TY - JOUR
T1 - Firm orientation, community of practice, and Internet-enabled interfirm communication
T2 - Evidence from Chinese firms
AU - Bell, Geoffrey G.
AU - Lai, Fujun
AU - Li, Dahui
PY - 2012/9/1
Y1 - 2012/9/1
N2 - What motivates firms to develop Internet-enabled interfirm communication? We draw upon the work of Alavi et al. (2005-2006) and propose that the use of the Internet in interfirm communication is influenced by a firm's firm orientation and its internal communities of practice. Based on data collected from 307 international trade firms in the Beijing area, we find that Internet-enabled interfirm communication is directly driven by internal community of practices and customer orientation, and indirectly by competitor orientation and learning orientation. The internal community of practice is affected by learning orientation and competitor orientation, but not by customer orientation. The present study contributes to the literature by providing empirical investigation on firm's strategic communications from the perspective of firm orientations, delineating how different firm orientations vary in impacting firm's strategic communications, and exploring the bridging effect of communities of practices on the influences of firm orientations on knowledge management initiatives.
AB - What motivates firms to develop Internet-enabled interfirm communication? We draw upon the work of Alavi et al. (2005-2006) and propose that the use of the Internet in interfirm communication is influenced by a firm's firm orientation and its internal communities of practice. Based on data collected from 307 international trade firms in the Beijing area, we find that Internet-enabled interfirm communication is directly driven by internal community of practices and customer orientation, and indirectly by competitor orientation and learning orientation. The internal community of practice is affected by learning orientation and competitor orientation, but not by customer orientation. The present study contributes to the literature by providing empirical investigation on firm's strategic communications from the perspective of firm orientations, delineating how different firm orientations vary in impacting firm's strategic communications, and exploring the bridging effect of communities of practices on the influences of firm orientations on knowledge management initiatives.
KW - Community of practice
KW - Competitor orientation
KW - Customer orientation
KW - Firm orientation
KW - Internet-enabled interfirm communication
KW - Learning orientation
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jsis.2012.07.002
DO - 10.1016/j.jsis.2012.07.002
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84866740860
VL - 21
SP - 201
EP - 215
JO - Journal of Strategic Information Systems
JF - Journal of Strategic Information Systems
SN - 0963-8687
IS - 3
ER -