cited. Achieving Competitive Advantage (CA) through Information Infrastructure Capability (IIC): An Empirical JustificationAuthor

The goals of most of the organisations are achieving their sustainable competitive advantage (CA) challenges. One of the organizational initiatives is to invest appropriate information infrastructures. However, organisations may face difficulties to select effective information infrastructures in their respective situations to achieve CA from elusive information. This paper is to connect the Information infrastructure capability (IIC) to CA with empirical justification. Hence, IICs are categorised into dynamic capability (D), integrating capability (I), data management capability (DM), security capability (S), utility capability (U) and collaborating capability (C) from past studies. This paper then empirically test the model using a set of survey data collected from 295 MSC Malaysia companies with the aim to analyse IICs in a holistic way. Four capabilities emerge from the factor analysis as IICs: D, I, DM and U. These results show there is an empirical link between IICs which comprises D, I, DM and U with CA. Finally, a clear full chain of variables model connecting IIC to organisational CA is obtained to fill the research lacuna.


Introduction
One of the main challenges for Malaysia to become an intelligent nation is the change in the emphasis of economic development from a production-based economy to a knowledgebased one (Chong, 2005, Sidhu, 2006, Taap, 2001).Among the efforts undertaken by Malaysia is the development of Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project which was conceptualised in 1996.The project was modelled after Silicon Valley, which would offer the best of first-world knowledge and infrastructure at developing-nation costs (MDeC, 2010a).This is also an initiative designed to help Malaysia leapfrog into an information and knowledge economy by the year 2020.
With governmental encouragement, the information and communications technology (ICT) companies have grown tremendously.In 1997, the country had less than 300 ICT companies (Mergawati, 2006).They have now reached 2,382 (MDeC, 2010b).As for the number of MSC companies, there were only 94 in 1997 but numbered 2,497 to date (MDeC, 2008).To be qualified for preferential status of MSC Malaysia, one of the conditions for the companies is that, at all times, at least 15% of the total numbers of employees (excluding support staff) are knowledge workers.This requirement is in line with the compliance k-economy initiatives (MDeC, 2008).
While the literature on knowledge management (KM) and ICT is still growing, an online search of databases indicates less than ten information infrastructure IIC related publications in Malaysian context to date.Furthermore, none of the publications Communications of the IBIMA 2 discusses IIC in the context presented in this paper.
This paper begins by outlining the study background and issues.A review of the appropriate literature in creating the theoretical model is then completed.Next, statistical analysis will be presented from 295 MSC Malaysia companies which were surveyed and the results will be presented.Finally, study implications and concluded remarks will be discussed.

