Linking Technological Compatibility and Operational Capacity Constraints to Communication Technology Adoption

Two interacting issues have recently been shown to theoretically impact communication technology adoption: the willingness of business partners to use various communication technologies and a firm’s operational capacity to accommodate the product/service demands of these potential partners. This study examines the relationship between these two issues and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), a long standardized communication technology that has been underutilized by business organizations. Our findings suggest that the technological compatibility concerns of firms considering EDI adoption differ depending on if they are product or service oriented. Capacity limitations are found to significantly moderate these compatibility effects. The implications for managers of electronic commerce technologies are discussed.

A Psychographic Approach to Segmenting the Electronic Shopper

Shopping Orientations are psychographic measures that have been used to discern consumers’ preferences for shopping media. In this study, shopping orientations and their relationship with consumers’ actual use and intention to use online shopping are examined. Data for the study were collected through a survey that was mailed to a stratified sample of 800 consumers. Usable responses were received from 281 survey participants, who were classified into three shopping segments—home, community, and apathetic—based on their shopping orientations. The three shopping segments were found to differ on online shopping measures. Specifically, the home shopping segment was found to be positively associated with online shopping in contrast to the community and apathetic shopping segments. Further analysis revealed that there were no significant associations between shopping segments and commonly used demographic variables including gender, age, income, and education. Implications of these findings are discussed, along with suggestions for future research.

Technology Trust in Internet-Based Interorganizational Electronic Commerce

Trust in Internet-based Business-to-Business (B2B) e-commerce is an important issue for both practitioners and academicians. Whereas the traditional notion of dyadic interfirm trust primarily focuses on trust in a trading partner firm, trust in e-commerce also implicitly incorporates the notion of trust in the transaction infrastructure and underlying control mechanisms (technology trust), which deals with transaction integrity, authentication, confidentiality, non-repudiation, and best business practices. This research explicitly examines this new institutional character of trust in B2B e-commerce, arguing that business value realization is heavily dependent on the dimension of technology trust, captured as perceived benefits and actual organizational performance, even after controlling for the positive effects of partner trust. Given the absence of adequate metrics to capture the notion of technology trust in B2B e-commerce, this research develops and validates a measure for technology trust and tests its effect on benefits and performance. This chapter contributes to theory by bridging the gap between technological solutions (technology trust) from an institutional trust perspective, trading partner trust (relationship trust) and business value (perceived benefits and organizational performance). The proposed theoretical model is tested in organizations actively involved in B2B e-commerce using survey methodology. The findings from 288 firms validated the importance of technology trust for organizational success in B2B e-commerce.

Issues and Perceptions of Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Mail

The proliferation of unsolicited commercial electronic mail (UCE) or spam is becoming a global concern for many organizations. This chapter explores issues of unsolicited email, the cost and loss of productivity, the impact of UCE and computer viruses, privacy concerns, electronic mail filters, attempts to control spam, and legislative action. A strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis was also applied in this study. The results of a survey concerning the perceptions of UCE are presented. The results clearly show that while the respondents find spam annoying, they spend very little time in dealing with it. Although the respondents express the need to control spam, they do not believe that governmental control is the solution, but rather that Internet Service Providers and organizations should take the responsibility for controlling unsolicited email. Lastly, the respondents are very unlikely to open, let alone read and respond to unsolicited email. The results of this study will be useful for guiding organizational, university, and public policies.

Online Shopping Experience

In this chapter, a model of online shopping experience is proposed to unify previous works of online consumer experience. Online shopping experience (OSE) is the interaction between shoppers and commercial web sites. It consists of physical, cognitive, and affective activities, and in-progress responses. Factors influencing shopping experience include individual characteristics of shoppers, characteristics of stores and commercial web sites, characteristics of products and shopping task, and other contextual factors. The outcomes of shopping experience have been studied in many ways. Based on this model, series of research questions can be asked to examine relationships between components of shopping experience and influencing factors, and between shopping experience and shopping outcomes. Preliminary results of a study are reported to illustrate the usefulness of the concept of online shopping experience.

Online Shopping for Positive and Negative Reinforcement Products

The present research applies operant conditioning theory to the question of what products and services consumers will shop for and buy online. Operant conditioning theory explains differences between products that are used to alleviate uncomfortable experiences (negative reinforcement) and those providing enjoyable experiences (positive reinforcement). The preliminary results described in this study confirmed the importance of operant conditioning as a factor in the behavior of online shoppers. For example, when asked to provide an open-ended list of products that they had shopped for, our respondents mentioned products that produce positive reinforcement 476 times versus only four mentions for those that create negative reinforcement. Furthermore, for a list of seventeen common product categories, the results showed that respondents were not only less likely to shop for negative reinforcement products but also even less likely to purchase negative products online than positive products. The results of this exploratory study lay the groundwork for future research by introducing negative and positive reinforcement as a predictor of Internet shopping behavior.

