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To develop a preliminary framework for Australian agribusiness organisations seeking to select business‐to‐business (B2B) e‐business models.

A literature review was conducted on topics related to strategic decision making and B2B e‐business models. Particularly, factors influencing the strategic decision on the choice of e‐business models to be selected were examined. The review aims to provide an initial framework for the research study to be conducted. The research was conducted in two stages: depth interviews (stage one) and case studies (stage two).

Provides information on factors (both internal and external) influencing the choice of e‐business models and also insight into the current practices of Australian agribusiness in relation to the selection process of B2B e‐business models. A framework was developed to assist agribusiness organisations to make decisions on the selection of the most appropriate e‐business models.

This study is exploratory in nature and thus the findings cannot be generalised to the population at large. Further conclusive explanatory research is required for generalisation and the guidelines developed in this study could be replicated and tested in other agribusiness sectors or in other industries.

Managers are able to consider and examine the relevance of the guidelines and criteria developed, and determine the essential factors that require consideration during their selection process. The guidelines can also assist managers to determine the level of resources, technological infrastructure and knowledge and understanding of e‐business models required.

This paper brings together two disciplines – strategic decision making and development of e‐business models – that have not been combined prior to this study. The research findings have contributed to the development of existing theory in these two areas. The research also offers insights into the selection of e‐business models within the agribusiness industry that traditionally lagged behind in e‐business. The development of the framework and guidelines has assisted managers in their selection of e‐business models and given them an appreciation of what others in the industry are doing.

This study aims to examine the relationships between contingency factors and the effectiveness of the implementation of core e‐business strategies and to explore the influences on the implementation process quality for e‐business strategy.

To examine the relationships between the constructs in the research model, data were gathered via a questionnaire survey sent to 650 manufacturing enterprises in Taiwan.

The survey results indicate that some factors influence the effectiveness of the implementation of core e‐business strategies. The implications of the findings for practice and future research are also examined.

Business managers or IS executives of enterprises should consider these environmental, organizational and technological contingency factors while implementing e‐business strategies.

Numerous researchers have proposed various studies relating to e‐business strategies. However, these studies focused on developing e‐business planning frameworks and conducting case studies, and little attention has been paid to empirical studies examining the influences of contingency factors on the implementation of e‐business strategies. The results of this study will be of interest to business managers or strategic planners who are initiating or conducting e‐business strategic planning exercises, as well as to researchers in the field of information systems strategic planning and management.

Electronic business (e‐business) today plays a major role in the world economic growth, thanks to the rapid advance in information technology. Recent estimates from Forester Research show that by 2003 the value of e‐commerce of US and Europe will reach US$3 trillion, the number of households in the USA that have PCs will reach 64 million, those that have access to the Internet will reach 60 million, and the number of mobile phones will reach 69 million. There are many spectacular successful e‐businesses but there are also numerous failures. Presents a study of e‐business success at Intel Corp. Intel reached $1 billion value in e‐business in its first month of deployment in July 1998. For the year of 2000, Intel’s profits climbed to $10.5 billion to become the fifth most profitable company in the USA, up from the eighth rank last year. Concludes with lessons learned and success factors.

While e‐business is often mixed with electronic commerce (e‐commerce), they are completely different concepts. E‐business encompasses e‐commerce as well as many other applications. There are more benefits to be derived from e‐business than from e‐commerce. Electronic business (e‐business) is revolutionizing the way of communication between internal and external stakeholders within an organization. Connecting numerous information systems and integrating data streams can significantly increase the operational efficiency of the firm. E‐business can lead to competitive advantage as well as profitability.

To examine the impact of organizational learning factors (training available, technical expertise, and knowledge level) and knowledge management processes (knowledge acquisition, knowledge application, and knowledge sharing) on e‐business systems adoption level.

The data from a survey of 202 IS executives in Taiwan were used empirically to test the proposed research model. Moreover, confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model, and the structural equation modelling technique was used to evaluate the research model.

The analytical results showed that organizational learning factors and knowledge management processes are closely related to the level of e‐business systems adoption. However, knowledge sharing did not significantly affect e‐business systems adoption level.

Future studies could seek an enhanced understanding of the impacts on the level of e‐business adoption of the organizational learning and knowledge management factors investigated in this paper through structured interviews and case studies of IS executives dealing with ongoing or recently completed e‐business systems projects.

Owner/managers considering e‐business systems adoption would be best to focus on both social and technical factors, and their interaction within and beyond the organization, rather than focusing exclusively on technological considerations.

This paper has implications for e‐business managers or policy‐makers in formulating policies and targeting appropriate organizational capabilities to ensure effective adoption of e‐business systems.

The purpose of this paper is to aim to evaluate to what extent present e‐business models for digital audio distribution meet the consumer's expectations.

The research method in this paper is particularly based on two empirical studies. In the first study, the supplier side was examined. In this context, 15 e‐business models in the German music market were identified, classified according to two criteria (type of compensation and dependency on the supplier or its technology) and analysed with regard to four aspects “type and volume of content”, “price of content”, “rights of use”, and “additional services”. To evaluate the identified e‐business models, the consumer expectations for digital audio distribution were analysed in a second study. Finally, the results of both studies were compared.

The paper finds that most of the identified e‐business models do not meet all of the fundamental consumer expectations. Either the identified category of e‐business models and its characteristics (e.g. dependency on technology) lead to a conflict with regard to the expectations of the consumers, or the implemented e‐business models reveal discrepancies between the concrete offer and the demand.

The results in the paper are limited to e‐business models for digital audio distribution in the German music market.

The paper shows that, in order to reach more consumers, most of the existing e‐business models have to be modified.

