Intelligent Contracting

The unprecedented advancements witnessed in the field of information and communication technology over the last couple of years are significantly affecting the nature and magnitude of B2B interactions, as well as their operational effectiveness and efficiency. However, interaction and contracting among global enterprises continued to be challenged by the difference of laws, authentication requirements, and endorsement constrains. With the rapidly increasing proliferation of mobile devices, wireless communication systems, and advanced computer networking protocols, the deployment of electronic contracting platforms and applications has provided many opportunities to enterprises; dictated new axioms for doing business; and gave rise to new paradigms. Together with the increasing institutional transformations, technological advancements motivated businesses to engage in an interactive process of contract formulation and negotiation.

Multi-Channel Retailing and Customer Satisfaction

Multi-channel retailers that utilize an e-CRM approach stand to benefit in multiple arenas by providing targeted customer service as well as gaining operational and competitive advantages. To that end, it is inherent that multi-channel retailers better understand how satisfaction—a necessary condition for building customer loyalty—influences consumers’ decisions to shop in one retail channel or another. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of shopping experience on customers’ future purchase intentions, both for the retailer and for the channel. Using a controlled experimental design, U.S. and European subjects responded to a series of questions regarding the likelihood making a future purchase following either a positive or negative shopping encounter. Results suggest that shopping intentions vary based on the shopping channel as well as cultural differences.

An Introduction to the Management and Protection of Intellectual Property Rights

Copyright protection is becoming an important issue for organizations that create, use, and distribute digital content through e-commerce channels. As online corruption increases, new technical and business requirements are posed for protecting Intellectual Property Rights, such as watermarking, use of metadata, self-protection, and self-authentication. This chapter gives a review of the most important of these methods and analyses of their potential use in Digital Rights Management systems. We focus especially on watermarking, and argue that it has a true potential in e-business because it is possible to embed and detect multiple watermarks to a single digital artifact without decreasing its quality. In conjunction with parallel linking of content to metadata there is true potential for real life copyright-protection systems. Furthermore we attack the problem of DRM systems’ interoperability with Distributed License Catalogues (DLCs). The DLC concept, borrowed from Web engineering, makes available (‘advertises’) content or services concerning DRM functionalities, enabling multiparty DRM eco-systems.

Socio-Economic Impacts of Offshore Outsourcing of Information Technology

Offshore information technology (IT) outsourcing has been becoming mainstream alternative to inhouse operations. While offshore development is a relatively new trend in IT, the concept of outsourcing manufacturing and service operations has been going on for more than 50 years. Many Asian countries are driving their economic success through taking offshore projects from developed countries. These countries have advantages of low-cost and available labor force. Various studies conducted over the last 10 years have shown that outsourcing allows firms to reduce high overhead costs, improve productivity, contribute flexibility, and thus improve overall performance of the firm. However, offshore IT outsourcing brings new challenges and risks. The skeptics believe that outsourcing may weaken the local business competitiveness of the region, investors’ confidence in investing in local businesses, and may create a spiral effect on economic indicators such as: unemployment, enrollment in schools, living styles, housing, and construction, and so forth`. This study investigates the socio-economic impacts of offshore IT outsourcing in the United States using a system dynamics model.

Do Mobile CRM Services Appeal to Loyalty Program Customers?

Not until very recently has mobile phone technology become sophisticated enough to allow more complex customized programs, which enable companies to offer new services to customers as part of customer relationship management (CRM) programs. In order to enhance customer relationships and to be adopted by customers, new mobile services need to be perceived as valuable additions to existing services. The purpose of this study was to investigate the appeal of new mobile CRM services to airline customers. An empirical study was conducted among loyalty program customers (frequent flyers) of an airline that was considering using MIDlet applications in order to add new mobile services to enhance customer relationships. The results show that customers do not yet seem to be ready to fully embrace new mobile applications. Although the services appeared to slightly improve customers’ image of the airline, the services did not seem to enhance their loyalty towards it. However, customers who already used sophisticated mobile services, such as the Mobile Internet, had a significantly more positive attitude towards the proposed services. Thus the success of mobile CRM seems closely linked with customers’ readiness to use existing mobile services. Before engaging in costly new investments, companies need to take this factor into serious consideration.

