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The current research considers the possibility that when firms are faced with a challenging supply chain task or opportunity for supply chain operational improvement, they choose varying degrees of technology and/or collaboration as the primary vehicle(s) with which to forge a solution. This choice is suggested herein to depend largely on technological readiness, i.e. the extent to which the firm embraces available technological solutions. Furthermore, the learning capability of the firm moderates the inverse relationship between interfirm collaboration and technological readiness, such that firms having strong organizational learning capabilities are less likely to choose a collaboration‐intensive solution than those with weak learning capabilities. This paper aims to address these issues.

A sample of retail supply chain managers drawn from the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals membership database is surveyed related to their firms' levels of interfirm collaboration, organizational learning capabilities, and technological readiness. Two multiple moderated regression variants are used to test the hypotheses.

Results of this research support the hypothesized logic, and implications for practice are presented in light of a revealed inverse relationship between technological readiness and interfirm collaboration that is exacerbated when the firm has a strong learning orientation.

This paper is among the first known to examine potential internal/external tradeoffs between collaboration and technology as problem‐solving vehicles. Both managers and researchers should find it interesting that collaboration is neither wholly desirable nor necessary (and therefore the associated risks mitigated) in technologically ready and/or high learning capability environments.

The study sheds light on the internal enabling factors towards emerging market (EM) small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) preparedness for Industry 4.0 (I4.0) using three dimensions: managerial, operational and technological readiness.

The study uses convenience sampling, having online and paper-based surveys and collecting 110 responses from manufacturing Malaysian SMEs. This sample allowed assessing the relationships of the hypothesized variables through the structural model of data analysis.

This study’s findings demonstrate that financial capability and perceived benefits enhance Malaysian SMEs' managerial, operational and technological readiness.

Using Malaysia's case, this paper extends the discussion of the key drivers that underline the decision of EM firms to adopt I4.0.

This study’s results provide valuable insights for policymakers to improve the digital ecosystem. Also, understanding critical drivers for I4.0 readiness would encourage SMEs in Malaysia to embrace new digital technologies.

Although digital transformation towards I4.0 for manufacturing SMEs would be decisive, little is known about how ready these Malaysian firms are to adopt it or the driving factors that motivate them. Meanwhile, inadequate readiness causes a high failure rate in implementing new technology, processes or organizational changes.

The technology readiness and acceptance model were mostly employed as theoretical bases to analyze tourist behaviors of adoption of innovative technologies that are part of the smart tourism offer. This study attention now turns to the field of smart tourism human resource management and tries to establish a model to explain the relationship between general dimensions of personality with systematic specific dimensions toward ICT acceptance.

The authors adopted the TRAM model as a way to better understand and evaluate the causal relationships between the personality dimensions, factors of perception, attitudes and behavior of users regarding the acceptance and use of innovative technologies. Based on the empirical data of 478 employees operating in tourist organizations, travel agencies and hotels, the authors employed regression analysis as the basic method for examining the research hypotheses and causal relationships between variables in the presented model.

The analysis revealed that employees in the tourism sector are inclined to adopt new technology, and that technological readiness has an impact on attitudes and intentions toward the use of technologies. Moreover, the results show that the path between the dimensions of technological readiness and intention to use technologies is to a certain extent mediated through perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness.

This research is among the first empirical studies that examine technology readiness and adoption in the context of smart tourism development. Besides the findings extend the literature on the mediating effect of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use between technology readiness index and technology acceptance behavior.

Technology is often defined as a valuable firm resource particularly relative to marketing functions in the organization (Barua, Kriebel, & Mukhopadhyay, 1995; Bharadwaj, 2000; Christensen, Johnson, & Rigby, 2002). When resources are customized to match a marketing strategy, they become firm specific, and thus central to firm performance. Marketing employees also may be defined as an essential resource, in the context of key marketing activities that need to be accomplished (Barney, 1986, 2001; Coff, 2002; Dess & Picken, 1999). Because both employees and technology play key roles, we ground this study in the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm (Barney, 1991, 2001; Peteraf, 1993; Wernerfelt, 1984).

It has generally been anticipated that the growth of Internet technology and e-commerce would result in virtual grocery shopping (VGS) becoming a normal way of life for consumers worldwide. However, the adoption of VGS, except in China and other Asian countries, has been quite slow and there is little understanding for this reason. Using Canada as a research context, the purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of consumers towards VGS with a focus on their technological readiness and the impact of the optimisation of consumer learning.

A quantitative research methodology was undertaken using cluster analysis with descriptive statistics to segment the different groups of consumers from a sample of 1,034 adult respondents. Structural equation modelling (SEM) was then used to test a theoretical model for consumers’ intention to adopt VGS.

The study found that the attitudes of consumers towards virtual shopping, convenience motivation, perceived ease of use (PEOU), perceived risk and consumer learning are all factors that impact consumers' intention to adopt virtual food shopping. The research also identified four segments of consumers in the Canadian market based on their attitudes and intention to adopt VGS. These results allow grocers to target the consumer groups favourable to VGS and provide insights on the factors that can be manipulated via marketing strategies to reach these consumers.

