To deal with the turbulent environments, firms have endeavored to achieve greater supply chain collaboration. In researching the antecedents or the conditions that lead to or affect supply chain ...collaboration, prior studies focus on the use of interorganizational systems (IOS) but simplify or ignore its culture context. Although IOS use is necessary for supply chain collaboration to succeed, organizational culture must be taken into consideration simultaneously. Many supply chain collaborations fail due to incompatible corporate culture and the complexities involved. The objective of the study is to explore the impact of collaborative culture and IOS use on supply chain collaboration by examining a moderated mediation model. Data was collected through a Web survey of U.S. manufacturing firms. Structural equation modeling (LISREL) was used to analyze the data. Following the steps and procedures for implementing the latent variable interaction by orthogonalizing via residual-centered approach, the model was tested. The results indicate that collaborative culture enhances supply chain collaboration directly as well as indirectly by facilitating IOS use, which in turn improves supply chain collaboration. Thus, IOS use partially mediates the relationship between collaborative culture and supply chain collaboration. Surprisingly, the moderating effect of collaborative culture on the relationship between IOS appropriation and supply chain collaboration is not supported.
Despite the enthusiasm for engaging in interorganizational collaboration to enable digital product innovation, firms often face challenges in integrating knowledge across organizational boundaries. ...Our research examines how collaborating firms use Interorganizational Systems (IOS) tools and project coordinators to overcome knowledge boundaries in different types of ideation tasks. Drawing on boundary-spanning theory, we conceptualize IOS tools as boundary objects, project coordinators as boundary spanners, and the interdependence of ideation tasks as moderators of the impacts of boundary objects and spanners on knowledge integration. Our findings suggest that IOS tools help overcome syntax and semantic knowledge boundaries by transferring and sharing information when the interdependence of idea implementation tasks is high, and project coordinators help overcome pragmatic knowledge boundaries by building reciprocity of innovation participants when the interdependence of idea generation tasks is high. Our research contributes to value co-creation literature by developing a boundary-spanning mechanism to explain the roles of boundary objects and boundary spanners in overcoming different knowledge boundaries to enable digital product innovation at the inter-firm level.
This study investigates the potential influence of blockchain technology adoption on a company's competitive performance from an interorganizational systems perspective. A research framework is ...derived based on expert interviews and tested with a quantitative survey. The results show, that by offering traceability and immutability of transactions, blockchain technology could positively impact a company's competitive performance. The study further identified a positive influence of smart contract technology on partnering flexibility and competitive performance.
Firms have made extensive use of interorganizational systems (IOSs) to share knowledge and pursue superior joint performance. Contemporary firms are using IOSs to collaborate widely across the value ...chain and in an ever-expanding geographic landscape. Thus, institutional distance, which is the difference between the firms’ respective institutional fields, has become a prominent challenge. In this study, we investigate the extent to which institutional distance affects IOS-enabled knowledge sharing and its impact on the joint performance of collaborating firms. We also explore the extent to which IOS adaptability could be a design solution for improving IOS-enabled knowledge sharing, given the challenge of institutional distance. Drawing on institutional theory, we propose that institutional distance, differentially influential via its normative, cognitive, and regulative aspects, not only reduces IOS-enabled knowledge sharing but also weakens the positive impact of such sharing on joint firm performance. Next, extending boundary object theory to the institutional context, we propose that IOS adaptability could be a solution to the challenge of institutional distance because it can directly strengthen IOS-enabled knowledge sharing as well as mitigate the negative effect of institutional distance on such sharing. Our hypotheses were tested through a field study that collected dyadic data from 141 distinct buyer/supplier channel relationships in 4 industries. The results from partial least squares modeling fully support our hypotheses with regard to cognitive distance, partially support those related to normative distance, but do not support those related to regulative distance. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory development and professional practice.
The online appendix is available at
https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2016.0675
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As firms seek to improve coordination through the use of electronic interorganizational systems (IOS), open standards are becoming increasingly important. To better understand the process of ...standards diffusion, we investigate firms' migration from proprietary or less-open IOS (i.e., electronic data interchange or EDI) to open-standard IOS (i.e., the Internet). Theoretical work in economics suggests that network effects are a determinant of network adoption, yet the extant literature falls short of empirical testing of the theory. We develop a conceptual model that features network effects, expected benefits, and adoption costs as prominent antecedents. We examine the model on a large dataset of 1,394 firms. The empirical results demonstrate the significant impacts of network effects on open-standard IOS adoption. We find that adoption costs are a significant barrier to open-standard IOS adoption, but EDI users and nonusers treat this very differently: EDI users are much more sensitive to the costs of switching to the new standard. This finding illustrates that experience with older standards may create switching costs and make it difficult to shift to open and potentially better standards, a phenomenon called "excess inertia" in technology change. Further testing the underlying factors that contribute to network effects and adoption costs, we find that trading community influence is a key driver of network effects, while managerial complexity, as opposed to financial costs, is a key determinant of adoption costs. Overall we believe that this study, based on a rigorous empirical analysis of a unique international dataset, provides valuable insights into a set of key factors that influence standards diffusion.
