RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A questionnaire containing 26 items about security, ease of use, innovative culture, coordination intensity, employee technology readiness, overseas market development, user satisfaction, individual impacts and organizational impacts was constructed.
Each of the factors was measured with multiple items. All of these items were adapted from scholarly extant literature in order to measure factors. Four items for measuring security and ease of use, i.e., SEC1, SEC2, EOU1, EOU2 were adopted from Aladwani & Palvia (2002). Items for measuring employee technology readiness, i.e., ETR1 to ETR3 were adopted from Parasuraman (2000). Items used for measuring coordination intensity, CI1 to CI3, were obtained from previous research (Gatignon & Robertson, 1989). From Bock et al. (2005) we adopted five items, i.e., IC1 to IC5, for measuring innovative culture. For measuring individual impacts and organizational impacts, six items were adapted from prior inventories (DeLone & McLean, 2003), while two items measuring user satisfaction were taken from the inventory of Doll and Torkzadeh (1988). This study was conducted in Taiwan, thus scales were translated into Chinese language. For cross cultural validation, they were back-translated into English. Further, with the help of a bilingual assistant professor, comparison was made with original scales to ensure translation equivalence (Mullen, 1995). The items were presented using a five-point Likert-type scale on which 5 represents “strongly agree” and 1 represents “strongly disagree” and divided into two parts, demographic data and the main survey (see Table 1). Since the respondents of the study were employees, all items were phrased from the employee perspective.A pilot study was carried out to validate the items in the questionnaire using five financial/ accounting managers/officers of firms who have multidisciplinary experience of corporate e-bank- ing services.
Initially they were requested to fill out the questionnaire and critique it for readability and format. Semi-structured interviews were then carried out in order to understand underlying cues for further modification of the instrument. Finally, with the help of two professors from National Chung Hsing University (NCHU), the questionnaire was refined, leaving 31 items. A cross-industrial questionnaire survey of corporate e-banking services users was used for sample collection. We chose financial holding companies (FHCs) with well-established e-B2B banking infrastructure and applications as the sample base. Thus, Top-10 private financial holding companies who had implemented e-B2B banking applications were included, yielding a sample of 5 companies. Of these, FHC A (pseudo name was used in this study for confidentiality) was the only firm to agree to participate in the study after we called the firms to explain the research project and inquiring about their willingness to participate. FHC A, a top-6 private financial holdings company in Taiwan in terms of sales (CommonWealth magazine, 2012), has more than 50 billion in capital, over 4 thousand employees, and total assets over 1.0 trillion NTD (1USD= 29.9 NTD). FHC A offers diversified online B2B banking services such as accounting, loans, and foreign exchange/trading for its corporate customers, including venture capital, insurance brokerage, and financial security services. It also offers infrastructure that allows its corporate customers to build their e-brand image, while improving the depth and breadth of customer relationships. Next, we identified contact persons,Table 1. Survey used to research the value of B2B banking in SMEs (1 =Strongly disagree∕5=Strongly agree)
| Security | SEC1 | Online B2B banking provides highly-secured services. | 12345 |
| SEC2 | Online B2B banking protects information privacy. | 12345 | |
| Ease of Use | EOU1 | Online B2B banking is easy to use. | 12345 |
| EOU2 | Online B2B banking is fast to use. | 12345 | |
| Coordination Intensity | CI1 | Our correspondent banks are highly close with us. | 12345 |
| CI2 | Our correspondent banks promptly inform us when they offer new services. | 12345 | |
| CI3 | Our correspondent banks visit us periodically for business. | 12345 | |
| Innovative Culture | IC1 | I often exchange ideas and opinions with colleagues and supervisors in an open-minded circumstance. | 12345 |
| IC2 | My company gives employees enormous job autonomy. | 12345 | |
| IC3 | My company encourages employees express ideas and opinions. | 12345 | |
| IC4 | My company encourages employees use new methods to perform tasks and jobs. | 12345 | |
| IC5 | My company is glad to let employees learn from trial-and error. | 12345 | |
| Employee Technology Readiness | ETR1 | I like to use computers to complete my tasks and jobs. | 12345 |
| ETR2 | I find computers easy to use. | 12345 | |
| ETR3 | I acquaint myself with computer skills. | 12345 | |
| Overseas Market Development | OMD1 | Due to the overseas markets, most products/services are sold overseas. | 12345 |
| OMD2 | Company establishes overseas plants, branches, or subsidiaries. | 12345 | |
| OMD3 | Top managers must often go overseas to meet with international clients for business. | 12345 | |
| User Satisfaction | US1 | In sum, I am satisfied with online B2B banking. | 12345 |
| US2 | In sum, I think that online B2B banking is successful. | 12345 | |
| Individual Impacts | II1 | Online B2B banking saves my time on daily transactions. | 12345 |
| II2 | Online B2B banking improves my productivity. | 12345 | |
| II2 | Online B2B banking saves my costs on searching information. | 12345 | |
| Organizational Impacts | OI1 | Online B2B banking enables my company respond quicker to transactions. | 12345 |
| OI2 | Online B2B banking enables my company enhance information accuracy and reliability. | 12345 | |
| OI3 | Online B2B banking enables my company speed up transactions. | 12345 |
in the position of financial managers, leaders, and supervisors, and senior specialists, at FHC A.
This study defines an SME as a firm established with under NTD 300 million in capital (Lee, 2007a).
SMEs are also defined as companies with 500 or fewer workers, a definition popular in industrialized countries (Knight, 2001). Based on our definition, a sample pool of 350 potential SMEs was identified. With the assistance of contact persons at FHC A, we contacted these SMEs who have used e-B2B banking applications and inquired about their willingness to participate in the study after explaining the purpose of the research. Accompanied by contact persons at FHC A, we personally visited the financial managers of these SMEs and explained the questionnaires to them. Finally, 200 questionnaires were sent to corporate clients who were willing to join this research and distributed to those employees who work in the finance department. However, only 178 usable questionnaires were received. Table 2 indicates profile of samples.Table 2. Profile of surveyed companies
| Number of Companies | Percent (%) | ||
| Sector | Manufacturing | 66 | 37.1 |
| Construction | 17 | 9.5 | |
| Commerce | 32 | 18.0 | |
| Transportation | 11 | 6.2 | |
| Service | 37 | 20.8 | |
| Others | 15 | 8.4 | |
| Number of Employees | 5 | 14 | 7.9 |
| 5-19 | 43 | 24.2 | |
| 20-49 | 38 | 21.3 | |
| 50-99 | 12 | 6.7 | |
| 100-500 | 71 | 39.9 | |
| Capital (NT$ Million) | bgcolor=white>11.8 | ||
| 11-15 | 11 | 6.2 | |
| >16 | 2 | 1.1 | |
| Service Application (Multiple Possible) | Bookkeeping | 97 | 54.5 |
| Loan | 51 | 28.7 | |
| Factoring | 34 | 19.1 | |
| Searching | 131 | 73.6 | |
| Foreign exchange/trading | 45 | 25.3 |
More financial literature on Economics.Studio
More on the topic RESEARCH METHODOLOGY:
-
Conflictology -
Ecology -
Economy -
Finance -
History -
Law -
Medicine -
Philosophy -
Religious studies -