Motivators for IOS Adoption in Denmark

Organizational adoption of innovations does not always follow easily comprehendible patterns. This is often the case with interorganizational information systems (IOS), where adoption is dependent on attributes related both to the organization and its environment. The present study operationalizes the Tornatzky and Fleischer (1990) model for organizational adoption in order to investigate reasons for adoption and non-adoption among businesses in the Danish steel and machinery industry. This particular industry segment had been subject to massive information campaigns focusing on the benefits of IOS in the form of EDI from business associations. The study suggests that environmental and organizational attributes rather than technological attributes are the main determining forces for adoption of EDI.

E-Commerce and Sales Taxes in the United States

This article examines the relationship between electronic commerce and the U.S. state sales and use tax system. A framework is used in this study of a high-quality tax system and it is applied to taxing electronic commerce sales. The first part of this article analyzed nine principles of an effective tax system, and divided these principles into the categories of adequacy of revenue, fairness of revenue, and management of revenue. In the second part of this article, these principles are tested to determine what impact electronic commerce taxation has on an effective revenue system. The results of these initial tests suggest that taxation of electronic commerce was associated with fairness in the tax system. In particular, the results suggested that states that had fairer tax systems were more likely to rely less on a sales tax and more on taxing Internet access. Management and adequacy of the revenue systems of states were not found to have a significant bearing on taxing electronic commerce. These results reinforce the existing public finance and legal theories which argue that the sales tax is not a fair revenue stream, and it should be re-evaluated especially in light of the contentious issue of taxing electronic commerce.

Seals on Retail Web Sites

Signaling theory provides the framework to address why third-party assurance (TPA) seals may not have the desired positive effect on consumer trust in online merchants. Based on identified antecedents of effective signaling, three research propositions are presented to explore 1) how reliably consumers are able to recall TPA seals on viewed retail websites, 2) how familiar consumers are with major TPA seals, and 3) how accurately consumers comprehend the assurances legitimately represented by the TPA seals. Results of this study of three major TPA seals (TRUSTe, BBBOnLine Reliability, and VeriSign) reveal that subjects have relatively poor notice and recall of TPA seals viewed on a website, have limited familiarity with TPA programs, and have incomplete and largely inaccurate understanding of the assurances represented by the TPA seals. These results suggest that TPA seals may not fulfill their potential to influence consumer trust in online merchants, because the signals are not effectively noticed or accurately interpreted by consumers.

An Exploratory Study of "Killer Applications" and Critical Success Factors in M-Commerce

This research deals with two aspects of mobile commerce (m-commerce), namely “killer applications” and critical success factors. After compiling significant information from the related literature, a Delphi panel was assembled by selecting a group of experts who have significant knowledge about m-commerce and wireless communications. The panel was requested to comment on a number of m-commerce issues and scenarios gleaned from the literature review and members of the panel were also asked to indicate which issues were more important and which of the presented scenarios were more likely. Three separate rounds of the Delphi survey were carried out and the final results indicated that the short message service (SMS) and a “killer” portfolio were the two most likely “killer applications” of m-commerce. Additionally, four factors: convenience, ease of use, trust, and ubiquity were identified as the most important to m-commerce success. According to the Delphi results and the experts’ comments, the highlighted features of the “killer applications” were found to match the most significant critical success factors as voted by the panel.

Digitizing Business Relationship

Companies are involved in different types of business relationships for various reasons. These include, but are not limited to, efficiency gains, innovation, and influencing other organizations. In the age of digitization managers have witnessed new ways to manage business relationships, as the number of digital and electronic commerce tools have mushroomed. Business relationships digitization is an under-researched area and therefore the purpose of this chapter is to illustrate how relationships are digitized and what managers as well as academics should know about this emerging phenomenon. With the help of an extensive literature review this paper presents an overview of basic features and types of digitized business relationships. The author outlines a model that tackles critical factors while digitizing business relationships. In addition, a case example depicting the digitization process of a business relationship is presented. The chapter concludes with a description of the contribution of the study and presents suggestions for further research.

