Identification and realisation of the benefits of participating in an electronic marketplace : An interpretive evaluation approach

Electronic marketplaces have proliferated as use of the Internet has become widespread in business. A rapid growth in the number of marketplaces, followed by a period of stringent consolidation, as market makers develop a greater understanding of effective business models, has resulted in a climate of uncertainty and confusion. As with many aspects of e-commerce the drive towards participation is fuelled less by strategy planning than by a fear of lagging behind competitors or losing first mover advantage. In this climate of uncertainty organisations often bypass effective evaluation of the benefits that can be realised from participation in e-marketplaces, thereby exacerbating the process facing them and hampering effective decision-making. Evaluation is perceived as a fraught subject within the Information System field, and particularly within the business community which adheres to tried and trusted, albeit often inappropriate, methods such as financial or technical evaluation. The difficulties involved in effective evaluation of systems are well documented; these will increase as systems become more pervasive throughout organisations and those of their trading partners. Calls for a more holistic approach to evaluation are increasing, based on a developing appreciation of interpretive methods of research within the Information Systems discipline. However, the understanding that the social, political and cultural factors affecting and organisation have an impact on the uses and advantages of systems is by no means universal, and empirical evidence of this view is only slowly emerging. This research examines the benefits that can be realised from participation in an electronic marketplace by taking an interpretive approach to the evaluation. It examines the nature of electronic marketplaces to provide clarity to a confused and dynamic environment. The study then focuses on the development of evaluation studies within the IS discipline to identify how an effective evaluation method for assessing the benefits of e-marketplace participation can be achieved. An empirical examination of an organisation’s participation in an electronic marketplace is used to identify the benefits that are realisable and the issues that impact on them. The case study is conducted through an interpretive lens, using a content, context, process (CCP) approach based on existing IS literature. This enables a crucial understanding of the internal and external environments influencing the organisation and its realisation of potential benefits. To allow for the range of interpretations and reflections required to fully address the complexity of the issues involved in such a case study, a variety of research influences such as dialect hermeneutics, critical realism and case study theory are drawn into the research model. The case study organisation’s motivation for participating in an e-marketplace was primarily cost savings. Over the two years of the study, several more potential benefits were identified, such as supply chain efficiencies, greater market awareness and a widening of the supplier base. However, the organisation’s commitments to its local and regional communities, its need to retain status and some consideration of existing relationships needed to be balanced against the gains that might be realised. In some cases the organisation chose to forgo a potential benefit in favour of socially or politically motivated actions. Cultural factors also influenced their actions, particularly as they moved towards extending participation in the marketplace to gain from a global sourcing strategy. The contribution of this research lies in two areas. Firstly, it was existing evaluation literature to development a framework for the evaluation of benefits in the complex area of electronic marketplaces, thereby extending and informing the call for more inclusive and interpretive evaluation studies. Secondly, the research contributes empirical evidence to support the recognition of benefits to be gained from electronic marketplaces and shows how the realisation of the economic benefits is impacted by the social, political and cultural factors that influence an organisation

Key success factors facilitating SME ecommerce in developing countries : evidence from Indonesia

This research is mix method research (qualitative and quantitative) which have two main objectives observing the evidence from Indonesia. Firstly, to identify the key success factors facilitating SME ecommerce in developing countries especially in post-adoption stage of ecommerce practice. Secondly, to examine the relationship among the logistics capabilities (internal, external and country logistics capabilities) and the SME ecommerce transaction. Besides, the research also attempted to identify the major logistics problems faced by logistics sector and also to clarify the country logistics performance index, both investigations are related to the SME ecommerce practice.The SLR has identified seven potential key success factors facilitating SME ecommerce in developing countries which has been categorized into three factors including internal, external and interconnected factors. Internal factors included human resources and marketing/marketplace decision. External factors comprised customer demand, law and regulation, and secure payment system. Meanwhile the interconnected factors involved information and communication technology (ICT) and logistics capabilities. Firming these findings, the interview study accomplished towards seven SMEs ecommerce in Indonesia which indicated the similar factors based on their experiences and practices. Moreover, the second phase of the research has administered the collection of questionnaires toward 372 respondents involving the industries, governments, academicians, logistics associations, logistics service providers (LSPs), and SMEs ecommerce. The weight analysis of the research has identified the five major problems of logistics sectors in Indonesia related to the SME ecommerce which included the problems of infrastructures, road traffic jam level, government law and regulations, human resources and also dwelling time in port. Besides, the research also observed the Indonesia Logistics Capability Index (ILCI) concerning the SME ecommerce practice which clarified the index slightly above the average level (score: 2.79 out of 5). Furthermore, the last phase of the research has accomplished through the operation exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM). It has examined that internal logistics capabilities showed a respectable relationship to SME ecommerce transaction, while external logistics capabilities indicated a modest relationship to SME ecommerce transaction, yet it is still tolerable. In the other hand, even though the country logistics capabilities indicated a poor relationship to SME ecommerce transaction, but it has a very supported effect toward external logistics capabilities and external logistics capabilities.The findings of the research effectively contribute to both theory and practice and the research propositions provide potential and applicable guidance for the stakeholders in academia, companies and government to facilitate SME ecommerce development in developing countries especially in Indonesia related to the entire logistics capabilities

