Abhishek Kathuria

• Ph.D. (Emory University), PGDM (IIM Indore), BIT
• Professor (Assistant) at Indian School of Business

The simultaneous pursuit of paradoxical strategies is an emergent means of attaining competitive advantage. By nature, exploration and exploitation are fundamentally different and contradictory, thus reflecting an instance of organizational ambidexterity. We assert that IT capabilities act through different mechanisms to influence ambidexterity. To...

Researchers have demonstrated that firms in relevant network positions exhibit better performance and innovation. However, there is a need to understand the determinants of network positioning, especially in competition networks, which had received scant attention in the literature. This study investigates the external resource endowment and firm c...

A computational simulation is a dynamic, process-oriented model instantiated on a computer. These can range from traditional economic models (expressed as equations) to more abstract constructs and processes (expressed as objects, agents, operators and algorithms). Abstract A significant and growing set of approaches in strategic management researc...

Research consistently identifies knowledge and culture as critical antecedents to success in focused technology acquisitions. Because such studies are typically observational, these constructs have been considered independently and within limited parametric values. Incorporating an agent-based simulation expanding on the March (1991) exploration-ex...

This teaching case considers the challenges and opportunities faced by an entrepreneur in Second Life, one of the more popular virtual world environments. Second Life provides the economic and technological platform required for immersion, social interaction, and the potential of private enterprise. Many entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the va...

This study explores the impact of a digital shift on the dual bottom-line performance objectives of rational social enterprises, focusing on a Microfinance Institution as an exemplar. We examine how the shift influences social and business outcomes and investigate the moderating effects of the presence of social and for-profit enterprises, along wi...

Innovation is vital for the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, SMEs face deficiencies that hinder their innovation output. This study examines how Information Technology (IT) helps SMEs address two salient deficiencies: technological deficiency (deficiency in internal technical knowledge and skills) and government support...

We have entered an era where, in addition to us humans, systems can also think. It is imperative to decide how decision rights and authorities are allocated and distributed across interconnected co-cognitors: things that think. To address this question vital to the redesign of organizations, we reconceptualize cognitive reapportionment as the dynam...

Innovation is vital for the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, SMEs face deficiencies that hinder their innovation output. This study examines how information technology (IT) helps SMEs address two salient deficiencies: technological deficiency (deficiency in internal technical knowledge and skills) and government support...

Firms’ multilevel access to information plays a significant role in improving operating performance. Increasingly, firms are enhancing their operational integration through IT as they grapple with intense competition. Competition networks are an essential but often overlooked source of information that, if leveraged correctly, can provide firms wit...

Due to the growing need to continually generate customer value, firms must be flexible to address changing business environments and customer expectations. Although research has examined Information Technology (IT) flexibility, the nuances of IT flexibility in services have received limited attention. This study uses a three-stage roadmap to build...

Although achieving strategic distinctiveness is critical for firms in dynamic industries, where the competitive landscape and market conditions frequently change, there is a paucity of research on the impact of information technology (IT) on a firm’s strategic conformity (or distinctiveness). Motivated by the importance of strategic conformity and...

Most studies of value creation from cloud computing have examined firms that are old in age and large in size. We theorize different value appropriation pathways from cloud computing dependent upon the age and size of a firm, such that there are different pathways for younger firms as compared to established firms, and smaller firms as compared to...

Firms need to allocate their resources effectively to cope with uncertainty, which can manifest as a disruption and an opportunity. Although Information Technology (IT) is a means to cope with uncertainty, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) often may not support IT investments due to the risky nature of IT, especially when facing uncertain conditions....

Family-owned businesses differ in their strategic intent and behavior as they serve as a reservoir of wealth and social status for their family owners. Family-owned businesses demonstrate relatively conservative strategic decision making that aspires long-term wealth preservation and enhancement. For family owners, investments in information techno...

Family owned businesses comprise a large stratum of the global economy. These firms differ in their strategic intent and behavior as they serve as a reservoir of wealth and social status for their family owners. Family owned businesses demonstrate relatively conservative strategic decision making that aspires long-term wealth preservation and enhan...

Rapid improvements in underlying technologies coupled with the diminution of contact-based interactions are resulting in commensurate increases in the supply of and demand for innovative electronic services over self-service technologies (SSTs). This situation raises critical questions regarding value creation as prior research suggests mixed effec...

Infobesity presents a challenge in the information age, necessitating business intelligence systems for conducting business. The information age is also characterized by organizations spread across culturally different countries, which gain performance benefits from multiple national cultures. We study the effect of Business Intelligence Systems an...

Globalized firms maintain a presence across multiple countries encompassing multiple cultures. Cross-border, multicultural firms can leverage digital technologies to harness diverse information spread across the organization to generate insights and innovation. Conversely, digital technologies can cause organizations to suffer from infobesity. We e...

Though innovation is considered to be the lifeblood of business, speed of innovation is more critical than innovation itself. IT plays a critical role in the process of open innovation as it is based upon collaborating with suppliers and customers. IT enables increased collaboration and generation of insights across the firm's partner network. We e...