The King is Naked

The scope of this work is to explore the transaction profitability of frequent and sporadic buyers in the e-commerce arena. Evidence in relationship marketing literature stressing the impact of purchase frequency on customer profitability, as well as recent academic research challenging this approach and pointing out the importance of sporadic clients, is analyzed and presented. A single case study research methodology was chosen for this article, due to the exploratory facets associated with the subject and the industry under investigation. In order to gather relevant input to carry out this research, one of the largest retailing groups in Brazil was investigated. Conclusions are drawn showing that greater frequency of purchases does not necessarily translate into increased customer transaction profitability. Implications are presented, enabling practitioners and academics to grasp fully the real value of customers – both frequent and sporadic buyers – in order to develop coherent approaches for dealing with them adequately.

Strength of Privacy Policy Statements and Consumer Trust

Privacy policy statements are one of the more commonly used techniques to alleviate consumers’ concerns about information privacy which is generally considered to be one of the primary obstacles to the success of e-commerce. This exploratory study examined the willingness of individuals to provide various types of personal information given varying degrees of protection offered by privacy policy statements. The results demonstrated that the willingness to provide information to web merchants increased as the level of privacy guaranteed by the statements increased. More interestingly, increasing levels of privacy promised by the statements had the greatest influence on individuals with prior familiarity with policy statements. The results also demonstrated that while most individuals were aware of privacy policy statements, less than half of the respondents had ever read a privacy statement.

Personas of E-Commerce Adoption in Small Businesses in New Zealand

Focus group methodology is introduced in this paper as one appropriate methodology to study the impact of technological innovation factors on eCommerce (EC) adoption in small businesses (SMEs) in New Zealand. The research results suggested two emerging issues pertaining to EC adoption in SMEs in this research. Firstly, SMEs would not invest their scant resources on perceived risky advanced EC initiatives. In adopting simple EC technologies such as Web page and email, factors like cost and compatibility were found not hindering the adoption decision. On the other hand, the proposed drivers to adopt these simple technologies were not highly significant as such. Secondly, the SMEs retained a particular view about advancing their simple EC initiatives. They envisaged that advancing their EC initiatives such as adopting “fully-blown” and interactive Web sites will give more weight to the impact of the different factors in this research on their adoption decisions of EC. The gulf between the current adoption and usage levels and the envisaged advanced EC initiatives seemed to be increasing further suggesting the weakness of the EC phenomenon in SMEs in this research. The research portrays a path were such gaps could be addressed and hence, this path should guide the SMEs in advancing their EC initiatives. Implications arising from this research with respect to theory and to practice are discussed in this research.

Gender and E-Commerce Adoption Barriers

Previous research has shown that gender plays a role in the use of information technology by small businesses and that differences exist between the ways in which male and female small business owners/managers perceive information technology, including e-commerce. However, our understanding of whether gender is important in relation to e-commerce adoption barriers is limited. This chapter examines whether differences exist in how male and female owners/managers of small businesses in regional areas in Sweden and Australia perceive e-commerce adoption barriers. The results of a survey of more than 450 small businesses are presented and indicate that, although both male and female owners/managers agree on the key reasons for not adopting e-commerce, they assign different priorities these reasons. In Sweden, male owner/managers are more concerned about the technical complexities of implementing e-commerce, while females assign a higher importance to the unsuitability of e-commerce. In Australia the situation is reverse. The results have implications for e-commerce adoption programs and initiatives.

Understanding the Impact of Wireless Local Area Networks on Users and Assessing User Satisfaction with Wireless Local Area Networks

Recently, wireless local area network (WLAN) has gained increasing popularity. WLAN equipment manufacturers and practitioners claimed that WLAN had brought dramatic improvements in the forms of productivity gains and attainment of convenience, flexibility, mobility, and time saving to organizations and their employees. However, very little academic research has been conducted to verify these claims and further our understanding of this new phenomenon. By surveying end-users and managers, this study investigates the impact of WLAN on users and their work. User satisfaction with WLAN is also assessed. This article presents the findings from the study along with a discussion on recent development and future trends of WLAN. Finally, recommendations to researchers, managers, WLAN technology providers and equipment manufacturers are also provided.