From digital business strategy to e-business value creation: a three-stage process model

This paper studied e-business from digital technologies of strategic deployments in the inter-organisational context and present the e-business process perspective to explore the e-business value-creation. It is divided into three stages: 1 e-business process establishment; 2 e-business process execution; 3 e-business process effectiveness. The three-stage model is proposed to study multiple relationships among digital business strategies, internal and external organisational resources, e-business capabilities, and process performance. Then, the research model is tested using a national survey data from 202 Chinese manufacturing firms. This study demonstrates that digital business strategy is characterised by focusing on IT human resources which can enhance the effect of digital linking and partner channel relationship, thus generating inter-organisational e-business capabilities for value-creation. This study provides a novel perspective to explore the causal stage of e-business value-creation. It expands our understanding of the dynamics of cross-organisational e-collaboration enabled through internet-based technologies.