The Impact of Strategic Assets on Financial Performance and on Internet Performance

Whereas the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm is the dominant theory in strategic management research, it has hardly been applied to e-Business. This paper aims at identifying key performance drivers for small and medium-sized companies that sell online (e-SMEs), by empirically examining the impact of resources and capabilities on financial performance and on Internet performance. Regression results of 106 companies showed that resources and capabilities differ in their impact on financial and on Internet performance. Business resources are important predictors of both financial performance and Internet performance. However, dynamic capabilities only affect financial performance (and not Internet performance), and IT resources only drive Internet performance (and not financial performance). The findings have implications for both researchers and practitioners. For researchers the results imply that the choice of the dependent variable can change the main conclusions of a study and, therefore, has to be conducted carefully. For managers of e-SMEs the main conclusion is that dynamic capabilities do not drive Internet performance.