Assessing the business values of e-commerce and information technology separately and jointly and their impacts upon US firms' performance as measured by productive efficiency

The business values of information technology (IT) and electronic commerce (EC) have been discussed for years, yet virtually all previous studies have evaluated the values of IT and EC independently, instead of jointly; and ignored their impacts on the firm's performance and inputs relationships. This pioneering firm-level study bridges the gap by empirically investigating the complex relationships among IT and EC investments, relationships of inputs, and US firms' performance at the firm, industry, and sector levels, based on a panel dataset. We undertake a detailed analysis of the empirical results, seek to answer five major research questions, and discuss managerial and strategic implications.