Internet and firm development

Purpose This paper aims to provide a survey of existing literature on the economic impacts of the internet on firm development, and outlines an overall framework of the existing studies. The purpose is to show how the internet affects firm development, which may help policymakers and other researchers to have a better knowledge of existing research characteristics, problems and future directions. Design/methodology/approach The authors review the studies on the economic impacts of the internet on firm characteristics and external environment, identify the characteristics of the existing literature and problems and discuss the directions of possible future research. Findings The authors find that the impacts of the internet on firm development mainly display two relevant mechanisms (firm characteristics and external environment), and they can be grouped into six channels (firm innovation, firm business mode, firm performance, firm productivity, firm import and export trade and firm location selection). Originality/value This study builds up a framework of how the internet impacts on firm development, which can add value to the future research of firm intelligent transaction modes in the crowd intelligence network.