| The "new economy" influences the entire economy, from corporations and governments to society. Business-to-consumer (B2C) electronic commerce (EC) continues to grow despite the burst of the 2000 "e-bubble." Dramatic changes in EC and the significance of EC's impact on firm performance are important practical issues. Variations in firm performance (outcome variable) are attributed to organization effect and to industry effect. Thus, a theoretical framework that combines a strategic typology with a resource-based view of the dynamic capabilities perspective can explain the industry and organization effect on firm performance.; This non-experimental, correlational (explanatory) and causal-comparative (exploratory) survey and secondary data research design is the first to investigate the relationships among organizational characteristics (firm size and web age), CEO commitment to EC, strategy types, website design, and IT system integration capabilities on the performance of Taiwan's e-brokerage firms. In this study, integrating factors of strategic types as an industry effect, CEO commitment to EC as a firm resource and website design and IT system integration as EC capabilities provided a better explanation of the performance of Taiwan's e-brokerage firms.; Findings indicated that strategy types showed no significant differences on the level of firm performance (online sales and market share). Another finding suggested that website design of catalog application and web age were significant contributors the to the online annual sales growth rate. In addition, CEO commitment to EC, website design of catalog application, IT system integration capabilities, and web age were significant explanatory factors of the online annual market share growth rate.; Top managers of e-brokers in Taiwan must have the ability to do all things well in order to succeed in the rapidly-changing EC environment. EC firms can no longer benefit from first-mover advantage which contributes negatively to firm performance. At the same time, they need to emphasize and invest firm resources into EC and bundle and leverage EC (website design capabilities) as a way to create value for customers, build a sustainable competitive advantage, and gain superior performance over competitors. |