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Strategic assessment of product policy in the marketing of e-commerce companies

Doctoral thesis in Business AdministrationThe fast growth of the Internet-based economy has been mainly characterised by the emergence and impact of both information-technology products and virtual transactions upon businesses and communication. Research in the area has subsequently focused on evaluating the frameworks of online business portfolios. Notably, most studies carrying out an investigation of different aspects of the ecommerce paradigm have focused on the nature and effectiveness of online marketing structures, therefore overlooking a detailed understanding of the effectiveness of product policies employed by the vast majority of e-commerce companies. This research study addresses the gap which exists in e-commerce business portfolio literature by evaluating the effectiveness of product policies employed by e-commerce companies. The analysis begins by identifying the theoretical institutions that define e-commerce companies and how firms can maximise profits with selected factors that reduce their transaction costs. The empirical section of the research begins with a first study that utilises data from a leading software source, more specifically, the download.com platform, which contains data on the downloads from the majority of companies offering software products globally. Findings reveal that consumers have strong preferences for free products over paid products. Critics’ reviews and assessments and users’ reviews both have significant positive relationships with product downloads for both free and paid software. The factors with the largest positive associations with product downloads, of both free and paid software, are advertising and branding. Finally, advertising for paid products has the largest association with higher downloads. The second study employs a longitudinal approach by using companies’ financial data for a period ranging from 10 to 14 years to assess the effectiveness of e-commerce companies’ product policies. The empirical results support the economic premise that the most efficient companies satisfy the optimality condition that a firm’s marginal costs equal its marginal revenue. The findings from the research offer relevant, in-depth insights for theory as well as for managers/practitioners and education.O rápido crescimento da economia baseada na Internet tem-se caracterizado pela emergência e pelo impacto dos produtos ligados a tecnologias de informação e transações virtuais. A investigação na área tem-se focado em avaliar as carteiras de negócios on-line. Notavelmente, a maioria dos estudos que realizam uma investigação sob diferentes perspectivas ligadas ao e-commerce têm-se concentrado na natureza e eficácia das estruturas de marketing on-line, portanto, ignorando uma compreensão detalhada da eficácia das políticas de produtos empregados pelas empresas de comércio eletrónico. Este estudo borda a lacuna que existe na literatura de portfólio de negócios de e-commerce ao avaliar a eficácia das políticas de produto desenvolvidas pelas empresas de e-commerce. o estudo identifica as instituições que definem as empresas de e-commerce e como as empresas podem maximizar os lucros com fatores selecionados que reduzem os seus custos de transação. A seção empírica do estudo inicia com um primeiro trabalho que utiliza dados de uma das principais fontes de software, em particular, a plataforma download.com. Esta plataforma contém dados sobre os downloads de empresas que oferecem produtos de software globalmente. Os resultados demonstram que os consumidores têm preferência por produtos gratuitos quando comparados com produtos pagos. Revisões e avaliações de críticos e usuários têm uma relação positiva com downloads de software gratuito e pago. Os fatores com a associação positiva mais forte em relação ao download de software livre e pago, são a publicidade e o branding. Finalmente, a publicidade de produtos pagos tem a associação mais forte com o número de downloads. O segundo estudo realiza uma abordagem longitudinal, utilizando os dados de empresas durante num período de 10 a 14 anos para avaliar a eficácia das políticas de produtos das empresas de e-commerce. Os resultados empíricos sustentam a premissa económica que as empresas mais eficientes satisfazem a condição de optimalidade onde custos marginais de uma empresa são iguais à sua receita marginal. Os resultados da investigação permitem retirar ilações relevantes e aprofundadas para a teoria, assim como para os gestores/practitioners e ensino

An Exploratory Study of Patient Falls

Debate continues between the contribution of education level and clinical expertise in the nursing practice environment. Research suggests a link between Baccalaureate of Science in Nursing (BSN) nurses and positive patient outcomes such as lower mortality, decreased falls, and fewer medication errors. Purpose: To examine if there a negative correlation between patient falls and the level of nurse education at an urban hospital located in Midwest Illinois during the years 2010-2014? Methods: A retrospective crosssectional cohort analysis was conducted using data from the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI) from the years 2010-2014. Sample: Inpatients aged ≥ 18 years who experienced a unintentional sudden descent, with or without injury that resulted in the patient striking the floor or object and occurred on inpatient nursing units. Results: The regression model was constructed with annual patient falls as the dependent variable and formal education and a log transformed variable for percentage of certified nurses as the independent variables. The model overall is a good fit, F (2,22) = 9.014, p = .001, adj. R2 = .40. Conclusion: Annual patient falls will decrease by increasing the number of nurses with baccalaureate degrees and/or certifications from a professional nursing board-governing body

