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Towards a New Understanding of the e-Business Strategic Process: The Rise of a Dynamic Interaction-Based Approach

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Handbook of Strategic e-Business Management

Part of the book series: Progress in IS ((PROIS))

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Abstract

In the early 1970s, strategic planning was introduced onto the corporate management scene and since then it has been a dominating conceptual frame for understanding and designing various strategies in the corporate world. Nearly a decade later, strategic planning has been used by various scholars to explain how companies could strategize in the field of ICT and e-business. Strategic information systems planning (SISP) is an example of this application of strategic planning in the field of e-business. The prominence of SISP within the corporate IS strategy literature has been dramatic, but today there exist other different understandings of how strategies are emerging. However, e-business strategic literature is still dominated by the planning e-business approaches. The question therefore remains: Is it still optimal to build a static, programmed analytical information plan, or must the e-business strategic process adapt to changes in the planning environment and internal changes within the organization? E-business strategy, because of increased uncertainty and environmental complexity, must encourage interaction between key stakeholders that implement and use the e-business technology. The literature reveals the lack of a dynamic theory of e-business strategy. The current paper proposes an e-business strategy conceptualized as a dynamic interaction-based process, in which several organizational components co-create the e-business strategic framework of the company. The process is based on group-learning processes where the strategy emerges though the processes of action and reflection. These experience-based group-learning processes help organize the process of e-business strategizing so that improvisational and dynamic competences can emerge.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The use of the terms “evolution” and “revolution” alternates in this chapter, but both concepts should be considered in the context of technological revolutions spreading over the first invention of technology until it is generally accepted and incorporated into different levels of society. However, it is easier to understand the process in which technology becomes accepted in society if presented in terms of “evolution,” as many small adaptations seen together constitute the process in which “revolution” becomes reality.

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  1. Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark

    Reimer Ivang

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  1. Reimer Ivang
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  1. Department of Business Administration, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

    Francisco J. Martínez-López

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Ivang, R. (2014). Towards a New Understanding of the e-Business Strategic Process: The Rise of a Dynamic Interaction-Based Approach. In: Martínez-López, F. (eds) Handbook of Strategic e-Business Management. Progress in IS. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39747-9_3

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