Infobesity is characterized by information overload whereby firms and decision makers collect more information than they need, or they can efficiently use. While recent studies have begun to unravel the antecedents of infobesity in organizations, there is a need to examine the relationship between the frequency and the degree of experiencing infobe...

Although attractive to foreign and domestic firms, Bottom-of-Pyramid (BOP) markets pose unique challenges. Research suggests that IT-enabled supply chain information integration (IT-SCII) helps firms collaborate with suppliers and clients in broad business activities, and operate in the unique context and overcome salient challenges in BOP markets....

IT-based information management and collaboration networks are both important sources of competitive information. Despite anecdotal evidence, limited research examines their contemporaneous impact on firms’ ability to compete effectively. We take an information asymmetry perspective to examine the mechanisms through which the firm’s information man...

Enterprise systems are a double-edged sword for organizations. The positive impact of implementing these systems on the firm's performance has been widely researched. However, enterprise systems cannot be commended as the silver bullet for improving the firm's business operations. Past literature has identified that enterprise systems can reduce fl...

Digital platforms are transforming commerce practice. Technology is not separate from the socio-cultural environment in which it is used and, thus, platforms mostly capture and imbue values of their origins in the west. As digital platforms are “migrated” outside the west, western values intrinsically embedded in the digital platforms are also unkn...

Digital platforms are transforming commerce practice in a variety of industries. Driven by network effects, platforms are incentivized to increase sup-plier and consumer participation. Increased participation on digital platforms can give rise to infobesity, a condition characterized by information overload whereby various stakeholders collect and...

Digital platforms are conveniently connecting multiple service providers with their consumers. How does assortment and participation influence the performance of service providers on digital platforms? In particular, food delivery platforms are providing consumers with a high level of home delivery convenience. Food delivery platforms are also uniq...

Researchers can examine ethical implications of online rating systems to understand how they function as ‘knowledge instruments’ and affect social relations and networks connected with them. Research should address the fact that the underlying economic structures that design and deploy knowledge producing ‘technical objects’ on online platforms are...

This book constitutes revised selected papers from the 19th Workshop on e-Business, WeB 2020, which took place virtually on December 12, 2020. The purpose of WeB is to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners to discuss findings, novel ideas, and lessons learned to address major challenges and map out the future directions for e-Business....

Enterprise systems are a double-edged sword for organizations. The positive impact of implementing these systems on the firm’s performance has been widely researched. However, enterprise systems cannot be commended as the silver bullet for improving the firm’s business operations. Past literature has identified that enterprise systems can reduce fl...

We seek to understand how small and large firms differ in their ability to leverage relationships with suppliers. Despite suffering from resource scarceness, many small firms manage relationships with multiple suppliers. We propose that IT-enabled partner informedness constitutes a shift parameter that alters the relative effectiveness of relationa...

In this study, we propose that research conducted in Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) domains does not necessarily generalize to the rest of the world. Growing, rural, eastern, aspirational, transitional (GREAT) domains now account for a significant proportion of world economic output and, thereby, warrant special att...

Although the ability to produce exploratory innovations is important for firm performance, firms face difficulties in producing exploratory innovations because knowledge is often distributed across cultures and geographies. In this study, we examine whether information technology (IT) helps firms to overcome the liabilities of global operations par...

Objectives: Managing personal health information is mainly dependent upon individual users’ adoption and use of new health technology. Despite the increasing popularity of mobile health apps, recent endeavors of self-health management have been somewhat limited to fitness management whose apps have selective features and capabilities. Under this co...

Organizations can leverage business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) to transform themselves through a holistic integration process. Contrary to this proposition, many organizations implement BI&A without aligning or integrating it with organizational strategies. Some implement BI&A in a very ad hoc manner without any plans to leverage it. From a...

Digital platforms have transformed various industries, with profound changes witnessed in settings characterized by repeated, low value, and novel transactions, such as ride sharing, household services, and food delivery. Platform providers need to understand the factor(s) that suppliers consider before choosing to participate on their platforms. W...

Business Intelligence and Analytics (BI&A) is emerging as an essential area of expertise in healthcare organizations. Healthcare organizations are trying to leverage BI&A as an integral capability to provide quality healthcare service to patients. From an organizational perspective, BI&A extends beyond an artifact or tool to include several capabil...

This study conceptually develops the construct of Supply Chain Analytics Capability. Preliminary analysis of survey data collected from more than 100 firms in India supports several hypotheses relating supply chain analytics architecture modularity and decentralized governance, in a moderating manner, with Supply Chain Analytics Capability. The cap...

Several questions relevant to IT investments by family firms remain unanswered, such as, how family ownership influences a firm’s IT investment and how the management type, including family management and professional management, further influences the family ownership and IT investment relationship. This study proposes several testable hypotheses,...

Emerging economies present opportunities and challenges for foreign firms to achieve business success. As Information Technology (IT) is a critical lever for firms to compete globally, an important question is whether foreign firms are at a comparative disadvantage or advantage relative to local firms in leveraging IT. We explore this question by e...