Study Background and Issues
Despite the fact that positive role of information infrastructure capability (IIC) for an organisational competitive advantage (CA) was generally supported by many scholars through empirical results, (Bhatt et al., 2010, Paul, 2008, Qi et al., 2008, Schwager et al., 2000, Wang et al., 2007) many past researches noted not all ICT investments contributed into productive outputs (Bharadwaj, 2000, Burca et al., 2006, Weill, 1992).
Past researches have largely focused on general conceptual principles of organisational CA and KM in leading organisations (Benbya et al., 2004;Chong, 2005;Gertjan et al., 1997;Hahn and Subramani, 2000;Holsapple and Joshi, 2002b;Kim, 2001;Ngai and Chan, 2005;Rajiv and Sanjiv, 2005;Sher and Lee, 2004).There is not much intent on the relationships between information infrastructure capability (IIC) and organisational competitive advantage (CA).For instance, an extended KM assessment framework was proposed by Kim (2001).This extended framework classifies the organisational KM frameworks into four distinct groups, which may provide more realistic approaches to the industry practices.It is just a starting point for more sophisticated organisational KM framework assessment and development.The author also claims there is no perfect framework developed so far.An inevitable limitation of Kim's framework is that it is based on one assumption: a firm is taking one dominant KM approach.However, some companies are engaged in multiple businesses that are heterogeneous in terms of service type and knowledge type used.As such, when a company is taking multiple KM approaches, the proposed framework may not be applied.Furthermore, Kim's framework is limited to the management consulting industry in the U.S.A and Canada only.Other industries in different countries may show different results.
In 2004, a study on success factors of KM implementation was carried out.The study has addressed the need for theory-based research on the inIluence of 14 KM factors on the performance of organisations in Singapore.The research has confirmed previous works on the efficacy along with mechanisms to ensure that the KM success factors proposed would increase the organisational performance (Bawany, 2004).However, empirical link between the IIC and performance was not addressed and focused only on selected companies in Singapore only.The findings could not be extracted to the worldwide markets as well as the Malaysian market.
Later, in 2005, potential impacts of ICT-based KM efforts were reiterated by Rajiv and Sanjiv.The researchers highlight the need for 3 Communications of the IBIMA managers to carefully consider the specific circumstances surrounding their firms in deciding whether or not, and what kind of ICT-based KM efforts are most appropriate at least in terms of how well they would be received in the short term.However, the study may be limited due to their focus on a specific KM effort.They have made simplifying assumption that each announced KM effort concentrates on one of the activities such as knowledge creation, sharing or applying.In fact, a firm may have a number of mechanisms and processes.
In addition, there have been numerous studies about KM and ICT.However, there have been only limited physical numbers of studies about KM and its underlying ICT components specifically in the Malaysian context.Studies that have been done in the Western countries cannot be generalised to the Malaysian context due to differences in cultures and business customs (Bawany, 2004, Chong, 2005).Although there were studies done in Asian countries such as Japan (Nonaka, 1994), Singapore (Bawany, 2004), Taiwan (Sher and Lee, 2004), and Hong Kong (Ngai and Chan, 2005), they also may not be generalised to Malaysian context due to differences in cultures and business customs.Furthermore, although there have been numerous studies about KM, there are only a few studies to suggest or prove that IIC enhance CA in organisations.There have been only a limited number of surveys done by KM experts and consulting companies (Bawany, 2004, Chong andChoi, 2005).Additionally, these surveys only provide a general guideline to identify the success factors of KM implementation in organisations.In order to truly understand the relationships between IIC and organisational CA, it is indispensable to investigate the underlying components of ICT because no individual IIC can exist without its infrastructure support (Benbya et al., 2004, Kim, 2001, Meek, 1999, Taap, 2001, Tanriverdi, 2001).
As MSC Malaysia companies pioneer the ICT efforts in Malaysia, a study on these companies would provide a guide to other industries on what are the necessary ICT infrastructures that would aid organisational CA.Consequently, this guide would also serve as a reference point for companies and industries intending to apply information infrastructure or with existing KM framework to identify KM technologies and infrastructures which would be useful for organisational CA.

Theoretical Foundation: Concept of Information Infrastructure Capability (IIC)
Knowledge has more descriptive value based on recent frameworks proposed as in KM activities.KM activities are supported by information infrastructures and hence KM capabilities are also supported by information infrastructures (Alavi and Leidner, 2001;Benbya et al., 2004;Bloodgood and Salisbury, 2001;Gertjan et al., 1997;Hahn and Subramani, 2000;Holsapple and Joshi, 2002a;Kim, 2001;Nonaka, 1994;Rajiv and Sanjiv, 2005;Sher and Lee, 2004;Tanriverdi, 2001;Wang et al., 2007;Zack, 1999a).Sher and Lee (1994) proved that information infrastructure facility often resulted in greater information infrastructure capability (IIC).Competitive advantage (CA) resulting from the deployment and use of information infrastructures was investigated among researchers within the IS field (Wade and Hulland, 2004).The primary Iinding was that organisations that possess inimitable or nonsubstitutable resources often enjoy sustained CA.
In this study, IIC is a group of information infrastructure capability (IIC) which consists of dynamic capability, integrating capability, data management capability, security capability, utility capability and collaborating capability.As described in literature review, Communications of the IBIMA 4 each capability of the IIC is distinct.But they are highly interrelated .They constrain, facilitate and reinforce each other.