The Impact of the Role of the Government of Egypt on Electronic Commerce Development and Growth

Information and communication technology with a focus on the digital economy and the implications of the development of electronic commerce is increasingly playing an active role in the development and growth of the global economy. The implications are wide and diversified. This includes the facilitation of trade transactions and acceleration of movement of capital through the new rules of the digital economy with the removal of time and distance barriers. The impacts are varying in density and effectiveness between developed and developing nations. Electronic commerce could be beneficial to business and socioeconomic development in the north (developed world) as well as in the south (developing nations). Small and medium-sized enterprises stand a unique opportunity worldwide to optimally leverage their capacities and excel from the diversified communication channels the digital economy presents. However, one challenge remains critical and that is the growing digital divide emerging between developed and developing nations as well as within developing nations themselves, which could deepen income and wealth inequalities. In that respect, the government role in developing nations in preventing the widening of the digital divide is becoming increasingly vital with implications that vary and affect business, culture and the society at large. During the past two decades, electronic commerce has had a diversified variety of impacts on organizations of all types and sizes. Such impacts differed from one country to another and from one environment to another, depending on the local conditions and the adaptation of the society. Implications related to the management and leadership of the organizations, their vision, mission and strategies, policies, governance, the organizational learning, ethics and culture among other elements. This chapter demonstrates the role of the government of Egypt in introducing, diffusing and institutionalizing electronic commerce. Electronic commerce represents a tremendous challenge and at the same time a great opportunity for growth and development, and hence it needs an institutional role to regulate it. Electronic commerce promises great potentials for developing nations giving poor nations and their populations additional access to markets, information, and other resources that would have otherwise been inaccessible. However, there has been a great fear of a digital divide emerging between developed and developing nations. Hence, the governments’ involvement of developing nations, such as Egypt, in preventing the appearance or the widening of the digital divide is of paramount importance. With respect to electronic commerce, the role of the government is highly different from its traditional role in other conventional areas that have been subject to extensive research, such as infrastructure and social services amongst others. It is different because electronic commerce is a newly ventured domain for government involvement that requires substantial thinking and structuring of the role it should play; it is more or less a comprehensive new role with aspects related to setting the rules for market operations as well as developing control measures to handle the risk factor associated with electronic commerce-related investments. Electronic commerce represents both a challenge and an opportunity for a developing nation such as Egypt with potentials for growth and development. This chapter introduces electronic commerce in Egypt with a focus on the prevailing status and the institutional role of the government to regulate electronic commerce and develop the electronic trading industry.

E-Government Scottish Style

This chapter discusses issues involved in the development of e-government, using recent empirical evidence gathered in Scotland. The research suggests that public sector organisations in Scotland recognize the importance of e-government, but there is a gap between the rhetoric about the potential of e-government and the reality on the ground. In particular, most public sector organisations appear to be more skeptical about the ability of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to break down barriers within and between organisations than those who advocate e-government as a solution to this problem. The current development and some emerging issues will be explored in the Scottish context, and some generic lessons will be highlighted. Finally, a number of themes for future research will be highlighted.

Pushing Elusive Alliances into the Light - Discovering the Value of Informal Networks on the Internet

Sociologists have for many years explored the value of social capital, or the resources embedded in social relations and social network structures. In recent years, organizational forms such as strategic alliances and network organizations have been an important new form of entrepreneurial venture, particularly in business markets. An important and often overlooked type of alliance on the Internet is what we call the “elusive alliance”. These alliances are not formally acknowledged, they are difficult to identify and can often be unknown, even to the members of the alliance themselves. They consist of informal links and social networks on the Internet—unspoken connections and codes of conduct that are extremely valuable because of the social capital embedded in them. This chapter aims to find ways to formally identify and expand these alliances in entrepreneurial ways that will improve their effectiveness, usefulness and ultimately, their social capital, translated into financial returns. We use Social Network Theory as the framework to study these networks.

Impact of E-Learning During SARS Outbreak in Hong Kong

The potential benefits of e-commerce have been reported widely in the literature, and e-learning has been gradually accepted as a social tool for e-commerce at tertiary institutions (Parker, 2003). In this chapter the impact of e-commerce on the local community during a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Hong Kong will be briefly described, with an emphasis on the use of E-learning technology as a contingency measure in tertiary institutions. At the height of the SARS epidemic in April 2003, Hong Kong had 60 to 80 new cases of the disease each day. Hundreds of thousands of residents wore surgical masks in an attempt to avoid catching the virus. All schools and universities were ordered closed and governments invoked quarantine laws not used for decades to isolate those who might be carriers. Explained Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa in announcing tougher measures to curb the spread of the disease: “Hong Kong is currently facing its most serious contagious disease threat in 50 years.” As a contingency measure e-learning technology was employed in the local higher education. This chapter aims to identify some of the practical difficulties involved in an evaluation of the academic performance of two groups of engineering students taking an introductory course - one group studied via e-learning and the other studied through the traditional classroom approach. Preliminary findings showed that with limited time available for the course design and delivery, the examination result of the e-learning class was slightly better than the traditional class. With positive student feedback on the e-learning approach, this would imply that e-learning shows a potential for substituting some of the traditional course elements, especially for topics relating to higher-order thinking skills. To generalize these findings more studies with properly controlled experimental design would need to be carried out. Directions for future work are also suggested.