The Effect of Electronic Commerce in Business Value in Iran Banking System

Purpose – This paper aims to develop and test a model to analyze the relationships between four aspects of technical electronic commerce (EC)-based information system (IS) resources and, the banking system integration, and business value. The paper is consistent with the perspective on IS-enabled organizational capabilities and resource based view of the bank. A questionnairebased survey was conducted to collect data from 110 managers of banks. Finally, the findings suggest that banking system integration, a key EC-enabled organizational capability, can enhance business value. We found that this capability serve as a catalyst in transforming technical EC-based IS resources (technical quality of EC applications, EC advancements, EC alignment and E-branding) into higher value for a bank. Among other limitations, this paper does not address human IS resources as the other potential determinants of bank`s capabilities. Moreover, this study relies on cross-sectional data. Our results suggest that banking system integration is an important intermediate organizational capability through which value of EC-based IS resources can be materialized. The technical aspects of EC-based IS resources needs to developed to effectively form banking system capabilities. The value of our study is perhaps one of the first to show theoretically and empirically how banks, in particular in developing countries can generate business value from EC-enabled banking system integration while we have broaden the scope of EC alignment in relation to process integration and business value to the entire banking system.