Family-owned firms constitute majority of businesses in China, the United States, and India. We merge the Socioemotional Wealth perspective and microfoundations-based theories to explore the combined effect of nature of ownership and the top management team, on investment in IT-based Information Management. Analysis of an unbalanced 11-year panel o...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is evolving from a technology to an enabler of service processes and delivery. With the increasing importance of AI as a service interface, integrating and aligning AI technology to effective service delivery is a critical challenge. In this study, we theorize cognitive apportionment, consisting of AI-human service sync...

We leverage machine learning methods to investigate the role of online ratings on ratee decision making on an online food delivery platform in India. Findings reveal that in the emerging economies, ratings are not likely to have a strong bearing on certain ratee decisions on the online platform. Research on the platform economy in the emerging mark...

Health infomediary systems are emerging as important knowledge sharing platforms that help patients manage their own health outside of traditional health care delivery models. Patients participate in health infomediaries to learn from other patients' experiences and knowledge. Knowledge sharing is an important aspect of the success of a health info...

To refine the theories of operations strategy, we need research from all different situational contexts, including different countries-both developing and developed. There have been many studies, including some replications, done in various parts of the world to further the debate on whether competitive priorities are mutually supportive or if they...

Cloud-based information management is one of the leading competitive differentiation strategies for firms. With the increasing criticality of information management in value creation and process support, establishing an inte-grated capability with cloud computing is vital for organizational success in the changing landscape of business competition....

Business intelligence (BI) is emerging as a critical area of expertise for firms’ value proposition. Firms are trying to leverage BI as an inherent capability to create value. Considering an organizational systems view, BI extends beyond a tool or artifact to include a number of capabilities. We draw on IT capabilities and prior research on BI to u...

The effects of digitized services on the performance of service organizations remain understudied. This study explores contingencies in which digitized services influence the performance of credit unions – an exemplar of service-oriented firms. We investigate contingent effects of digitized B2B transactions (DBT), digitized customer access (DCA), a...

A significant and growing set of approaches in strategic management research are centred on the use of computational models realized as simulations. We provide a characterization of what constitutes a computational simulation and enumerate the possible roles computational simulations can play in strategic management research. By exploring the broad...

Micro-outsourcing is the process of sourcing work to smaller firms or individuals using online sites. Several websites provide a platform to match clients and vendors for sourcing jobs. A typical issue with micro-sourcing is information asymmetry regarding the actual expertise of vendors. Online platforms bridge this gap using vendors’ prior histor...

In this teaching case, we consider the challenges and opportunities faced by Cybage, one of the many players in the Indian software and information technology (IT) services sector, as it co-evolved with India’s knowledge economy. Despite its small size and a last-mover disadvantage, since its founding in 1994, Cybage had enjoyed growth rates higher...

Understanding the antecedents of IT investment decisions is a significant line of enquiry in the IT business value literature. Although previous research has shown a positive link between long-term performance plans and corporate decision making, the association between the use of long-term performance plans and IT investment is understudied in the...

Two emergent antecedents to operating performance are the increased embeddedness of IT within intra- and inter-firm operations and the increased embeddedness of firms within networks of competitive relationships. Theoretically synthesizing these two themes, this interdisciplinary, multi-level research proposes two key ideas. First, brokerage positi...

Institutional settings in emerging markets pose challenges for multinational corporations (MNCs). We argue that information technology (IT) can be used to develop strategic flexibilities to complement organizational capabilities in emerging markets. We explore how MNCs and local firms compare in leveraging their IT enabled strategic flexibilities a...

Researchers have demonstrated that firms in relevant network positions exhibit better innovation and performance. However, there is a need to further understand the factors that enable firms to acquire specific network positions, especially in competition networks. In this study, we draw on the resource-based theory to investigate the role of techn...

Service Digitization is a key means by which organizations derive value from their IT investments. We theorize that Service Digitization consists of two underlying dimensions - Extent of Digitization (EoD) and Range of Digitization (RoD), which present a trade-off scenario for a resource-constrained firm. We examine the firm performance implication...

To thrive in the current embedded and electronic competitive environment, organizations must achieve advantageous positions within their networks of competition. We strengthen the understanding of the genesis of network structures by examining the IT-enabled capabilities and internal resource endowment that determine an advantageous position in com...

Despite growth of information technology (IT) enabled services, how IT provides flexibility in service rendering and delivery, remains a relatively unexplored area of research. In this study, we investigate how digital service flexibility (DSF) influences performance of credit unions - an exemplary set of service oriented firms. We identify three d...

In the turbulent information technology (IT) industry, firms need to continuously innovate to maintain or increase their competitiveness. Focused technology acquisitions provide a means to rapidly gain IT competencies and innovations. Research consistently identifies knowledge and culture as critical antecedents to success in these acquisitions. Si...

This teaching case considers the challenges and opportunities faced by an entrepreneur in Second Life, one of the more popular virtual world environments. Second Life provides the economic and technological platform required for immersion, social interaction and the potential of private enterprise. Many entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the var...

The fifth wave of Merger and Acquisition includes an increasing amount of technology acquisitions. Large firms acquire small, technology-centric firms as an external source of knowledge and innovation. A major challenge in these acquisitions is to capture the knowledge of the acquired firm as well as to assimilate and utilize it in the acquiring co...