Towards a New Understanding of the e-Business Strategic Process: The Rise of a Dynamic Interaction-Based Approach

In the early 1970s, strategic planning was introduced onto the corporate management scene and since then it has been a dominating conceptual frame for understanding and designing various strategies in the corporate world. Nearly a decade later, strategic planning has been used by various scholars to explain how companies could strategize in the field of ICT and e-business. Strategic information systems planning (SISP) is an example of this application of strategic planning in the field of e-business. The prominence of SISP within the corporate IS strategy literature has been dramatic, but today there exist other different understandings of how strategies are emerging. However, e-business strategic literature is still dominated by the planning e-business approaches. The question therefore remains: Is it still optimal to build a static, programmed analytical information plan, or must the e-business strategic process adapt to changes in the planning environment and internal changes within the organization? E-business strategy, because of increased uncertainty and environmental complexity, must encourage interaction between key stakeholders that implement and use the e-business technology. The literature reveals the lack of a dynamic theory of e-business strategy. The current paper proposes an e-business strategy conceptualized as a dynamic interaction-based process, in which several organizational components co-create the e-business strategic framework of the company. The process is based on group-learning processes where the strategy emerges though the processes of action and reflection. These experience-based group-learning processes help organize the process of e-business strategizing so that improvisational and dynamic competences can emerge.