An empirical investigation of the B2B e-service chain

This research is focused on B2B e-services, which we define as a company's portfolio of service offerings available to its business customers through the Internet channel. This channel acts to virtually connect B2B trading partners with each other. We coin the term B2B e-service capability, which we operationally define as a multidimensional construct that captures a generic set of abilities required for a company to deliver B2B services effectively. This research develops and tests a model for describing the antecedents of e-service capability, and in turn, its influence on performance. The conceptual idea behind our model is that the more service-oriented the firm, the better it will be able to translate this orientation to its B2B channel. The model is empirically tested using data gathered through a web-based survey from 181 companies that have deployed B2B e-services. Our results show that e-service capability is a second-order factor that is reflected by the company's capabilities of e-service recovery, ease of navigation, service portfolio comprehensiveness, e-customization, and information richness. To our knowledge, this is the first study to define e-service capability in the context of B2B. Service-orientation is antecedent of e-service capability, and is reflected by a set of variables that captures the company's operating environment, including deliberate managerial attention and strategies for service climate (comprised of leadership, service culture and value orientation), market focus (market acuity, relationship management and new service development), processes (ICT implementation and service processes), HR policy (human capital and reward systems) and metrics and standards (measurement systems and standard services).