Abstract
Increased networking among firms has become a competitive necessity in many industries and the ability to efficiently establish, operate and dissolve business relationships has become a competitive advantage. The degree of this networkability is influenced by several factors, such as organizational structure, business processes, people and culture, but also information systems. In fact, current technological developments aim at the efficient and flexible orchestration of standardized modules, referred to as services. Past research has analyzed networkability primarily qualitatively without providing a specific perspective on the concept of service-oriented architecture (SOA) which has only emerged on a broad scale since the beginning of this century. This paper is a first attempt to investigate the impact of SOA on the notion of business networkability. It is assumed that the ability to flexibly link business services among business partners also positively influences the firm’s networkability. Empirical evidence will be provided from the financial industry which is currently undergoing a strong vertical disintegration. The results show a moderate, but nevertheless significant impact.
Recommended Citation
Kohlmann, Falk and Alt, Rainer, "The Impact of Service-Oriented Architecture on Business Networkability" (2010). ECIS 2010 Proceedings. 76.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2010/76