The First 25 Years of the Bled eConference: Themes and Impacts

The Bled eConference is the longest-running themed conference associated with the Information Systems discipline. The focus throughout its first quarter-century has been the application of electronic tools, migrating progressively from Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) via Inter-Organisational Systems (IOS) and eCommerce to encompass all aspects of the use of networking facilities in industry and government, and more recently by individuals, groups and society as a whole. This paper reports on an examination of the conference titles and of the titles and abstracts of the 773 refereed papers published in the Proceedings since 1995. This identified a long and strong focus on categories of electronic business and corporate perspectives, which has broadened in recent years to encompass the democratic, the social and the personal. The conference\u27s extend well beyond the papers and their thousands of citations and tens of thousands of downloads. Other impacts have included innovative forms of support for the development of large numbers of graduate students, and the many international research collaborations that have been conceived and developed in a beautiful lake-side setting in Slovenia

Examining Consumer Pre-purchase Deliberation Process in an Online Marketplace

The research objective of this study was to examine the consumer pre-purchase deliberation process in an online marketplace. Especially, examining the role of extrinsic quality (website-related quality), intrinsic quality (business operation-related quality), reputation of the retailer (other consumers’ opinions), attitude toward the retailer, and intention to transact with the retailer in an online marketplace context was main purpose of this study. To collect the data, extensive online survey was performed. The data were analyzed through structural equation modeling test. Findings revealed that there are significant positive relationships among extrinsic quality, intrinsic quality, reputation of the retailer, attitude toward the retailer, and intention to transact with the retailer in an online marketplace. Especially, influence of extrinsic quality on intrinsic quality was considerably strong. However, influence of the reputation of the retailer showed weak influence on attitude toward the retailer unlike the suggestions of previous studies. In addition, the result of this study revealed that there is double-layered structure (extrinsic and intrinsic quality) in the quality of the retailer, which has not been conceptualized and empirically tested in the previous studies. Managerial and academic implications and future research directions based on the findings were offered

The Role of Artificial Intelligence In Accelerating International Trade: Evidence From Panel Data Analysis

Technology has historically played a role in shaping international trade, but the current explosion in Artificial Intelligence has the potential to radically alter global commerce in the years ahead. In this research, we hypothesized that the AI capability of a nation has a major impact on international trade. This study discusses different ways in which technological advancements in the AI domain are improving global trade. We tested the hypothesis using the WDI, Government AI Readiness Index panel dataset of 150 countries for the years 2018-2021. Fixed effect, and Random effect panel models were applied.   The results show that the AI capability of a nation has a major positive influence on trade. The findings also show that GDP and exchange rate have significant positive impacts, and inflation and trade restrictions have negative and significant impacts on trade. The findings of this study recommend strengthening the nation’s AI capacity to increase its trade volume. AI will stimulate better economic development and open up new avenues for international trade to the extent that it fosters productivity growth. However, governments will need time to adapt and employ new AI technology, since doing so requires significant financial investments, access to skilled people, and a shift in how international companies are operated

The role of e-procurement in purchasing management

This exposition summarises research published in several academic articles, in order to meet the requirements of PhD by publication. The focus of the work is on the role of electronic procurement in management of the purchasing function. From the late 1990s a number of independent e-procurement mechanisms were launched which offered potential benefits such as increased order accuracy, transaction efficiency and greater integration between trading partners. At the outset of this programme of research, e-procurement was therefore an emerging phenomenon with little academic research and presented an opportunity to investigate a largely unexplored area. Edmondson and McManus (2007) suggest that for nascent, as opposed to mature areas of research, where few formal constructs or measures exist, an exploratory, qualitative approach is required. This research followed such an approach through the use of case studies, involving observation, participation and interviews with key organisational actors. Each paper makes use of several cases in order to compare and contrast results from different organisations and to draw conclusions from multi-case analysis. The published articles focus on the impact of core applications within e-procurement, including online reverse auctions, electronic marketplaces, online catalogue sites, and buying systems covering the ‘requisition to pay’ cycle. The findings from the papers address a number of core themes in purchasing management. In considering buyer-supplier relationships, it was observed that such dyads are driven by traditional buyer negotiation factors such as segmentation, power and price and that use of eprocurement applications tended to enforce such traditional behaviours. In relation to the potential for integration, the study found that integration between firms was barely affected, as the concept of integration was neither an objective nor a business case driver for e-procurement adoption. This situation reflects the finding that procurement managers pursue functional targets rather than supply chain-level objectives. However, other significant effects from e-procurement adoption were noted such as the tendency by buyers to reduce supplier numbers and a move to re-engineer the procurement function in buying firms, through automating transactional processes. The research finds that e-procurement does not have a deterministic impact on purchasing management, and that it acts as an enabler to more effective management of the function though the way its different mechanisms are deployed. The exposition establishes that e-procurement is used in relation to supply conditions which are characterised by both ‘markets’ and ‘hierarchies’, but that it is the predefined purchasing strategy of the firm, rather than available technology solutions, which determines when markets and hierarchies are used. Additionally, an original model is introduced, focusing on developing an e-procurement policy which can support strategic purchasing goals. This model extrapolates findings from stages in the research, and marries together elements from various papers and frameworks therein, to produce some guidelines for adoption of this technology