Alignment effect between electronic business strategy and information technology capabilities on value creation in employing industrial Internet of Things

Abstract

In the highly global competitive environment, companies are switching their sales channel from “bricks-and-mortar” to “clicks-and-mortar” by adopting advanced information technology (IT) and Internet-based systems to act as electronic business (e-Business) companies. In this regard, companies must have the capabilities to integrate their advanced IT resources into operational activities, especially for e-Business companies that try to link and share their information to support customers and suppliers in the supply chain. So far, although several studies have examined the alignment between business strategy and IT strategy, there has been little attempt to explore the alignment (or fit) relationships between e-Business industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) strategy and e-Business capabilities, or their alignment effect on value creation. Consequently, we develop an alignment model to demonstrate their performance implications on e-Business value creation. We hope that this e-Business IIoT alignment model will not only provide more definitive answers about the nature of e-Business with an alignment perspective than previous research, but also provide a guideline for management practices in the IIoT management field. The perspective of “fit as covariation” was used to test the e-Business IIoT alignment model in order to support its internal consistency relationships. The results obtained from empirical data collected from 187 companies showed that the alignment between e-Business IIoT strategy and e-Business IIoT capabilities has a significant impact on the value creation of a firm. The results of this research suggest that e-Business companies should allocate their resources to reinforce technology capabilities to match with various IIoT strategies to maximize their competitive advantages.