Web-enabled supply chain management: Key antecedents and performance impacts

Despite increased interest and growing investments in web-based supply chain management (SCM) applications, firms face numerous challenges in successfully web-enabling their SCM activities. In this research, we focus on two main objectives - (i) to understand the key antecedents that affect the web-enablement of SCM activities; (ii) to document the performance impacts of web-enabled SCM efforts. Based on a large-scale, questionnaire survey of North American organizations, we assessed the influence of six factors namely - supplier synergy, information intensity, managerial IT knowledge, interoperable IT infrastructure, perceived IT returns on investments (ROI) and formal governance mechanisms - on the extent of web-enabled SCM. Our results revealed a strong positive influence of supplier synergy, information intensity, managerial IT knowledge, inter-operability and formal governance mechanisms on the extent of web-enabled SCM. We also found a negative association between relative cost-benefit perceptions and the extent of web-enabled SCM. Further, we also found strong positive association between extent of web-enabled SCM and the benefits realized from SCM efforts. We discuss the implications of our results for research and practice. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.