Performance Implications of Internet-based Information Technology in Value Chain Management

2. Literature Review

Min and Galle (1999) defined electronic commerce as “an inter-organizational information system that is intended to facilitate business-to-business electronic communication, information exchange and transaction support through a web of either public access or private value-added networks.” Electronic commerce (EC) can be facilitated through a variety of media such as electronic data interchange (EDI), direct link-ups with suppliers, Internet, Intranet, Extranet, electronic catalog ordering, and e-mail. Much of the literature has investigated EDI, which, in a broad sense of electronic commerce, involves the movement of paper-based instruments through private dyadic electronic telecommunications channels (Kumar & Crook, 1999). With the advent of the Internet, many companies are migrating their information technology (IT) functions to the publicly accessible and cost effective World Wide Web as their preferred infrastructure for electronic commerce. Prior research has focused on the strategic benefits of private networks of electronic commerce such as electronic data interchange (EDI) (Clark & Stoddard, 1996; Angeles, Nath, & Hendon, 1998; Mukhopadhyay, Kekre, & Pokorney, 1998; Chatfield & Yetton, 2000; Ahmad & Schroeder, 2001).