The influences of knowledge exchange on organizational c-commerce success and crisis readiness: The case of the crisis of an automobile manufacturing and merchandising group

Collaborative commerce (c-commerce) involves the use of information technology to enable inter-organizational collaboration by facilitating the flow of critical information and knowledge among organizations. Additionally, organizations are threatened by business crises, the impact of which may be lessened if critical knowledge is shared effectively. However, few studies have examined the relationships among inter-organizational knowledge exchange, c-commerce success, and the organizational ability to handle business crises. This study addresses this issue by developing and validating hypotheses regarding how knowledge exchange practices may affect organizational levels of crisis readiness and c-commerce success. These hypotheses were examined using data collected from 291 employees of an automobile company and its business partners that had carried out c-commerce initiatives and encountered a crisis. We find that knowledge exchanges positively influence organizations' c-commerce success. Additionally, knowledge exchanges positively influence organizations' level of crisis readiness both directly and indirectly via the mediation of c-commerce success.