Public Perception—A Newspaper Medium Perspective

This chapter will present evidence to show that there is an absence of informed, broad, media discussion on e-commerce initiatives in Australia. As pointed out by several authors (e.g., Gittins, 1995), the newspaper medium is one of the main vehicles through which advisers and policy makers seek to influence society. Thus this medium takes on the role of a public forum on national issues. However, it was found that newspapers in Australia have failed in their role of preparing manufacturing industries for the impact of new technologies. In this interpretive study, major Australian newspapers were examined for public discussions about e-commerce in manufacturing industries. The political-legal, economic, social, and technological (PEST) framework was used as a lens to subdivide issues, problems, and opportunities identified in the academic e-commerce literature. This lens was then used to examine 103 newspaper articles identified using the keywords Australian manufacturing and e-commerce in what was believed to be all the major Australian newspapers. It was found that some articles merely report vendors’ promises of potential cost savings while overlooking the need for investment in technology, training, and maintenance costs, while other discussions focused on “users as victims” issues such as security and privacy. In-depth issues such as reliability, communication protocols, bandwidth availability, and integration problems were overlooked. In particular, the problem of business strategies was ignored.

Inducing Online Trust in E-Commerce

Two studies were undertaken to investigate interface design features that might impact customers’ trust in an e-commerce vendor’s Web site. In a first quantitative survey study, experienced Internet users rated 14 features of a synthetic e-commerce interface for their trust-inducing effectiveness. A factor analysis of the ratings partially confirmed a proposed conceptual model of trust-inducing features and yielded the following three factors: (1) visual design, (2) content design, and (3) social-cue design. The comparatively lower ratings on the social-cue design factor motivated a second qualitative analysis of a different group of users’ observations regarding the importance of virtual re-embedding strategies as they may impact trust in an online vendor’s Web site. Users’ reports from interviews generally supported the importance of socially rich Web sites in promoting online trust, and they deepened our understanding of the functionalities and suitability of various communication media for the adoption of virtual re-embedding strategies. The complementary outcomes from both quantitative and qualitative sources of information are anticipated to contribute to future applications and research in e-commerce interface design considerations affecting online trust.

Digital Watermarking and Its Impact on Intellectual Property Limitation for the Digital Age

Digital media like audio, video, images, and other multimedia documents can be protected against copyright infringements with invisible, integrated patterns. Such methods are based on steganography and digital watermarking techniques. Most watermarks are inserted as a plain-bit or adjusted digital signal using a key-based embedding algorithm. The embedded information is hidden (in low-value bits or least significant bits of picture pixels, frequency, or other value domains) and linked inseparably with the source data structure. For the optimal watermarking application a trade-off between competing criteria like robustness, nonperceptibility, nondetectability, and security has to be made. Most watermarking algorithms are not resistant against all attacks—even friendly attacks like file and data modifications can destroy the watermark very easily. This chapter gives an overview about the basic ideas of watermarking, applications for e-business, problems, and limitations.

Lessons Learned from EDI and Its Impact on Institutional Trust in Electronic Marketplaces

Given the uncertainties of e-business, this chapter examines the role of institutional trust, which has been viewed as a key facilitator of electronic marketplaces (Pavlou, Tan, & Gefen, 2003). In doing so, we draw upon the principles of research on traditional electronic data interchange (EDI) via value-added-networks (VANs) to develop a set of theory-driven, institutional trust-building, facilitating conditions, namely, (1) IT connectivity, (2) standards, (3) security, and (4) uniform product descriptions. This study has implications for (1) the nature and role of institutional trust in e-marketplaces, (2) the strategic design of trust-building mechanisms in e-marketplaces, and (3) an extension of the literature on institutional trust.

Design Considerations in the Development of an Online Course in E-Business

This chapter describes how U21 Global (U21G), an e-university formed by a consortium of traditional brick-and-mortar universities, approached the design of MBA650, its online course in e-business. MBA650 is a core course in U21G’s MBA program. Gagne’s theory (Little, 2001), a pedagogical framework taken from the literature, is used to frame and explain the rationale for the design of MBA650. Gagne’s theory identifies a number of instructional events including the identification of learning objectives, presentation of content, provision of learner guidance, feedback, and performance assessment. An evaluation of MBA650 based on student feedback is presented. Finally, several key design considerations in the development of e-business courses are discussed such as including attention to learning outcomes, the student audience, syllabus, key messages, theory vs. practice, team working, and the use of case studies.

