originality/value/contribution: This research shows that trust formation in high risk e-business is a dynamic process, influenced by changes in risk perceptions from repeated trial outcomes in initial stages, a departure from prior variance studies with assumptions of static perceptions of risk and trust.     

An E-Valuation Framework for Developing Net-Enabled Business Metrics Through Functionality Interaction

Managers engaged in net-enabled business planning seek metrics to help them analyze the success of their e-business investments. Likewise, researchers require metrics to build analytical models and conduct empirical research on the impact of e-business strategies on firm performance. In this article, the authors develop a comprehensive E-Valuation Framework for identifying net-enabled applications and their resulting user-based functionalities for activities across the value chain. The authors propose that the real value from net-enabled applications can be found in functionality interactions, where one application enables or enhances functionality in another application. The comprehensive framework can be used to generate three types of metrics managers can use to evaluate their net-enabled strategic initiatives. Further, a classification of net-enabled organizations provides the basis for selecting applications critical to a firm's strategic thrusts. We make use of the resource-based view of the firm and real-options analysis to discuss how successful application deployment is based on the resources and assets the firm possesses as well as managing the rollout of an applications portfolio over time. The framework allows managers to map their organization's net-enabled initiatives into a coherent, easily understood visual representation and provides direction for researchers evaluating the efficacy of net-enabled business strategies.     

金融成长与产业发展内在机理

产业成长是金融成长的基础,金融成长是产业成长的重要推动力,二者保持合理的匹配关系是一国经济持续、快速发展的重要条件。本文构建的金融成长与产业成长匹配关系模型表明:在产权制度、资源禀赋、制度变迁等条件约束下,在经济发展的不同阶段,金融成长对产业成长的贡献度不同;产业成长的任何变动都会导致资金市场匹配关系的变化,但二者具有长期均衡关系。实证检验表明中国的金融成长滞后于产业成长,中国应实行金融优先发展战略,以金融成长保证和加快产业成长。     

国外零售商自有品牌研究综述

本文依据产业组织的相关理论,对国外近年来有关零售商自有品牌研究的文献,从零售商开发自有品牌的动机、影响自有品牌产生和发展的因素,以及自有品牌的价格效应等方面进行了系统地分析整理和评述,发现无论是理论分析还是实证检验,在一些问题的研究上有较大的分歧,主要原因可能是在分析中忽略了一些其他方面的影响机制,如零售资源的约束等。     

Managing Returns in E-Business

ABSTRACT

This paper is a discussion of managing returned goods in e-business. After a discussion of literature on reverse logistics management issues it discusses some preliminary findings of a research project undertaken with the Australian e-business organisations. Research findings discussed in this paper indicate that a good return management process supports customer relationship management and enables capturing value by reselling, and redistributing returned products. It also highlights that effectively managing returns in e-business allows recapturing value from products. It is concluded from this research that reverse logistics is an important business process in e-business.     

E-Business Method: A Cyclical-Model for Internet Commerce Development

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a methodology for designing and deploying electronic enterprises–a step beyond intuitive or rule-based approaches. As a starting point, the paper presents a cyclical-model consisting of three e-business development phases: conceptualization, simulation, and implementation. Since an e-business “idea” rarely springs forth complete and ready to go, realizing the idea–that is, turning it into a commercial product, system, process, or profitable enterprise–requires business development. Business development requires analysis of the potential organizational structures, IT architectures, HR policies and procedures, strategies, market niche, partnership agreements, and so on, until a satisfactory enterprise design is found. Such consideration and experimentation can be done mentally (intuitively), or by drawing on a napkin (informally), or more logically using strategic and marketing analysis, revenue/cost/asset/operational business models, computer simulations, and other quantitative and qualitative management practices and techniques. In any case, only rarely is the result of the first development effort completely satisfactory, perhaps the business system or process will be too difficult to develop, too complex, or too costly to implement, maintain, or sell. So, once again the business idea goes into the cycle of developing, testing, redeveloping, implementing, and re-testing. Succinctly, the methodology advocated in this paper provides a framework for guiding the e-business development process.     

