Validation of the Information-Technology-Enabled Interaction Instrument in Contemporary Chinese Context

• Main Authors: Miao Li, Xin Yu, Chunhao Li
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-12-01
• Series: Information
• Subjects: IT-enabled interaction; relationship management; mutual trust; instrument validation
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2078-2489/11/12/573

Practitioners and researchers have shown great interest in information-technology (IT)-enabled interactions across partnering firms and developed instruments for measuring it. However, those instruments might have been under criticism as they were developed before the widespread adoption of the new IT applications like video conferences, DingTalk and WeChat Moments among Chinese managers for the last five years. The purpose of this study is to validate the instrument of IT-enabled formal and informal interactions for the contemporary Chinese context. First, the study reviews the literature on IT-enabled interfirm interactions and designs an open questionnaire through in-depth interviews. Answers from 85 pairs of suppliers and manufacturers are coded and the preliminary item pool is generated through the qualitative analysis. Next, a small-scale pretest with 120 manufacturing firms is conducted to purify and modify the item pool. Finally, a large-scale analysis with 336 manufacturing firms is conducted to check the reliability and validity of the measurements. The finalized scale yields six items measuring IT-enabled formal interaction and five items measuring IT-enabled informal interaction, among which six are newly derived in this study. The validated instrument reveals satisfactory reliability and validity and can serve as the basic instruments for future research on IT-enabled interactions.