Supply chain management systems (SCMS) championed by network leaders in their supplier networks are now ubiquitous. While prior studies have examined the benefits to network leaders from these ...systems, little attention has been paid to the benefits to supplier firms. This study draws from organizational theories of learning and action and transaction cost theory to propose a model relating suppliers' use of SCMS to benefits. It proposes that two patterns of SCMS use by suppliers-exploitation and exploration-create contexts for suppliers to make relationship-specific investments in business processes and domain knowledge. These, in turn, enable suppliers to both create value and retain a portion of the value created by the use of these systems in interfirm relationships. Data from 131 suppliers using an SCMS implemented by one large retailer support hypotheses that relationship-specific intangible investments play a mediating role linking SCMS use to benefits. Evidence that patterns of information technology use are significant determinants of relationship-specific investments in business processes and domain expertise provides a finer-grained explanation of the logic of IT-enabled electronic integration. The results support the vendors-to-partners thesis that IT deployments in supply chains lead to closer buyer-supplier relationships (Bakos and Brynjyolfsson 1993). The results also suggest the complementarity of the transaction-cost and resource-based views, elaborating the logic by which specialized assets can also be strategic assets.
Technology standardization unfolds as a dialectic process marked by paradoxical tensions. However, standardization research has yet to provide a dialectic analysis of how tensions and management ...responses interact recursively over time, and with what effect. In this paper, we apply dialectics to analyze an action research study of a Swedish initiative that developed and diffused a technology standard to facilitate the integration of disparate IT systems in road haulage firms. Drawing on the technology standardization literature and our empirical analysis, we engage in midrange theorizing to capture the recursive dynamics through which standard-setters construct and respond to manifestations of three latent tensions: development versus diffusion activities, private versus public interests, and local versus global solutions. Our resulting dialectic theorizing explicates how standard-setters bring these latent tensions into being; how they construct salient tensions through the oppositional logics of polarization, complementarity, and mutuality; how they manage these tensions through splitting, integrating, and suspension responses; and how consequential functional, architectural, and organizational standardization outcomes produce a new social order in which new tensions emerge. These theoretical insights contribute to both the technology standardization and dialectics literatures.
Contextual ambidexterity of an interorganizational relationship (IOR) is the ability of its management system to align partners' activities and resources for short-term goals and adapt partners' ...cognitions and actions for long-term viability. It is an alternative to structural ambidexterity in which separate units of the IOR pursue short- and long-term goals. We theorize that when utilized to coordinate the IOR, information technology (IT)-enabled operations and sensemaking, along with interdependent decision making, promote the IOR's contextual ambidexterity. We test our hypotheses on both sides of a customer-vendor relationship using data collected from (1) the account executives of one of the world's largest supply chain vendors (
n
= 76) and (2) its customers (
n
= 238). We find commonalities and differences in the influence coordination mechanisms have on contextual ambidexterity from the vendor's and the customer's perspectives. For both customers and vendors, contextual ambidexterity improves the quality and performance of the relationship, and decision interdependence promotes contextual ambidexterity. For customers, using operations support systems (OSSs) and interpretation support systems (ISSs) enhances contextual ambidexterity. For vendors, the impact of both OSS use and ISS use on contextual ambidexterity depends on the duration of the relationship. Our study shows that IT-enabled operations and sensemaking are key enablers of IOR ambidexterity and that vendors should combine these IT capabilities with relationship-specific knowledge that accumulates with relationship duration.
This study used institutional theory as a lens to understand the factors that enable the adoption of interorganizational systems. It posits that mimetic, coercive, and normative pressures existing in ...an institutionalized environment could influence organizational predisposition toward an information technology-based interorganizational linkage. Survey-based research was carried out to test this theory. Following questionnaire development, validation, and pretest with a pilot study, data were collected from the CEO, the CFO, and the CIO to measure the institutional pressures they faced and their intentions to adopt financial electronic data interchange (FEDI). A firm-level structural model was developed based on the CEO's, the CFO's, and the CIO's data. LISREL and PLS were used for testing the measurement and structural models respectively. Results showed that all three institutional pressuresmimetic pressures, coercive pressures, and normative pressures-had a significant influence on organizational intention to adopt FEDI. Except for perceived extent of adoption among suppliers, all other subconstructs were significant in the model. These results provide strong support for institutional-based variables as predictors of adoption intention for interorganizational linkages. These findings indicate that organizations are embedded in institutional networks and call for greater attention to be directed at understanding institutional pressures when investigating information technology innovations adoption.
ABSTRACT
Some firms have gained significant benefits by effectively deploying interorganizational systems (IOS) to tightly couple operations with their supply chain partners. In contrast, other firms ...with IOS deployments have struggled to achieve this level of success. So it is not clear how such systems can be configured to promote idiosyncratic interorganizational processes that integrate the supply chains and facilitate successful outcomes. To shed further light on this issue, we draw from multiple theoretical perspectives to develop a comprehensive and unique conceptualization of IOS characteristics that goes beyond the limited treatment it has received in extant literature. Furthermore, we empirically examine the IOS configuration choices made by firms with different supply chain integration (SCI) profiles. Our results support the notion that successful firms sequence the configuration of IOS characteristics toward effectively developing and supporting their supply chain process capabilities. In particular, we found that firms at the lower end of SCI configure IOS features to support supplier evaluation and automatic alerts. As organizations move to the upper end of the SCI spectrum, greater attention is paid to features associated with systems integration, planning, and forecasting. Recommendations to managers and academics stemming from our study are provided, along with avenues for future research.
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