The co-evolution of IT competence, organisational agility and entrepreneurial action: A case study of entrepreneurial e-tailers

Abstract

Due to the turbulent business environment, small and medium-sized e-commerce companies tend to adopt a strategic logic that requires the support and co-evolution of organisational agility capability and information technology (IT) competence. However, the characteristics of organisational agility and IT competence and their co-evolution mechanisms are largely unknown. Based on the Sambamurthy et al. (2003), theoretical framework about the strategic logic for firms in a turbulent business environment, we undertook a case study of ten entrepreneurial e-tailers (retailers selling primarily on the internet) on a third party Chinese e-commerce platform. From these firms we identified the characteristics and the evolutionary path of entrepreneurial actions, organisation agility and IT competence for small and medium-sized entrepreneurial actions, organisation agility and IT competence from the perspective of real options and adaptive learning. This research advances our current understanding of SME e-commerce firm strategic logic and required firm capabilities.