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A Comparison of Internet Practices between U.S. and South Korean Firms from Value Chain Perspective  

Lee, Seog-Jun (College of Business, KonKuk University)
Nam, Kyung-Doo (College of Economics and Commerce, KonKuk University)
Koh, Chang-E. (Department of Business Computer Information Systems, College of Business Administration, University of North Texas)
Publication Information
Information Systems Review / v.6, no.2, 2004 , pp. 79-94 More about this Journal
Abstract
The Internet is now an ubiquitous technology in business and possesses the potential to make the concept of value chain into an attainable reality. We posit that the way the Internet is utilized, the extent of the Internet's impact on business performance, and the extent the firms are prepared to take advantage of the Internet varies from country to country and from industry to industry. Based on data collected from 54 firms in the U.S. and 135 in South Korea, we compared the two countries (U.S. and South Korea) and two major industry groups (manufacturing and service) regarding the pattern of Internet utilization on the Internet from a value chain perspective. The findings show that U.S. companies utilize the Internet more extensively in such areas as human resources management, automation, sales, and advertising than the South Korean counterparts. However, we did not find a statistically significant difference in the way the two countries use the Internet within a value chain model. We also compared Internet practices by industry sector (i.e., service vs. manufacturing) within each country. The results show that firms in the service sector tend to use the Internet more extensively than the manufacturing counterparts in both countries. Particularly in Korea the difference between the sectors was significant in the extent to which they utilized the Internet to support such business activities as inter-organizational alliance, communication, and marketing.
Keywords
Internet Utilization; Internet Adoption; Value Chain;
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