A Reverse Auction-Based E-Business Model for B2C Service Markets

LetsWorkIt.de is a German B2C platform for different kinds of service and handcraft orders. Based on the concept of reverse auctions, demanders compose descriptions of the required services to place orders on the platform. The supplier bidding lowest at the end of the auction obtains the right to carry out the order. Drawing upon and widely confirming existing theories on e-marketplaces, this chapter examines the underlying e-business model and the competitive strategy of LetsWorkIt. The case provides evidence that the reverse auction-based intermediation of handcraft and service orders is suitable to form the basis of an e-marketplace and points out that for such ventures, a combination of public relations, performance marketing, and cooperation, represents an ideal strategy to increase the number of demanders and suppliers. Moreover, the case suggests that, depending on the business model, it may be feasible to concentrate marketing activities on one of these two customer groups, since LetsWorkIt has managed to achieve a significant number of successful, high-quality auctions by primarily aligning its competitive strategy with the demand side.

Complementary Role of Website in Business Model Development

The aim of this chapter is to provide a holistic exploration of the development of the business model of a magazine Web site, and of the factors behind its success. The discussion is based on an explorative case study of a successful Finnish magazine publisher and its Web site. We use triangulated data (interviews, observation, statistical data, customer feedback, and newspaper articles) to describe and analyze the development of the Web site and the subsequent changes in the e-business model of the magazine from the Web site foundation in 1998 to the situation in fall 2004. Our case illustrates that a magazine’s Web site is linked to all of its functions (editorial, circulation, and advertising), and to the business-model elements that are vital to its success. We suggest that the discussion forums in question (one type of virtual community) benefited from the positive feedback that resulted in positive network effects, and led to the adoption of the service. Moreover, community activities have enhanced customer loyalty and added a more lifelike dimension to the magazine concept. As such, the Web site now complements rather than substitutes the print magazine. Interestingly, although it does not independently fulfill the requirements of a successful business model (cf. e.g., Magretta, 2002), it enhances the customer experience and adds new dimensions to the magazine’s business model.

Strategic Maneuvering in Healthcare Technology Markets

Healthcare technology markets have been recently identified as potential investment targets. Having survived a major environmental shock, the dot.com bust, firms in the healthcare technology industry are presently experiencing an impressive revenue growth. In this study, we investigate the strategies of Emdeon Corporation, a healthcare technology firm whose e-business model provides clues for achieving a sustained revenue growth and profitability. We trace the current sustainability of Emdeon’s e-business model to a related diversification strategy that the firm’s upper management has pursued via mergers and acquisitions (M&As). We also address the motivation behind current restructuring of Emdeon’s ebusiness model. We argue that maturation of diversified e-business models leads to the transformation of individual segments into distinct entities focusing on specific technology markets.

Managerial Discretion and E-CRM Performance

Most sectors of industry, commerce, and government have reported variation in the performance payoff from electronic customer relationship management (e-CRM). In this paper we build on a surprisingly sparse literature regarding the importance of managerial discretion, to show that the heterogeneity of beliefs held by managers about e-CRM execution matter when explaining e-CRM success. Drawing on a data sample comprising 50 interviews and 293 survey responses we utilise segmentation techniques to identify significant differences in managerial beliefs and then associate these belief segments with e- CRM performance. Results indicate that three distinct types of managers can be identified based on the heterogeneity of their e-CRM beliefs: (1) mindfully optimistic, (2) mindfully realistic, and (3) mindfully pessimistic. Further, our results imply that there are far less homogeneity at the individual firm level than is normally assumed in the literature, and that heterogeneity in managerial beliefs is systematically associated with organisational performance. Finally, these results serve to remind practitioners that e-CRM performance is dependent upon the right balance between managerial optimism and realism.

Towards Theory Development for Emergent E-Business Innovations

The eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) is an emerging XML-based standard which has the potential to significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of intra- and inter-organisational information supply chains in e-business. In this chapter, we present the case for using convergent interviews as an appropriate and efficient method for modelling factors impacting the adoption of emerging and under-researched innovations, such as XBRL. Using this method, we identify environmental, organisational, and innovation-related factors as they apply to XBRL adoption and diffusion. Contentious factors, such as the role of government organisations, XBRL education and training, and the readiness of XBRL as an innovation, and its supporting software solutions are also examined in detail. Taken together, these discussions constitute an important step towards theory development for emergent e-business innovations. Practical adoptions strategies and their implications are also discussed.