Reseller adoption of manufacturers' e-business tools: The impact of social enforcement, technology-relationship fit and the mediating role of reseller benefits

Manufacturer-reseller relationships are increasingly becoming technology-infused as distribution managers are employing e-business tools to streamline existing channels. This research examines the role of social enforcement, relationship-technology fit and the perceived reseller benefits in reseller adoption of manufacturers' e-business tools. The results of the empirical test involving a sample of 224 resellers suggest that social enforcement and technology-relationship factors impact reseller e-business adoption, while reseller benefits play a mediating role. Implications of these findings for researchers and managers are discussed.     

Dynamic capabilities and new product development in high technology ventures: An empirical analysis of new biotechnology firms

In industries populated by entrepreneurial high technology firms, the rapid development of new products is viewed as a key determinant of success. Developing a portfolio of new products is necessary to gain early cash flows, external visibility and legitimacy, early market share, and increase the likelihood of survival (Schoonhoven, Eisenhardt, and Lymman 1990). In addition, recent research has shown that new product development improves a firm's ability to raise money through an initial public offering (Deeds, DeCarolis, and Coombs 1997).This paper develops a model of new product development which is tested on a sample of 94 pharmaceutical biotechnology companies. We hypothesize that new product development capabilities are a function of a firm's scientific, technological, and managerial skills. To test this relationship, we develop several firm specific measures in an attempt to triangulate in on the core construct of firm specific new product development capabilities.Some important implications for entrepreneurs/managers of high technology firms flow from our results. First, entrepreneur/managers need to view the choice of geographic location as an important strategic decision which will impact their firm's access to the skilled technical personnel and the streams of knowledge. Our results indicate that a choice location has a significant concentration of similar firms, but the level has not yet reached a point where competition for resources in the local environment offsets any advantages of the location. In the case of biotechnology, this would seem to indicate that the prime locations would be expanding areas such as San Diego, Seattle, and Philadelphia rather then the established locations of Silicon Valley and Boston.Second, as scientific knowledge plays an ever more important role in a firm's success the quality of the firm's scientific team is a critical ingredient in a firm's new product development capability. But how do you evaluate the quality of scientific personnel? Our results indicate that there is a strong positive relationship between the impact—as measured by citations—of a team's prior research in the academic community and the productivity of that team in a commercial research laboratory. Therefore, the judgement of a scientific field, captured by citations or perhaps expert judgement, should prove to be a useful tool when evaluating personnel for a firm's research team.Third, the results from our measures of CEO experience and the percentage of the top management team with a Ph.D. are interesting. As expected the prior experience of CEO in managing a commercial research facility enhances a firm's new product development capabilities. However, results for our top management team variable appears to indicate that the over reliance on technical personnel in the management of the organization detracts from the product development process. Taken together these results seem to imply that it is important that the leadership of the organization have knowledge of and experience in managing the new product development process, but that diverting the firm's scientific personnel's energies away from the laboratory and into the management of the organization maybe counter-productive. Therefore, what a high technology venture appears to need is leadership that understands and has experience in the new product development process, but which is separate and distinct from the scientific team. This type of leadership keeps the scientific team focused on research and development, and out of the boardroom.     

E-Business Education in Transition

ABSTRACT

The present study built on previous research to explore the development of e-business education in North America. Data was collected from college and university web sites on master's and bachelor's e-business programs. Findings suggest that the number of both types of e-business programs is increasing. The proportion of technical e-business courses in such programs also appears to be growing. This may reflect a move toward balanced treatment of technical and nontechnical e-business course content.     

