Prior knowledge, transformative learning and performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the prior knowledge perspective on e-business environments to maintain expertise by firms. The perspectives indicate the crucial of e-service innovation and emphasize the transformative learning in the model. Design/methodology/approach – The model proposed in this study examines the relationships among customer empowerment, normative pressure, innovativeness, transformative learning, and performance. This study presents empirical results from benchmark services in e-markets of Taiwan. There were 225 valid samples to test the proposed model with SEM. Findings – Customer empowerment has significant and positive effects on innovativeness and transformative learning, respectively. Normative pressure has significant and positive effects on innovativeness and transformative learning, respectively. Innovativeness has significant and positive effects on transformative learning. Transformative learning has significant and positive effects on financial, customer, and business performance, respectively. In addition, innovativeness mediates the effects of customer empowerment and normative pressure on transformative learning. Research limitations/implications – This study finds that transformative learning is a crucial role on customer performance. Firms should emphasize on transformative learning of prior market and technological knowledge to achieve customer performance. Originality/value – Customer empowerment is the technological knowledge innovation of e-business environments. However, normative pressure has to implement the market knowledge orientation on e-business environments. Besides, transformative learning has the largest effect on customer performance.