Dynamic Capability
KM involves distinct but interrelated processes of KM activities.At any point in time, an organisation and its members can be involved in multiple KM activity chains.As such, KM is a dynamic organisational phenomenon.Organisations need to be highly responsive in an environment of rapid change.Dynamic capability refers to the ability of organisational flexibility with respect to external challenges (Blake, 1998;Debowski, 2006;Hahn and Subramani, 2000;Nonaka, 1994;Paul, 2008;Rajiv and Sanjiv, 2005;Sher and Lee, 2004;Tanriverdi, 2001;Wang et al., 2007).
The core feature of IIC is having dynamic capability between dynamic aspects of organisational KM activities.Organisations need to be flexible and innovative when the timing of market entry and technological change demand highly responsive decisions and when future competition and market structures are difficult to forecast (Sher and Lee, 2004).For instance, in collecting organisational knowledge, easy to use and easy to remember retrieval mechanisms (e.g., search and retrieval commands) are important aspects of an organisational KM strategy while a variety of search and retrieval approaches and tools exist.The challenge in design of organisational knowledge retrieval strategies is providing timely and easy access to knowledge while avoiding a condition of information overload (Alavi andLeidner, 2001, Tiwana, 2002).
Organisations have responded to external changes of demands and needs by modifying their management practices and core business processes (Debowski, 2006).Hence, flexible workforces with dynamic capability are needed to enable rapid adaptation to changing demand and volatile markets.

Integrating Capability
Integrating capability refers to the ability of "linking individual components and services for the purpose of sharing software, communication, and data resources" (Kim, 2001).
Information from different organisational repositories is integrated in a unified view instead of having information spread across many sources within organisation.The data resources include file servers, databases, business systems, groupware systems, document repositories and the web (Benbya et al., 2004).Integrating capability of ICT infrastructure can ensure enterprise wide compatibility among ICT components so that ICT applications can be assessed and used by employees across the organisation (Kim, 2001).
Effective performance and growth in knowledge intensive organisations require integrating and sharing highly distributed knowledge (Christopher, 2006, Zack, 1999b).
From foregoing discussion, ICT components support ICT applications in different levels.ICT applications will have varying degrees of appropriateness for KM activities.There is a variety of ICT components in an organisation in order to support different levels of KM activities.Hence, it is indispensable to integrate all physical ICT components (such as hardware, software, data and telecommunications) working together as an integrated resource.

Data Management Capability
Knowledge is based on data and information (Ngai andChan, 2005, Tiwana, 2000).Data is raw facts that must be stored, grouped, analysed and summarised to have meaning.When data are organised and processed in a meaningful context, they become information.Knowledge consists of data and information that have been organised and processed to give understanding, experience and expertise in a speciIic context (Benbya et al., 2004, Zack, 1999b).The organised and processed knowledge is actually the KM activities.Hence, data management includes creating, storing, sharing and utilising data.

Security Capability
Security is the capability to minimise ICT vulnerability and abuse (Kim, 2001).Security in an organisation that focuses on maintaining knowledge in its original and constructive state (i.e.not losing it or allowing it to become altered or obsolete) and keeping knowledge from unauthorised transfer to other organisations using policies, procedures, technical and legal measures (Bloodgood andSalisbury, 2001, Kim, 2001).The policies, procedures, technical and legal measures include backup, disaster management and recovery planning (Kim, 2001).

Utility Capability
Utility capability is another basic aspect of IIC.KM is the basis for the effective utilisation of many important resources (Ngai and Chan, 2005).Utility capability is the basic and common services that every type of ICT infrastructure has.It works like water and electricity in common public sector (Kim, 2001).Organisations need these basic services to perform better in business world (Weil and Broadbent, 1998).
Even though all capabilities are important, in order to support different needs, different KM frameworks will need different capabilities in different degrees (Kim, 2001, Sher andLee, 2004).Utility capability includes ICT planning, training, education, customer service and support (Kim, 2001).

Collaborating Capability
Collaborating capability refers to the ability of "linking people so that they can work together".Collaborating capability of ICT infrastructure can ensure mutual efforts by two or more individuals in order to perform task (Kim, 2001).
The rise of suits of collaboration tools over the last couple of years has been substantial (Christopher, 2006).Most of the largest ICT vendors, for example, IBM, have introduced the concept of activity-centric collaboration through Activity Explorer, and MS Office Communicator delivers enhanced collaboration between many of its synchronous communications.Those developments are a welcome improvement to the collaboration technologies and they are expected to see more in the near future (Christopher, 2006).

