Digital transformation has fundamentally reshaped consumers’ expectations and requirements, and pressured firms to develop market learning capability, thereby improving firm performance. Drawing on organizational learning theory and the dynamic capability view, this study aims to examine how market learning mediates the relationships between information technology (IT) integration, IT reconfiguration and firm performance and the moderating role of customer-based structure.
Based on questionnaire survey data collected from 164 Chinese firms, hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the proposed hypotheses.
The empirical results revealed that IT integration and IT reconfiguration positively affect market learning. Market learning has a positive impact on firm performance. Then, market learning partially mediates the relationship between IT integration and firm performance. The relationship between IT reconfiguration and firm performance is mediated by market learning. Besides, the positive effect of IT integration on market learning was positively moderated by customer-based structure. By contrast, the positive roles of IT reconfiguration were negatively and not significantly moderated by customer-based structure.
This study contributes to the literature on digital transformation and interorganizational IT value creation by providing empirical evidence of the impacts of IT integration and IT reconfiguration on market learning. Elucidating the mediating role of market learning and the moderating role of customer-based structure increases our knowledge of the complex mechanisms through which interorganizational IT capability drives firm performance. The empirical results provide valuable and practical implications for improving market learning and obtaining firm performance.
