Making sense of IT in business networks: a conceptual framework on resources and information with empirical illustrations from IKEA and Edsbyn

Authors: Enrico Baraldi

This paper explores the role IT plays in business networks. Making sense of IT in suchcontexts requires being deep at the sub-micro level (where IT “interplays” withresources), and broad at the network level (where IT-based information flows crossfirms boundaries). A conceptual framework is developed to tackle the roles of IT inbusiness networks on the basis of illustrations about how IKEA and Edsbyn use twospecific IT tools to perform tasks in product development and efficient production andordering. The key concepts for the framework, resources and informationembeddedness are then related to technical features of IT tools. The framework finallyidentifies five basic roles for IT tools, considering the nature of resources andinformation in business networks.

Journal: ( – )

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Publish Year: 2002

Conference: Perth, Australia (2002)