The coordination effect of B2B digital process capabilities on competitive performance: balancing or complementing
Journal of Enterprise Information Management
ISSN: 1741-0398
Article publication date: 14 October 2021
Issue publication date: 14 March 2022
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the consequences of two strategies of coordinating the online procurement capability and the online channel management capability on competitive performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A research model is presented to examine the performance impacts of these two coordination strategies, namely the balancing strategy (achieving a close match relationship) and the complementing strategy (maintaining the synergy effect), and tested using firm-level data collected from 196 manufacturing firms in China. Garen's two-stage econometric technique was used to identify the impacts of two coordination strategies on competitive performance.
Findings
Our study discusses and compares two different coordination strategies of mitigating the operational tensions across processes and deploying resource configurations for improving competitive performance. Our results show that while the balancing strategy can mitigate the risks resulted, the complementing strategy does not create synergistic effects on the focal firms' competitive performance.
Originality/value
The results extend our understanding of the nature of B2B digital process coordination both in IS management and supply chain operations.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Authors acknowledge financial support from National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 71672183 and 71702176, and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central University, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) under Grants CUGESIW1801.
Citation
Zhu, Z., Lin, S., Jiang, Y. and Liu, Q. (2022), "The coordination effect of B2B digital process capabilities on competitive performance: balancing or complementing", Journal of Enterprise Information Management, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 918-946. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEIM-01-2021-0037
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited