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SME’s Perceptions of IOR Impact on Customer Loyalty in B2B E-Commerce: An Empirical Analysis

SME’s Perceptions of IOR Impact on Customer Loyalty in B2B E-Commerce: An Empirical Analysis
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Author(s): Assion Lawson-Body (University of North Dakota, USA)and Abdou Illia (Eastern Illinois University, USA)
Copyright: 2005
Pages: 4
Source title: Managing Modern Organizations Through Information Technology
Source Editor(s): Mehdi Khosrow-Pour, D.B.A. (Information Resources Management Association, USA)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59140-822-2.ch122
ISBN13: 9781616921293
EISBN13: 9781466665354

Abstract

This study is an empirical examination of the impact of the Internet’s web tools on the inter-organizational relationships (IOR) between SMEs and their loyal customers. Data collected from 386 SMEs in North America (United States and Canada) and processed with Partial Least Square (PLS) show that the use of web tools (which include the level of web content and the level of security on the Internet) has a positive impact on the relation between cooperation and interdependence, and customer loyalty. However, the impact of the Internet’s web tools on the relation between trust and customer loyalty is different, because the use of non-secure web tools reduces the impact of trust on customer loyalty, and surprisingly, the use of secure web tools doesn’t increase or decrease the impact of trust on customer loyalty. The implications of the results for the study are discussed.

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