The effect of information technology assimilation on firm performance in B2B scenarios

Eva Martinez-Caro, Gabriel Cepeda-Carrión, Juan Gabriel Cegarra-Navarro, Alexeis Garcia-Perez

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    26 Citations (Scopus)
    679 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    Purpose: The spread of the Internet in the business world has led to the development of new business-to-business (B2B) settings. Although a large number of companies have adopted B2B strategies, many of these fail to implement such strategies effectively. The most common barriers encompass the technology assimilation by users. This study investigates how IT assimilation can encourage potential and realised absorptive capacity and how these can, in turn, facilitate organisational agility and performance. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted in Spanish companies that make use of Editran, a platform to support B2B strategies. In total, 110 valid responses were obtained. Advanced analytical methods of PLS-SEM as fit measures and prediction procedure recently developed by Shmueli et al. (2019) were used. Findings: The results show that there is a positive relationship between the three preceding constructs (IT assimilation, potential and realised absorptive capacity) and organisational agility. This study also finds support for a direct relationship between organisational agility and firm performance. Originality/value: This study provides a further understanding and forecasting through the theoretical development and empirical investigation of the role of IT assimilation on firm performance in a B2B scenario by: (1) examining the link between IT and the firm's absorptive capacity and, more specifically, with the two subsets of potential and realised absorptive capacity, which have not received much attention from previous literature; and (2) exploring how an improvement in potential and realised absorptive capacity may place firms in a better position to develop their organisational agility.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)2269-2296
    Number of pages28
    JournalIndustrial Management and Data Systems
    Volume120
    Issue number12
    Early online date14 Jul 2020
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2 Dec 2020

    Bibliographical note

    Funding Information:
    The authors acknowledge the support from the Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad of the Spanish Goverment and the European ERDF (Grant No. ECO2017-88987-R (MINECO/FEDER;UE)).

    Publisher Copyright:
    © 2020, Emerald Publishing Limited.

    Copyright:
    Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

    Funder

    Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad of the Spanish Goverment and the European ERDF (Grant No. ECO2017-88987-R (MINECO/FEDER;UE)).

    Keywords

    • IT assimilation
    • Absorptive Capacity
    • Organisational agility
    • Organisational performance
    • B2B relationships
    • Absorptive capacity
    • Business to business
    • Partial least squares

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Industrial relations
    • Management Information Systems
    • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
    • Computer Science Applications
    • Strategy and Management

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