The coordination effect of B2B digital process capabilities on competitive performance : balancing or complementing

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate the consequences of two strategies of coordinating the online procurement capability and the online channel management capability on competitive performance. Design/methodology/approach: A research model is presented to examine the performance impacts of these two coordination strategies, namely the balancing strategy (achieving a close match relationship) and the complementing strategy (maintaining the synergy effect), and tested using firm-level data collected from 196 manufacturing firms in China. Garen's two-stage econometric technique was used to identify the impacts of two coordination strategies on competitive performance. Findings: Our study discusses and compares two different coordination strategies of mitigating the operational tensions across processes and deploying resource configurations for improving competitive performance. Our results show that while the balancing strategy can mitigate the risks resulted, the complementing strategy does not create synergistic effects on the focal firms' competitive performance. Originality/value: The results extend our understanding of the nature of B2B digital process coordination both in IS management and supply chain operations.