Based on two empirical studies, this paper presents the state‐of‐the‐art of the digital audio distribution in Germany and systematically identifies gaps between the demand and the supply side of digital audio content.

The objective of this paper is to identify the features of an effective e‐business performance measurement system, as well as the practices in organisations with distinctive e‐business performance metrics. From this it was hoped to identify a set of best practice recommendations.

A case study methodology is used to examine the performance measurement practices of 12 potentially exemplar organisations that have made efforts to develop distinctive performance metrics for e‐business. Qualitative data are collected from interviews with key informants from each organisation, with supporting data generate from company documents.

The study has uncovered a variety of approaches to e‐business performance measurement, with no common framework apparent. Whilst the case organisations show significant differences in the level of success achieved in developing suitable measures, there is evidence of a common concern to link e‐business performance to organisational objectives. However, there is a general unwillingness to embark on major overhauls of existing performance measurement systems.

The acknowledged weakness of case study research is that it can only investigate a limited number of situations. This raises the issue of the generalisability of the findings to a wider population. However, in the absence of empirical work in this area, the case organisations provided examples of superior practice in e‐business performance measurement when compared to organisations more generally.

This study identifies several gaps between the academic literature and current management practice, suggesting that researchers should consider the impact of theory on the process of organisational performance management. It also offers advice for organisations with respect to absorbing e‐business measures into their current performance measurement systems.

This paper offers empirical understanding of the application of performance metrics to e‐business and identifies several inconsistencies between academic theory and real‐world practice.

The purpose of this paper is to propose and empirically test a unified framework that captures the antecedents of e-business implementation, that is; organizational factors which is decomposed into organizational capabilities (training availability, technical expertise, knowledge level), knowledge management capabilities (knowledge acquisition, application, and sharing), adhocracy culture, and top management support, e-business implementation, and organizational performance (efficiency, sales performance, customer satisfaction, relationship development).

Data from a survey of 258 top managers in Saudi Arabian enterprises were collected to empirically test the proposed research model. Additionally, the statistical techniques employed included a confirmatory factor analysis to examine the reliability and validity of the measurement model, and structural equation modeling using AMOS is utilized to test the hypotheses.

The findings of this study suggest that organizational factors influence e-business implementation. Moreover, e-business implementation affects organizational performance.

This study did not investigate all organizational factors and knowledge management processes. Future research could assess the influence of additional factors such as technology and environment contexts on e-business implementation.

Owners/managers considering e-business implementation would be best to focus on internal (organizational) factors and their interaction within and beyond the organization, rather than focussing exclusively on technological considerations.

This study is significant for at least two reasons: it determines the key antecedents to successful business implementation based on organizational factors and it helps to understand the effects of e-business implementation on organizational performance.

E‐business adoption among small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) has been limited because of resource constraints and a failure to understand the strategic value of e‐business. To facilitate decision making concerning e‐business applications and their implementation, simple, low cost tools are needed to assist in analyzing and developing effective e‐business strategies. This paper aims to evaluate the use of e‐business applications among SMEs, to test the robustness of importance‐performance (IP) analysis models and to present IP mapping as a resource/tool for decision making.

A total of 19 e‐business motivations were identified from the literature and incorporated into a self‐administered survey questionnaire. Data were collected from 439 SMEs located throughout the US.

Most IP studies have assumed that importance and performance are independent; however, three recent studies have argued otherwise, identifying positive, negative and v‐shaped relationships. The study finds a fourth, N‐shaped relationship between importance and performance. This is an extension of the v‐shaped relationship and appears when the full range of performance scale values is displayed.

The relationship between the “importance” and “performance” variables suggests a path of travel that can help show the e‐business adoption states and the possible undulations in e‐business strategies along the path. Firms can identify their location on an IP map relative to the N‐shaped path and then identify the path to the optimum location on the map.

This paper should be useful for academic researchers and business practitioners seeking guidance in terms of which e‐business applications to adopt and implement.

In 2003 the authors investigated the level of adoption of e‐business by manufacturing firms in Europe. Four company strategies were identified based on different extents of adoption of internet‐based tools for interaction with customers and/or suppliers. The purpose of this paper is to replicate, those analyses using the new release of the International Manufacturing Strategy Survey (IMSS) IV. These new results are compared with previous ones in order to determine whether modeling previously described in the literature remains valid.

Data collected in Europe through IMSS III and IV are used. In particular, companies are clustered according to e‐business practices adopted in supply chain management (SCM) and the degree of adoption of e‐business between the two editions of the research is compared. A longitudinal analysis is also conducted using data from companies participating in both editions of the survey.

It is shown that the fundamental aspects of the modeling approach earlier proposed in the literature remain valid, with a higher average level of adoption of e‐business tools in the more recent edition of the study. However, the four‐cluster model is shown to be no longer valid. In the more recent dataset, three clusters emerge. They are characterized by different levels of adoption of e‐business, balanced between e‐commerce and e‐procurement. The longitudinal analysis shows that the firms participating in both editions of the research have changed their strategy, coherently to what the overall sample does.

This paper is focused on the assembly industry and only part of the sample is strictly longitudinal. Further research is needed to relate e‐business strategy with performance and to distinguish among the various tools available.

This paper also shows that the adoption of e‐business is increasing among small and medium firms, even if the practices adopted by any individual company remain limited. Results show that a cautious adoption is preferable to more radical implementation, since some firms have actually reduced their initial efforts to adopt e‐business.

The literature currently lacks extensive, longitudinal studies on e‐business strategies in SCM. The paper shows how the concept has rapidly evolved recently, and it modifies models that are proposed only a few years ago in the face of new data.