Collaboration
tools are central to organisational competitive advantage.Common collaboration tools include instant messaging, SMS, e-mail, discussion groups, blogs, wikis, bulletin boards, project workspaces, task lists, calendars, document sharing and corporate portals (Benbya et al., 2004, Christopher, 2006, Kim, 2001).For instance, corporate portals can also give organisational participants the ability to create a shared community because they present a natural forum for online collaboration by assembling a set of content and services to which members of a group have special access (Benbya et al., 2004).Decision support systems were developed to enhance collaborative group work between geographically dispersed professionals.Examples of the collaboration tools in the markets are Lotus Notes, Network Delivery Knowledge and Fulcrum Knowledge Network (Meso and Smith, 2000).

While KM environment is dynamic, ICT vendors are developing the tools in this
Communications of the IBIMA 6 dynamic space.In view of globalisation of business, people should be connected regardless of their physical locations.

Theoretical Model
The extensive review of literature enables the theoretical model to be constructed along with identification of theory, independent variables and dependent variable.This chapter discusses the Organisational Information Processing Theory (OIPT) and also outlines and explains the research hypotheses based on the theoretical and empirical considerations as described in literature review.A new theoretical model is then summarised to illustrate the proposed relationships between all the variables.

Organisational Information Processing Theory (OIPT)
The Organisational Information Processing Theory (OIPT), developed by Jay Galbraith, identifies three important concepts: information processing needs, information processing capability and the fit between the two to obtain optimal performance.The concern of OIPT includes organisational needs, organisational capability and effectiveness.Organisations need quality information to cope with environmental uncertainty and improve their decision making.Environmental uncertainty stems from the complexity of the environment and dynamism, or from the frequency of changes to various environmental variables (Galbraith, 1974, Premkumar et al., 2005).
Typically, organisations have two strategies to cope with uncertainty and increased information needs: 1) develop buffers to reduce the effect of uncertainty, and 2) implement structural mechanisms and information processing capability to enhance the information flow and thereby reduce uncertainty.
A classic example of the first strategy is building inventory buffers to reduce the effect of uncertainty in demand or supply; another example is adding extra safety buffers in product design due to uncertainty in product working conditions.An example of the second strategy is the redesign of business processes in organisations and implementation of integrated IS that improves information flow and reduces uncertainty within organisational subunits.A similar strategy is creating better information flow between organisations to address the uncertainties in the supply chain (Galbraith, 1974, Premkumar et al., 2005).
With respect to this paper, information infrastructure capability (IIC) is conceived as organisational needs and capabilities which will lead to the organisational competitive advantage (CA).Hence, this paper is based on OIPT.

Independent Variables
In this study, independent variable is a group of information infrastructure capability (IIC) ( As described in section 2, each capability of the IIC is distinct.But they are highly interrelated.They constrain, facilitate, and reinforce each other.
In the context of this study, organisational CA refers to the capability of creating, storing, sharing and utilising knowledge using dynamic capability, integrating capability, data management capability, security capability, utility capability, and collaborating capability.
In summary, IIC is conceived as organisational needs and capabilities which will lead to the CA of KM implementation.

Fig2. Theoretical Model
Model Justification 600 MSC Malaysia companies were selected from a list obtained from MSC Malaysia website (www.mscmalaysia.com.my) using simple random sampling.The 600 companies were contacted using emails and follow-up phone calls from June to October 2009.There were 302 questionnaires (50.3%) returned by the respondents.

Descriptive Statistic
In this study, the final sample of 295 respondents was first analysed using descriptive statistic analysis after list-wise deletion of the cases of respondents with one or more missing values in the questionnaires.This initial analysis provides a feel for the data using and to obtain an insight into the distribution of the respondents' information.

