TO WHAT EXTEND CAN ADOPTING E-BUSINESS SYSTEMS CONTRIBUTES TO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE AND BUSINESS PERFORMANCE?

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Information and communication technologies allow the support of integrated communication and information among project members. It is now widely recognized as one of the strengths of the economy and can act as a strategic tool, modifying the structure of the market and of production creating Competitive strategies (Gendron, 2012)

The Internet in particular is an extremely important technology, and it is not surprising that entrepreneurs are more attentive to their potential, whether used as a medium of communication or as a business space. The key question is not whether companies should adopt this technology, but rather how it should be developed. The Internet has created new industries such as online commerce and digital markets (Porter, 2001). Understood as a global network, the Internet acts as a powerful channel that presents new opportunities both for building business globally and for users, enriching products and services with more information and lower costs for its process automation. For Gendron (2012), the Internet is perhaps the largest and most well known implementation of interconnected networks, which allows keeping numerous individual networks connected throughout the world.

The adoption of e-business system is considered as adopting an innovation (Sanders, 2007), depending to a large extent on how companies view technology. Factors internal to the organization allow, to a greater or lesser extent, to create a culture of adoption of such systems in the company. In this sense top management can play a leading role in defining a business technology strategy. Technological strategies, as well as knowledge and management, depend to a large extent on the business context in which companies are located (Sanders, 2007).

E-business is a central part of an economic system where the key characteristics are global, based on knowledge and information interconnection appearing as an innovation that companies can take advantage of. E-business systems, defined as a form of information exchange, commercial or administrative transaction of wide scope between business partners, that the companies realize through the Internet, to provide a change in the processes and the transformation of businesses for the purpose of Create an advantage over competitors. This change involves technological developments, digitizing and automating business processes in a global way, allowing to improve competitiveness, increase efficiency, and increase market share (Sanders, 2007), redesigning new (Rodgers et al., 2002), as well as better coordination and communication between business partners, facilitating customer service (Soto-Acosta and Meroño-Cerdan, 2008).

The introduction of e-business can impact on many aspects of the organizational structure. The adoption of e-business systems will in the first instance affect the boundary areas of the company, as well as the commercial and marketing areas. E-business will first affect the company's relationships with customers, and then with suppliers and business partners (Rodgers et al., 2002).

The adoption of e-business systems appears as an innovation, which is important to instill in companies since it seems to accentuate the creation of competitive advantages; however, because it is a recent issue, there are still many aspects to be clarified, which justifies the relevance of studies in this area, since this topic is far from exhausted (Soto-Acosta and Meroño-Cerdan, 2008).

Given the timeliness and importance of e-business systems in the development of business and the economy and taking into account the context of the adoption of e-business systems in Portugal, the study proposed here aims to develop and contribute to know the determining factors The adoption of e-business systems and evaluate the effects of this adoption on business performance and competitive advantage (Rodgers et al., 2002).

Research objective

The main objective of this research is to identify the factors that determine the adoption of e-business systems. In the second instance, it is also intended to investigate whether the adoption of e-business systems has an impact on companies' competitive advantage strategy, as well as business performance.

The achievement of these objectives will be achieved through a descriptive and comparative analysis of all secondary data used. Because considering that skimming data on certain subjects that already exist, it is possible to produce knowledge from previously scattered data. This kind of analysis helps a lot when it comes to showing the picture investigated more full, always taking care not to make them absolute truths.

Literature review

Based on the selected bibliography summarizes the scientific thinking in the field of e-business systems adoption, in particular the topics specifically relevant to the study and which are the origin of the proposed research model.

Knowledge and its management is a process that has history. In the past, the wisdom of family business was passed from parents to children, from artisans to apprentices, and, in general, through the exchange of experiences among workers in the same branch of activity (Grant, 1991).

Knowledge management is the way to guide the processes within the organization in a way that minimizes the response time to the actors in the organization. In a practical way, knowledge management refers to a strategic action to create processes that identify, capture and leverage knowledge (Freeze and Kulkarni, 2007,). It is generally accepted by psychologists and sociologists that individuals tend to expose themselves to ideas that are in accordance with their beliefs, interests and needs. Individuals are more apt to adopt innovations for which they feel more desirable and consider them more relevant. It should be considered that a company where human resources have a greater knowledge of the new technologies would be more willing to be exposed to the adoption of e-business systems (Freeze and Kulkarni, 2007,).

In today's economy, rapid access to knowledge is critical to the success of organizations (Ahad M. Osman‐Gani, 1999). It is clearly observed that the present world is oriented in knowledge societies where the only source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge (Ahad M. Osman‐Gani, 1999). Knowledge defined as information whose validation is established through tests and evidence, often referred to as a background to innovations, can be seen as an important factor in successful e-business adoption (Ahad M. Osman‐Gani, 1999). Managers must consider that human knowledge capabilities need to be developed, since they represent the major source of competitive