Moving resources across permeable project boundaries in open network contexts

This paper discusses how firms develop and use resources across a permeable project boundary and conceptualizes how a project can create value for a focal parent organization. Inspired by ideas on interaction and open innovation, we suggest a framework for analyzing the flow of resources based on the two dimensions; direction, whether the resource starts inside or outside the project, and mode, whether the resources cross the boundary once (uni-directionally) or twice (bi-directionally). The dimensions lead to four situations: Inside-out, Outside-in, Boomerang and Passing on. The framework is based on a single case study of an inter-organizational research project in plant biotechnology in a Swedish context. Through these four situations, the results show that a focal parent organization can create direct, indirect, relational potential and transactional potential value. The complex pattern of value creation in an open network context, raises the challenging question of how to capture the value created.     

Measuring Electronic Commerce Technology–Enabled Business Value: An Empirical Investigation

This research investigates whether firms using e-commerce technologies are successful in generating business value and, if so, which e-commerce drivers determine this success and how firms should use these drivers. There is no systematic empirical evidence in the IT productivity and business value literature regarding the payoffs a business receives from its e-business initiatives. The current research contributes to the literature in the e-commerce area by identifying a set of e-business value constructs, incorporating these constructs in a model in a manner not done before, and empirically validating the model using an Analysis of MOment Structures (AMOS)/?Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis. The present research also contributes to the e-business value literature by providing insights into causal relationships among Rogers' innovation and diffusion theory (IDT) factors. This is the first time a research study has empirically established comprehensive causal relationships among these factors. The SEM analysis of the model indicates that the proposed model is able to explain e-commerce success utilizing the constructs identified and grounded using IT business value literature and Rogers' IDT. We conclude by summarizing its contributions to the IT literature, in general, and the e-business literature, in particular, and by providing insights for practice and suggestions for future research.     

Theoretical Model of E-Business Infusion in Manufacturer-Reseller Relationships

Manufacturer-reseller relationships are becoming much more technology-infused as distribution managers are employing e-business tools to streamline existing channels. This paper attempts to develop a theoretical framework aimed at systematically studying e-business infusion in reseller-manufacturer interactions based on technology diffusion and governance frameworks and relevant propositions are developed. Implications of the theoretical framework for researchers and managers are discussed.     

我国中小企业电子商务存在问题及对策

随着互联网以及各项相关技术的日趋成熟,电子商务在社会经济领域得到了广泛的应用。在电子商务中,用户可将自己的各类意愿按照一定的格式输入电子商务网络,可进行多种网上交易业务的选择。电子商务为中小企业提供了新的发展契机。进行信息网络建设,抢占市场,抓住机遇,是中小企业获得竞争优势的关键。     

一蹶不振或再次出发？领导拒谏对员工行为动机的影响研究

员工谏言被拒绝是现实中常见的一种现象,领导拒绝谏言、选择沉默或没有给与回应都可以被认为是一种社会排斥行为。社会排斥相关理论能够为我们理解领导拒绝谏言后的员工行为动机提供一个好的理论依据。Williams在大量实验基础上提出的需要威胁时间模型是社会排斥研究中较成熟且适用广泛的理论模型。本研究将拒谏作为独立的排斥事件,在需要威胁时间模型下构建了领导拒谏影响员工行为动机的理论模型,探讨了在拒谏事件发生后,动态时间变化过程中,因拒谏这一排斥行为造成的消极情绪和需要威胁在不同个人特质和情境因素下如何影响员工的行为动机。通过厘清影响员工行为动机的相关因素和行为结果,丰富了谏言反应的相关研究,为组织获取长效、持续的员工谏言提供现实参考。     

发展第三方物流,提高物流企业核心竞争力

目前我国第三方物流发展的实际十分落后和缓慢,与越来越多的企业物流外包的物流需求发展极不适应,发展第三方物流成为我国物流发展的必然趋势。本文从我国第三方物流业发展中存在的问题出发,有针对性地提出了规范化地发展现代物流、加强物流企业流程改造、加大物流信息化建设力度、开展电子商务物流、发展综合物流代理业务和培育大型物流企业、壮大企业规模的第三方物流发展对策。