Follow-up strategy……
This is a passive strategy for SC partners who do not have an initiative for active BB adoption. It is adopted by organizations with limited resources, small-scale operations and little influence on their SC partners. For firms taking this strategy, the theoretical foundations are transaction cost theory and resource dependence theory – and their business transactions are largely dependent on the dominant organization in the SC network. These firms generally adopt some almost outdated BB to support their business operations, to connect with the dominant firm and to process essential business information – with EDI adoption in small businesses being a typical example. These firms may regard investment in new BB as a waste, or at least a luxury – and they hardly achieve technology competency, using technology to satisfy leading business partners’ requirements and business procedure……
Technology opportunism strategy….
This is defined as a sense-and-respond capability for proactive BB adoption, responding to new opportunities in ways that do not violate principles of fairness (Srinivasan, Lilien and Rangaswamy, 2002). There are two components of technology opportunism: technology sensing and technology response. Sensing is a firm’s ability to scan internal and external innovation, acquire knowledge about and understand new technology – and then provide innovative products and services derived from utilizing or deploying the technology. Response is an organization’s willingness and ability to respond to new technologies, to re-engineer its business strategy, and explore opportunities (Miles and Snow, 1978)…..
A firm using a technology opportunism strategy strongly believes that new BB can create a substantial opportunity, so it proactively scans technological opportunities and seeks to capitalize on them. The firm is not restricted to traditional principles and experience, but understands, analyses and utilizes new BB technology for developing innovative products and services. It is a strategy for ambitious and strongly self-motivated firms. The firm may be small or dependent on the dominant firm in an SC context, but it wants to be powerful by using BB. It may actively cooperate with the dominant SC firm to adopt BB, and create unique value for the firm itself and its SC partners. Microsoft’s growth experience in the 1980s is an excellent example of a firm taking a technology opportunism strategy and successfully changing its position in the operating systems and software industry…