Barriers to global electronic commerce: A cross-country study of Hong Kong and Finland

So far electronic commerce has primarily been limited to electronic business-to-business transactions and small, but quickly growing, consumer-oriented activities on the Internet, such as electronic advertisements mated with the traditional mail-order operations. What lies ahead in the future is a concept of true global electronic commerce (GEC), in which firms will exploit a virtual value chain to migrate much of their value-adding activities from the physical marketplace to the virtual marketplace. The capability for business concerns to be able to reach out to a global business community at a relatively small cost is very attractive and promises to transform international business. Despite this realization, it has become increasingly evident that the proliferation of GEC is dependent on resolution of a myriad of technical, organizational, economic, cultural, political, and legal issues. In this study, field studies of 10 companies in Hong Kong and Finland were conducted with an eye toward identifying the major barriers that have hindered or slowed down the wide acceptance of electronic commerce across borders. In addition to several country-specific barriers to GEC, resistance to change, lack of education about the potentials of GEC, and lack of flexible software were found to be the key inhibitors to the orderly acceptance and deployment of computer-mediated commerce at the global level.published_or_final_versio

The building of a new business ecosystem: Sustaining national competitive advantage through electronic commerce

Despite the high level of interest in the role of governments in building national information infrastructure (NII) as a source of competitive advantage, it is still not clear how major information technology initiatives can help leverage national economies into the global marketplace. In light of the recent rollout of one of the world's largest electronic commerce initiatives, we examine the role of private-public partnerships in the success of such initiative in Hong Kong. Furthermore, we trace the 3 stages of the project - development, implementation, and competitive entrenchment - to identify the difficulties and challenges encountered and how these were overcome. By drawing some comparisons with the Singapore approach, we identify the kind of government involvement appropriate to spur on national competitiveness. We show that in building the NII, the dual aspects of private-sector leadership and government involvement are mutually reinforcing. Government intervention is necessary in creating the initial supply push, whereas the demand pull engendered by the market is critical for leveraging the NII as a platform for national competitiveness. The ramification of the study for other countries is discussed.published_or_final_versio

Structure and Extensions of the User Information Satisfaction Construct

User Information Satisfaction (UIS) remains one of the most important constructs in Information Systems research. This paper investigates the application of the UIS instrument across a number of key variables including respondent characteristics. Several findings emerge from a survey of 379 IS and non-IS managers: First, the UIS factors are stable and generalizable. Second, the level of satisfaction varies quite substantially when compared to prior UIS reports, although the IS product satisfaction dominates. Third, IS managers, not surprisingly, evaluate their systems significantly higher than non-IS managers, indicating the importance of stakeholders in evaluating Information Systems success.Finally, respondents evaluate their internal systems differently than their inter-organizational systems, indicating that in the IS evaluation process system type must be considered as a moderating variable.published_or_final_versio

Managing (e)Business Transformation: A Global Perspective

Managing (e)Business Transformation comprises text and cases designed to show students how a business can be transformed into an internetworked enterprise where IT infrastructures are used to link customers, suppliers, partners and employees to create superior economic value. The book is written based on the premise that integrating internet technologies throughout the value chain is crucial to building and managing customer relationships. Importantly, it underscores the centrality of basic business and economic principles within the context of a networked environment. The book builds on established business and economic theories, concepts and fundamentals to show that 'e-business' will soon be synonymous with 'business'. The book takes a strong managerial perspective, especially popular with MBA students, to argue that the internet is simply an enabling technology, which allows firms to build the infrastructure needed to operate in an evolving business world. The application of theory/concepts is emphasized throughout and contains a range of international case studies enhance the learning experience. This book is a must for all students studying e-business strategy at undergraduate, MBA and postgraduate level

Factors influencing electronic data interchange success

With the rapid proliferation of electronic data interchange (EDI) in recent years, there has been a growing need for understanding various issues surrounding the adoption, implementation, and evaluation of such systems. In particular, as an increasing number of firms are piloting, implementing, or using EDI, it is becoming crucial to identify the factors that influence the success of EDI. Through a survey of 242 companies that were at different stages of adopting EDI, we show that EDI success is affected by four distinct factors relating to information quality, systems outcomes, user participation, and system quality. Evidence of reliability and validity of the scale, along with some practical standards and evaluation baseline, are provided.link_to_subscribed_fulltex