Retailers are provided with insights on consumers behaviour that will allow them to target specific segments with shopping modalities.

This research investigated VGS, focussing on consumer learning as a socio-cultural influence as well as the consumer's technological readiness as an intention to adopt to this modality of shopping for food. These constructs have not been investigated by previous studies on food grocery shopping.

The internet of things (IoT) is one of the pillars of Industry 4.0. Prior OM research has conceptualized IoT, and analyzed potential applications and risks and challenges associated with its adoption. However, little empirical evidence exists on the main types of IoT projects undertaken by organizations and on their impacts. The purpose of this paper is to close this gap by searching for a taxonomy of IoT projects that may be associated to different IoT readiness levels. The dynamic capability lens is used as the theoretical background for the analysis.

A database of secondary IoT case studies is used to identify an IoT project taxonomy through two-step cluster analysis. The taxonomy obtained allows classifying projects into homogenous groups by technological novelty, IoT capabilities and functional areas of application. ANOVA is then used to test for the association between cluster membership and alternative operational impacts. Finally, the analysis of selected case studies from the database allows throwing light on the nature of the projects typical of each cluster.

Five clusters of projects have been identified and positioned along varying degrees of capabilities, novelty and scope. The taxonomy is consistent with a three layer IoT technological readiness model. In turn, the three IoT readiness levels correspond to three managerial capabilities: monitoring, control and optimization. Combining cluster results with detailed case analysis suggests that IoT technological readiness can be interpreted as a dynamic capability enabling knowledge creation that can support competitive advantage.

This is a first attempt to describe projects firms undertake when adopting IoT. Building on cluster analysis, the study suggests that different IoT readiness levels are needed to reach different impacts.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role that information and communication technologies (ICT) maturity plays in the achievement of global competitiveness at the country level. The paper investigates the socio‐economic and technological factors that are most likely to be associated with ICT maturity, and then assesses their role in driving the global competitiveness wheel forward.

Secondary data were used, based on data sets generated by the World Bank, World Economic Forum, and UNESCO for the years 2003‐2007. The countries common to all reports were included, yielding a study sample of 93 cases. Cluster analysis was used to categorize countries in terms of ICT usage, readiness, and environment. Structural equation modeling was used to test the fit of a model employing these factors.

First, it was found that ICT plays an important role in driving a country's global competitiveness forward, with a stronger relationship existing in high readiness countries than in low readiness countries. Second, ICT maturity was found to mediate the relationship between ICT quality and R&D spending on one hand and global competitiveness on the other. Finally, the relationship between R&D spending and global competitiveness was found to be stronger for low readiness countries than for high readiness countries.

The paper's findings provide insights to managers and government policy makers regarding the effects of economic, social and technological factors on ICT maturity, as well as the relationship between ICT maturity and global competitiveness. Such insights can influence the standards, programs, and strategies that governments implement in order to attain and maintain global competitiveness.

The paper presents a holistic model that depicts the ICT maturity factors and their dynamic contributions to global competitiveness. Despite the considerable contributions of existing research in this domain, there is a lack of substantive research that examines the relationship at the country level between ICT maturity and its indicators on one hand and global competitiveness on the other. The paper is an attempt to fill this gap.

Swanson's tri‐core model and typology of IS innovation is used to analyze Web services as IS innovation. Reconciling theoretical and practical perspectives, we develop a three‐layer nested‐stage model as a road map for studying Web services innovation. Most current Web services practice is at the first stage as IS technological process innovation (Type 1b). High compatibility, high divisibility, and high customizability are the primary characteristics of Web service (Type 1b), which originate from the innovation invention layer. Perceived communicability, perceived relative advantage, perceived complexity, and financial cost are the secondary characteristics of Web services (Type 1b), which are located at the innovation adoption layer. We propose a readiness model to illustrate the key controllable factors that influence the adoption decision of Web services (Type 1b): innovation awareness readiness, innovation‐needs fit readiness, technological skills readiness, and financial resources readiness.

This paper aims to provide a helpful tool for those who plan to implement blockchain-based solutions for the governance of the electronic medical record (EMR) in health-care settings. The goals are to identify each type of stakeholders involved in these projects and to clarify the relevance, to achieve success, of their readiness, intended as availability and ability to adopt blockchain.

The chosen methodology is a multiple case study on three initiatives that used blockchain to manage EMRs. This study relied on multiple sources of evidence. The primary data consisted of two rounds of semi-structured interviews with different informants. This study followed a grounded theory approach and performed within- and cross-case analyses.

This study identified the types of stakeholders – nodes and not-nodes – of the network and how their readiness level affects the implementation of blockchain-based projects applied to EMR. The nodes (e.g. patients and doctors) are pivotal in making the network working once this has been constructed. Out of the four readiness dimensions suggested by literature, motivational readiness, has the higher impact. Not-nodes stakeholders play a pivotal role in the project’s pre-implementation phase. For them, structural readiness is the dimension with the higher relevance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first time that a paper analyses the differences between nodes and not-nodes stakeholders of the blockchain network, in terms not only of type but also of readiness. Identifying the readiness level to implement successful projects is a fundamental step that has never been analysed in the health field.