Do supply chain IT alignment and supply chain interfirm system integration impact upon brand equity and firm performance?

Researchers and managers have recently shown increasing interest in measuring the return on intangible assets, including brand equity. However, in today's complicated business world, understanding such intangible assets in the single firm context offers only a limited view. Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm, this study explores supply chain specific IT resources such as IT alignment and interfirm system integration between supply chain partners as antecedents of brand equity, relating brand equity to firm performance variables. Furthermore, the study framework incorporates IT appropriability as a firm's internal facilitator and partner dependence as a relational factor that form such supply chain IT resources. The results indicate that both IT alignment and interfirm system integration have positive effects on brand equity while supply chain IT resources are affected by the relational factor, partner dependence. IT appropriability affects IT alignment and IT alignment is found to mediate the relationship between IT appropriability and interfirm system integration.