Internet Business Practices Across the Globe: Lessons from Emerging Economies

The Internet has accelerated the capability of firms to coordinate processes and personnel across organizational and geographic boundaries, which has in turn facilitated a dramatic increase in globalization. This globalization includes the development of new multinationals from emerging economies that are challenging developed-economy firms. This paper investigates how firms use the Internet to achieve their strategic objectives, and studies how use, motivation and performance impacts differ between emerging-economy firms and developed-economy firms. We use data from a large survey of firms in 10 countries across North and South America, Europe and Asia, and complement the survey data with recent case examples drawn primarily from Fortune Global 500 firms. Our results indicate that compared with developed-economy firms, emerging-economy firms report a higher rate of Internet use to integrate processes with business partners, and a stronger motivation to use the Internet to achieve revenue growth and operational efficiency.