Implementation of Privacy Protection Policies

Based on U.S. census data, more than three quarter of Internet users are concerned about having control over the release of their private information when using online services. To ease consumers’ concerns, the Internet industry has come up with self-regulatory practices. The effectiveness of self-regulatory practices and the commitment of the Internet industry to online privacy are yet to be evaluated. The questions regarding self-regulation, what it means from the industry point of view, and to what extent it is implanted remains unclear. This study is exploratory in nature and attempts to examine privacy issues in the context of fair information practices and how they are perceived and practiced by the top 500 interactive companies in the United States. Our results confirm that most companies ask for consumer trust by claiming benevolence. However, they fall short when it comes to costly implementations of comprehensive privacy protection policies.

Failures of B2C Retailing

Conceptualizing business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses as an innovative class of technology-infused services yields insights into the factors that may lead to success or failure of such businesses. Drawing from services marketing literature and recent thinking on Internet service metrics, this chapter presents a framework for analyzing B2C businesses.

Framework for User Perception of Effective E-Tail Web Sites

This study presents the development of an empirically validated framework for users’ perception of effective Web sites for retail e-commerce (E-tail). In particular, we attempted to answer the main research questions: What are the major designs determining E-tail Web site effectiveness? How do these designs support Web users’ objectives in using the Web? Based on the concept of “fitness for use” and the reasons that consumers use the Web, we proposed that “effective designs for E-tail Web sites should support Web customers for their (a) information search, (b) pleasure and (c) business transactions.” Then, data were collected from a survey on 427 potential Web customers. An exploratory analysis was conducted to refine the proposed framework and to provide structure of the constructs in the framework to be validated by a following confirmatory analysis. Results suggest that the major designs determining E-tail Web site effectiveness include 16 factors, with 64 Web designs supporting the three major reasons for customers to use the Web.

E-Commerce Education in China

With an explosive growth of e-businesses worldwide, e-commerce in China is booming, leading to the development of e-commerce education. This paper is intended to investigate whether the education system in China accords well with the market demand and the status of e-commerce programs in China in order to seek strategies for China to cope with the challenges of global e-commerce empowered by fast updated information technologies. First, we construct a four-layer conceptual model to describe the relevant factors influencing e-commerce and e-commerce education. We then present the status of China’s e-commerce education in different educational categories. Although we find that current problems in China’s e-commerce education can be resorted in quantity and quality aspects, it generally is on the right track. Finally, we propose several main strategies for promoting the development of e-commerce education, in which the education system reformation is top priority and in which the government will play a critical role.

E-Recruiting System Development and Architecture

At this time of hyper-competition and rapid environmental changes, one of the most critical sources of competitive advantage is to attract and retain talented workers. Erecruiting is one of the most rapidly growing e-commerce areas. Since the mid-1990s, a number of e-recruiting methods such as job boards, corporate career Web sites, and e-recruiting consortia have been introduced into the labor market. Recruiting through corporate career Web sites has been touted as the most efficient and cost effective recruiting method. While most of large- and medium-sized organizations have deployed corporate career Web sites, many of them have failed to achieve the maximum benefits because they do not have the appropriate architecture and business practice in place. While e-recruiting methods have been widely used since the mid-1990s, no formal classification system has been developed for a wide variety of e-recruiting sources. This study proposes six categories of e-recruiting sources and presents the architecture of the next-generation, holistic e-recruiting system. This architecture consists of eight distinct yet interrelated subsystems: (1) applicant tracking management subsystem; (2) job requisition management subsystem; (3) job agent management subsystem; (4) prescreening/self-assessment management subsystem; (5) e-recruiting performance analysis subsystem; (6) candidate relationship management subsystem; (7) workflow management subsystem; and (8) database management subsystem.