Resources, Electronic-Commerce Capabilities and Electronic-Commerce Benefits: Conceptualizing the Links

Abstract

Past research on electronic commerce (e-commerce) in developing economies (DEs) shows that there is an acute lack of theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence to understand how DE firms orient resources to create e-commerce capabilities and achieve e-commerce benefits amidst their national constraints. This paper uses the resource-based theory and the capability life cycle to investigate how a used-car retail firm in Ghana oriented resources to create e-commerce capabilities and achieve e-commerce benefits. Findings from the longitudinal case study suggest that, first, in DEs, because the institutional foundations are weak and the obstacles are many, managerial capabilities and global information systems (IS) resources enable firms to withstand or circumvent the national constraints and create e-commerce capabilities and benefits. Second, the value of resources to a firm is relatively time and path dependent; changes in the environment can either initiate their renewal or decline in the firm. Having a focus on the strategic orientation of the firm is therefore of more value than focusing on IS resources. The paper proposes a cyclic resource-based model of e-commerce capability evolution which offers new insights into the way in which e-commerce capabilities evolve to create e-commerce benefits.

Keywords:

• resource-based theory
• developing economies
• e-commerce
• capabilities

Notes on contributor

Dr Richard Boateng is a senior lecturer in IS at the University of Ghana Business School. He is the associate editor of the Information Technologies & International Development journal and also serves on the editorial board of the Information Development journal. Richard is a Chevening Scholar and a Dorothy Hodgkin Scholar. His research interests include e-governance, cybercrime, electronic business, mobile commerce, green IT and ICT for development. Richard can be reached at [email protected] and on www.pearlrichards.org.