Duration in the Digital Economy

We examine the drivers of Internet firm survival using a multi-method survival analysis. Based on previous literature on business failure and recent IS research on e-commerce business models, we test the impact of sector-, firm- and e-commerce-specific factors on an Internet firm’s duration after its IPO. We first provide a descriptive analysis of Internet firm failure using non-parametric survival analysis, which indicates the existence of differences in failure timing for different e-commerce firms such as B2B, B2C, and B2B2C. We next explore the relative strengths of the explanatory factors in predicting different failure types using semi-parametric survival analyses. Our results suggest that the impact of the sector-, firm- and e-commerce-specific factors are different for different failure types such as bankruptcy, merger and acquisition. A favorable capital market, reflected in a high IPO entry, and the selling of digital goods can enhance an Internet firm’s chances of survi...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2003
• Where: HICSS
• Authors: Robert J. Kauffman, Bin Wang
• Keywords: Biometrics, HICSS 2003, Internet Firm, Internet Firm Survival, Survival Analysis, System Sciences