Understanding the Transformation from E-commerce to S-commerce: Evidence, Path and Inspiration from China

With the rapid application of Web2.0 and the rise of social media, social-commerce has become a research hotspot in the field of marketing and information systems. This new business form which is driven by the user\u27s social interaction, is considered as a new paradigm in current e-commerce research field. However, current studies are mainly limited in the field of marketing, the law of s-commerce’s evolution and its impact on the traditional e-commerce is not been fully considered. In recent years, China’s s-commerce has developed rapidly and has not received enough research attention. This study selects Taobao.com and PingDuoDuo as typical cases to analyze the “network stream dilemma” of the traditional e-commerce platform and the solution in the s-commerce context. We conclude that traditional e-commerce platforms are evolving toward s-commerce driven by the change of network stream distribution mechanism

Evolution of Cooperation when Feedback to Reputation Scores is Voluntary

Reputation systems are used to facilitate interaction between strangers in one-shot social dilemmas, like transactions in e-commerce. The functioning of various reputation systems depend on voluntary feedback derived from the participants in those social dilemmas. In this paper a model is presented under which frequencies of providing feedback to positive and negative experiences in reputation systems explain observed levels of cooperation. The results from simulations show that it is not likely that reputation scores alone will lead to high levels of cooperation.Trust, Reputation, One-Shot Prisoner Dilemma, Voluntary Feedback, Symbols

Equality Across the Pond: An Analysis of Marriage Equality between the United States and the United Kingdom

Throughout history, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) have faced criticism and backlash for limitations on marriage equality. Within the last two decades, there have been many initiatives put into place to combat the marriage equality dilemma. I will be conducting two case studies on prominent social movements within the US and UK. Within the UK, I will be examining the Stonewall organization and the LGBT Foundation; and within the US, I will be examining the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and National LGBT Chamber of Commerce. This root of the dilemma spurs mainly from human rights that are being challenged due to individuals\u27 religious ideology. Aside from religious ideology, individuals who hold more conservative values tend to be against same-sex marriage and marriage equality; whereas individuals who hold progressive values tend to support same-sex marriage and marriage equality. Marriage equality should not be a dilemma, but unfortunately in the US and UK it is mainly a political dilemma; but is also a moral, ethical, and legal controversy. The purpose of this research is to compare and contrast marriage equality initiatives taken within the UK to the initiatives taken within the US. I will examine differences in legislation, court rulings, and norms. The final objective of this research is to draw conclusions on both the US’ and UK’s progress in obtaining marriage equality

Connecting Societal Change to Value Differences Across Generations: Adolescents, Mothers, and Grandmothers in a Maya Community in Southern Mexico

This study tests the hypothesis that societal change from subsistence agriculture to a market economy with higher levels of formal schooling leads to an increase in individualistic values that guide human development. Values relating to adolescent development and the transition to adulthood were compared across three generations of women in 18 families in the Maya community of Zinacantán in southern Mexico. Grandmothers grew up in Zinacantán when it was a farming community; mothers grew up during the introduction of commerce in the late 1970s and 1980s; daughters are now experiencing adolescence with an opportunity to attend high school in their community. Comparisons were also conducted between 40 female and male adolescents in high school and a matched sample of 40 adolescents who discontinued school after elementary. Values were measured using eight ethnographically derived social dilemmas about adolescent relationships with parents and peers, work and family gender roles, and sexuality and partnering. One character in the dilemmas advocates for interdependent values; a second character advocates for independent values. High school adolescents were more likely to endorse characters articulating independent values than non–high school adolescents, mothers, and grandmothers. Involvement in a market economy was also associated with higher levels of independent value endorsement in the mother and grandmother generations. Results suggest that the introduction of commerce drove value changes between grandmother and mother generations, and now schooling drives change. Qualitative examples of participants’ responses also illustrate how families negotiate shifting values

The mechanics of trust: a framework for research and design

With an increasing number of technologies supporting transactions over distance and replacing traditional forms of interaction, designing for trust in mediated interactions has become a key concern for researchers in human computer interaction (HCI). While much of this research focuses on increasing users’ trust, we present a framework that shifts the perspective towards factors that support trustworthy behavior. In a second step, we analyze how the presence of these factors can be signalled. We argue that it is essential to take a systemic perspective for enabling well-placed trust and trustworthy behavior in the long term. For our analysis we draw on relevant research from sociology, economics, and psychology, as well as HCI. We identify contextual properties (motivation based on temporal, social, and institutional embeddedness) and the actor's intrinsic properties (ability, and motivation based on internalized norms and benevolence) that form the basis of trustworthy behavior. Our analysis provides a frame of reference for the design of studies on trust in technology-mediated interactions, as well as a guide for identifying trust requirements in design processes. We demonstrate the application of the framework in three scenarios: call centre interactions, B2C e-commerce, and voice-enabled on-line gaming

Rational Trust Modeling

Trust models are widely used in various computer science disciplines. The main purpose of a trust model is to continuously measure trustworthiness of a set of entities based on their behaviors. In this article, the novel notion of "rational trust modeling" is introduced by bridging trust management and game theory. Note that trust models/reputation systems have been used in game theory (e.g., repeated games) for a long time, however, game theory has not been utilized in the process of trust model construction; this is where the novelty of our approach comes from. In our proposed setting, the designer of a trust model assumes that the players who intend to utilize the model are rational/selfish, i.e., they decide to become trustworthy or untrustworthy based on the utility that they can gain. In other words, the players are incentivized (or penalized) by the model itself to act properly. The problem of trust management can be then approached by game theoretical analyses and solution concepts such as Nash equilibrium. Although rationality might be built-in in some existing trust models, we intend to formalize the notion of rational trust modeling from the designer's perspective. This approach will result in two fascinating outcomes. First of all, the designer of a trust model can incentivise trustworthiness in the first place by incorporating proper parameters into the trust function, which can be later utilized among selfish players in strategic trust-based interactions (e.g., e-commerce scenarios). Furthermore, using a rational trust model, we can prevent many well-known attacks on trust models. These two prominent properties also help us to predict behavior of the players in subsequent steps by game theoretical analyses

Commercial conflict and regulation in the discourse of trade in seventeenth-century England

This article seeks to re-examine the intellectual context of commercial policy and regulation in seventeenth-century England. It questions a common assumption about so-called ‘mercantilist’ writers: that they saw trade as in some way finite and therefore won by one nation at the expense of another. Instead, it proposes that the often belligerent attitude of the ‘mercantilists’ towards trade was rooted in an understanding of the nature of international commerce as both communication and competition. Although writers acknowledged the mutual aspect of trade, they did not see this exchange as automatically equal, but saw it as possible for one party to exploit the other. This situation demanded state action to protect national trading interests in the disputed area of commerce, and thus this ‘discourse of trade’ was linked to political and juridical discourses about international relations. The article shows how this understanding of trade influenced debates about commercial governance in the critical middle decades of the seventeenth century, culminating in the attempt to create a national monopoly through the navigation acts, ‘securing sovereignty’ over the nation's trade. The second half of this article examines this in more detail with reference to the ideas of a prominent defender of the 1651 Navigation Act: Benjamin Worsley