Internal Consistency Reliabilities
The Cronbach's Alpha measures for each variable in this study are summarised in Table 3 below.There are 46 items used for respondents experience and perception of all the seven variables.There are 28-item information infrastructure capability (IIC) scale which is composed of 3-item dynamic (D) scale, 3-item integrity (I) scale, 8-item data management (DM) scale, 3-item security (S) scale, 6-item utility (U) scale and 5-item collaboration (C) scale.Besides, there is 18-item competitive advantage (CA) scale.The list of items used is presented in Appendix A. The internal consistency reliabilities are all above 0.5, which was intended as the minimum cut-off alpha measure.Most of the observed score variance is due to random error if alpha value is less than 0.50 (Kline, 2005, Kline, 2009).

Principal Component Analysis (Pilot Survey)
Pilot survey was conducted from January to February 2009 using a selected group of 50 middle managers of MSC Malaysia companies.
The returned rate was 76% from them totalling 38 sets.This meets the suggested minimum requirement (Cooper and Schindler, 2006).Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) explores the data and provides the researcher with information about how many factors are needed to best represent the data.With EFA, all measured variables are related to every factor by a factor Communications of the IBIMA 12 loading estimate.Simple structure results when each measured variable loads highly on one factor and has smaller loadings on other factors (i.e., loadings less than 0.40) (Hair et al., 2010).
The pilot data was first assessed by using EFA by principal component analysis (PCA) with varimax rotation using factor analysis in SPSS version 16.0.All variables were loaded together.The output of 'Rotated Component Matrix,' indicates that all the seven variables accounted for 78.32%.The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) Measure of Sampling Adequacy (MSA) exceeds the minimum requirement of 0.50 for overall MSA with Bartlett's Test significant.

Research Implications
The findings of this paper contribute some key ideas and clues to the existing literature on information infrastructure capability (IIC) on organisational competitive advantage (CA), primarily for MSC Malaysia Companies.
The current literature and studies on IIC and organisational CA is still scare relative to the existing literature on knowledge management (KM) and ICT.This study represents one of the first few attempts to look into the relationships of IIC and CA in Malaysian context.
While the previous studies demonstrate that there are six capabilities of IIC: dynamic (D), integrating (I), utility (U), collaborating (C), security (S) and data management (DM) capabilities (Alavi and Leidner, 2001;Benbya et al., 2004;Bloodgood and Salisbury, 2001;Christopher, 2006; Communications of the IBIMA 14 , 2006;Hahn and Subramani, 2000;Kim, 2001;Nonaka, 1994;Paul, 2008;Rajiv and Sanjiv, 2005;Sher and Lee, 2004;Tanriverdi, 2001;Tiwana, 2000;Wang et al., 2007;Zack, 1999a;Zack, 1999b) to have positive influence on organisational CA; the results from this study reveal there are only four categories of IIC that consist of D, I, U and DM to have positive influence on organisational CA.The C and S capabilities were deleted in this study in the process of obtaining the component factors.From the theoretical perspective, the evidence of the theoretical model developed in this study is effective for identifying the categories of IIC achieving organisational CA.

Debowski
This theoretical model appears to provide the first investigation about the MSC Malaysia companies the relationships of IIC and organisational CA.This is due to, as Malaysia moves into the era of k-economy, MSC Malaysia companies are supposed to pioneer the implementation of information infrastructure, this study on the MSC Malaysia companies would also offer a guideline to companies in other industries on key ICT infrastructure necessary for organisational CA.

Concluded Remarks
The review of the literatures provides significant evidence on the relationships between organisational competitive advantage (CA) and information infrastructure capability (IIC).However, there is still a lack of understanding of which information infrastructure capability (IIC) is specifically important to consistently contribute to CA.This study specifically investigates which IIC could contribute to organisational CA by determining the relationships to fill up the lacuna.This study findings offer useful information to the MSC Malaysia companies on a clear view of IIC that are needed to effectively implement KM and eventually lead them to future business success.Since MSC Malaysia companies are the pioneer of the implementation of information infrastructure as Malaysia moves into the era of k-economy, it can also be a guideline to companies in other industries on key ICT infrastructure necessary for organisational CA.Academically, it has also set a foundation for the theory, practice and future research areas about the IIC and organisational CA.

Table 5 : The Rotated Component Matrix (Final Survey) Rotated Component Matrix a
Note: Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis.Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization.