| Electronic commerce is changing the way firms conduct business. They no longer debate whether or not to have a Web site. Instead, management wants to know the advantages of e-commerce and the resources required to make it successful.; A resource-based view of the firm (Wernerfelt, 1984; Barney, 1991) may help management understand these advantages and resources. The view is grounded in economics. It explains how a firm's resources can predict its performance in a dynamic, competitive environment (Collis and Montgomery, 1995). According to the view, a firm's performance is founded on its unique capabilities (i.e., its resources) and its competitors' difficulty in imitating them (Mata, et al., 1995).; Complementary resources are an important category of resource. Their value can be enhanced by the presence of other resources (Teece, 1986).; This research applies a resource-based view of the firm to the relationship between resources and competitiveness in the retail industry. Independent variables are a firm's e-commerce technology resources and its complementary, difficult to imitate human and business resources (Powell and Dent-Micallef, 1997). Overall firm performance, e-commerce performance, and the benefits of e-commerce represent competitiveness and serve as the dependent variable.; A Web-based survey was utilized to collect data. A brief e-mail message requesting participation was sent to a nationwide sample of 4,088 retailers. Eight hundred fifty two responses were received. In addition, 58 subjects from the same organizations responded to a secondary survey. The data were used for confirmatory factor analysis of firm resources, exploratory factor analysis of benefits of e-commerce, and multivariate regression for testing hypotheses about the resource-based view of the firm.; The findings generally supported the validity and reliability of the survey instrument. Five factors of e-commerce benefits emerged: Infrastructure , marketing, back-end, costs benefits, and customer intimacy. In addition, the resource-based view of the firm was partially supported. E-commerce technology resources explained e-commerce performance and e-commerce benefits, whereas complementary business resources significantly explained overall firm performance as well as e-commerce performance and e-commerce benefits. Complementary human resources did not significantly explain any measure of firm competitiveness.; The findings can help researchers understand the resource-based view. They might also help managers make better decisions about the resources for the successful application of e-commerce. |
