Interfirm Business Process Innovation: A Case Study in China

Taking China's two successful IOS cases as study object, this paper investigated inter-firm business process transformation enabled by IOS from four aspects, namely, integration, transfer, elimination and creation of inter-firm business processes. This study argues that IOS must be seen as the enabler of organizational structure and business process changes rather than a mere implementation tool for existing organizations and processes inside enterprises and between enterprises. Enterprises should focus on their core capability, collaborate with each other with IOS and actively achieve inter-firm business process integration and innovation.