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This study examines factors that may have an impact on the performance ofretailers involved in e-commerce. The main independent variables involved in the study are market orientation, level of e:..commerce sophistication and entrepreneurial orientation. Empirical tests were conducted on data from a mail survey on retailing firms in Norway. The questionnaire was sent to the general managers in 261 firms. 100 [mal usable responses were obtained, giving a response rate of38.3% in this study. A stepwise estimation approach resulted in a regression model consisting of five independent variables explaining 41.3 per cent of the variance in the performance variable. Entrepreneurial orientation was the variable with the greatest contribution, followed by the level of e-commerce sophistication towards customers. Both variables had a positive and significant impact on performance. The level ofe-commerce sophistication towards suppliers and environmental hostility had also a significant impact on performance, but well below the most forceful variables, and they both showed a negative relationship with performance. Market orientation turned out to be the least forceful variable in the overall results. The relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and performance detected in this study suggests that retailing' firms involved in e-commerce activities should be highly engaged in entrepreneurial activities. Adding value to the customers would as such require firms to constantly introduce new value-added services on their websites in terms ofnew or improved functionalities. The impact ofthe level of e-commerce sophistication towards customers on performance suggests that managers pay attention to the creation and maintenance of an effective website aimed at supporting the firm's marketing objectives. Since the results indicate that retailers are not experiencing performance gains from their e-commerce initiatives towards suppliers, firms should be very careful in implementing sophisticated supply chain e-commerce applications unless there is some clear performance-related evidence supporting such implementations. Finally, despite the fact that market orientation in this study was found to be the least forceful variable, the results also indicate that market orientation is the only variable making a unique contribution to the prediction of the level of e-commerce sophistication towards customers. Hence, it may be argued that market orientation is an antecedent ofthe level ofe-commerce sophistication towards customers, and that market orientation has a more facilitative role on firm performance rather than a causative role. |
