Operational or strategic benefits: Empirical investigation of internet adoption in supply chain management

The purpose of this study is twofold: identifying important determinants for effective adoption of internet technologies in an organizational supply chain context and examining and classifying benefits yielded from internet adoption in supply chain.

A structured Web-based questionnaire was designed and administered to respondents to collect the primary data. With two reminders, this study managed to obtain 236 respondents from different industries in Malaysia. Structural equation modelling was applied to test the seven hypotheses.

Four of five factors were significant for successful implementation of internet technologies in organizations. In addition, results suggested that internet technologies contribute more to operational activities rather than strategic initiatives, which would be one of the main contributions of this study.

This study is limited by its being based on organizational perception rather than absolute value for measuring the benefits of internet adoption. Moreover, this study applied the cross-sectional technique which may limit generalizability of the findings.

This study provides in-depth knowledge about internet adoption and benefits for the organization by combining both theoretical and empirical knowledge. It helps managers to understand the importance and process of internet adoption.

Organizations who are interested in adopting the internet in their supply chain may feel that these results will guide them in making their final decision.