Value Creation in eBusiness: Exploring the Impacts of Internet-Enabled Business Conduct

This research seeks to explore value creation through e-business by emphasizing the impacts of Internet-enabled business conduct. We assume that firms may reap the benefits of engaging in e-business only if they are able to develop, adopt and use Internet-enabled business models (e-business models). Moreover, e-business value is created only if firms adopt e-business models that respond to relevant value drivers. Value drivers are certain key aspects of the business model that play a key role and possess the power of directly influencing e-business value creation. In this study, several economic and financial performance measures were used as value indicators. A survey was conducted in Norwegian enterprises. This research confirms that e-business is in its infancy. Moreover, in addition to a fairly limited e-business experience, the participating enterprises seem to have put all their efforts into relatively simple and primitive ebusiness solutions. Hence, the power of the Internet is wasted on solutions that basically support the automation of existing and traditional business processes. For a vast majority of the enterprises participating in this study, there have been no significant changes in key economic and financial indicators since they took up e-business. However, our research demonstrates that there is an association between value creation and e-business conduct. E-business value creation is associated with relevant e-business value drivers, namely efficiency, complementarities, customer retention, and innovation.