Firm orientation, community of practice, and Internet-enabled interfirm communication: Evidence from Chinese firms

Authors:
Geoffrey G. Bell;Fujun Lai;Dahui Li
Affiliations:
Labovitz School of Business and Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 1318 Kirby Drive, 365Q LSBE, Duluth, MN 55812, United States;College of Business, University of Southern Mississippi, 323 Hardy Hall, Gulf Park Campus, 730 East Beach Blvd., Long Beach, MS 39560, United States;Labovitz School of Business and Economics, University of Minnesota Duluth, 1318 Kirby Drive, 335B LSBE, Duluth, MN 55812, United States
Venue:
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems
Year:
2012

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Abstract

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.