Earticle

The main purpose of this study is to define antecedents that influence e-SCM synchronization and to investigate how it affects e-SCM performance. We, therefore, investigate (1) the impact of firms' internal IT planning capabilities on e-SCM synchronization and on SCM process management capability, (2) the impact of firms' internal IT infrastructure on e-SCM synchronization and on SCM process management capability, (3) the impact of firms' internal SCM process management capabilities on e-SCM synchronization, and finally (4) the impact of e-SCM synchronization on SCM performance. A survey has been administrated to the firms' SCM and marketing staffs and 171 returns analyzed. The results show that (1) IT plan has not direct impacts on e-SCM synchronization, but has direct impacts on organizational support, purchasing, and operations processes except logistics process. IT plan, however, has indirect impacts on e-SCM synchronization through purchasing and operations of SCM process management capability. (2) IT infrastructure has both direct and indirect effects on e-SCM synchronization, and also has direct impacts on organizational support, purchasing, and operations processes except logistics process. (3) SCM process management capabilities have direct impacts on e-SCM synchronization. Among these SCM core processes purchasing positively influences operations, which in turn positively influences logistics process management capability. (4) e-SCM synchronization has positive impacts on SCM performance indicator (SCOR), such as delivery reliability, responsiveness & flexibility, and cost. These results indicate that e-SCM synchronization can be critical to achieve better internal performance like cost and external performance like delivery reliability, responsiveness & flexibility of firms' SCM. In sum, this study demonstrates that the intervening role of e-SCM synchronization between e-SCM performance and IT management capability and between e-SCM performance and SCM core process management capability has been significant in achieving better e-SCM performance. Therefore, it can be suggested that e-SCM performance should be accomplished in consequence of the acceleration of e-SCM synchronization through the enhancement of preceding factors for the e-SCM synchronization.