Trust for E-Business Management

How do we develop and sustain trust? What is the process for building trust between business partners in virtual environments? Is there a significant difference between the development and sustainability of trust online or offline? In this paper, we first introduce the concept of e-business and discuss the importance of trust for ensuring effective collaboration. Secondly, we discuss the relationships between e-collaboration and trust for managing e-business. Thirdly, we suggest a framework, which may help facilitate the development and sustainability of trust in an online environment. Finally, implications for the development and sustainability of trust online, which can be used to understand the interplay among technologies, e-business and collaboration is provided. We suggest that the implications of this study are three-fold: trustworthy relationships among business partners, effective sustainable collaboration, and optimal use of ICT for supporting e-business activities

Key Dimensions of E-commerce Service Quality and Its Relationships to Satisfaction and Loyalty

Evidence exists that one successful strategy to satisfy and retain customers is offering superior service quality. Motivated by the growing interest in e-commerce, we focus our research questions on identifying the key dimensions of e-commerce service quality and its relationships to customer satisfaction and loyalty. In exploring answers to our research questions a hypothesized model is proposed and empirically tested using a research survey with 370 online shoppers. Salient results include: (1) key dimensions of e-commerce service quality are website usability, information quality, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and personalization; (2) customer satisfaction is influenced mostly with the perception of reliability, while customer loyalty is affected by the perception of assurance; (3) customer retention is predicted by the customer satisfaction index. Results of the study contribute to the nascent body of research in e-service quality and offer unique insights for managers of online firms on how to manage the quality of their e-commerce e-service

Beyond the Electronic Commerce Diffusion Rate: Efficiency Prevails

The diffusion race of e-commerce applications and solutions in the German industry seems to be concluded. This applies more or less for large firms, but especially for SMEs in the analyzed industry sectors. Independent of firm size, more than one third of all firms responded that the implementation of e-commerce contributed substantially to improve existing operational processes and to expand markets. E-commerce readiness, and due to its relative efficient usage, is observable not only in large firms. The “digital divide” or “digital gap” between large firms and SMEs has disappeared. Increasingly, SMEs may often benefit more from e-commerce applications than large firms. Although e-commerce technologies may be available theoretically in all industries and firms, efficient usage depends directly on the consistent implementation of more sophisticated solutions, such as on-line procurement or Internet-based supply chain management. Firms with defined strategic IT-related goals are more often efficient than firms without such goal

Raising and Rising Voices in Social Media - A Novel Methodological Approach in Studying Cyber-Collective Movements

Emerging cyber-collective social movements (CSMs) have frequently made headlines in the news. Despite their popularity, there is a lack of systematic methodologies to empirically study such movements in complex online environments. Using the Al-Huwaider online campaign as a case to illustrate our methodology, this contribution attempts to establish a rigorous and fundamental analysis that explains CSMs. We collected 150 blogs from 17 countries ranging between April 2003 and July 2010 with a special focus on Al-Huwaider’s campaigns capturing multi-cultural aspects for our analysis. Bearing the analysis upon three central tenets of individual, community, and transnational perspectives, we develop novel algorithms modeling CSMs by utilizing existing collective action theories and computational social network analysis. This article contributes a methodology to study the diffusion of issues in social networks and examines roles of influential community members. The proposed methodology provides a rigorous tool to understand the complexity and dynamics of CSMs. Such methodology also assists us in observing the transcending nature of CSMs with future possibilities for modeling transnational outreach. Our study addresses the lack of fundamental research on the formation of CSMs. This research contributes novel methodologies that can be applied to many settings including business, marketing and many others, beyond the exemplary setting chosen here for illustrative purposes

Different Paths of Development of Two Information Systems Communities: A Comparative Study Based on Peer Interviews

Information Systems (IS) is not a homogeneous discipline. Rather, it is comprised of various communities that are characterized by different perspectives and methods. With regard to the ongoing discussion about the profile of the discipline, this is a remarkable phenomenon. More specifically, it recommends analyzing the characteristic features of the various IS communities and explaining the diverse paths of development they took. Furthermore, it implies the question whether—and how—the current diversity could be overcome in order to foster a more focused competition as well as a more coherent presentation of research results on an international scale. This article contributes to such an investigation. It is focused on a comparison of the international English-speaking community predominantly (in particular in its early days) shaped by North-American IS researchers, which plays a leading role in the international scene, and the IS discipline in German-speaking countries (”Wirtschaftsinformatik” or WI, in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland), which constitutes the largest IS community outside North America that maintains its own approach. The focus of this article is mainly on describing the communities’ characteristics as the outcome of a social construction that is chiefly influenced by those individuals who participated in this construction. Against this background, eight scholars from North America and six scholars from German-speaking countries were interviewed at length. All were chosen as witnesses of and important contributors to the development of their discipline. As a result of this reconstruction, the article presents a rich picture of the communities’ history and characteristics as experienced and reported by the interviewees. The results obtained from this project indicate that neither of the two conceptions (IS or WI) can serve as an ideal model. Instead, a more intensive international exchange among the various research communities, including the Scandinavian and British scholars, should contribute to further develop the field into a more mature and satisfactory state

Globalization and E-Commerce II: Environment and Policy in Germany

Due to its economic power as the largest economy in Europe and third largest in the world, Germany inevitably will play an important role in e-commerce. After the improvement and diffusion of high-speed Internet access, like ISDN or DSL, Germany enjoys more ISDN telephone lines than any country; also the highest DSL per capita ratio, in Europe. Germany includes a large, highly educated and relatively wealthy population, which is an important prerequisite for successful e-commerce activities. Due to foreign language skills in the German population (every pupil is required to learn English; a large number know basic French or Spanish, too), the language barrier to using international Web sites is small. Moreover, the German education system puts increasing emphasis on information and communications technology (ICT) skills. Invention activity in some areas of ICT shows signs of improvement. Starting from a low level, patent activity in mobile communications and the Internet grew faster in Germany than anywhere else in Europe. This growth could be viewed as an early indicator of strengthening the mobile e-commerce sector in Germany and may be interpreted as an important effort in catching-up with overall e-commerce development. More than 80% of the GNP is created in mid-sized companies (Mittelstand), which traditionally are considered as more flexible and innovative than large enterprises. The majority of these small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can access the Internet. Looking at Internet penetration, German SMEs are at the top together with SMEs in Scandinavian countries. The central position of Germany as a hub to Europe together with the excellent public and private transport infrastructure is a competitive advantage to attract foreign investments. Germany follows the innovation model be the best imitator of successful developments and within this course exploits the competitive advantage achievable through integration. After e-commerce technologies proved successful, Germany caught up in developing its relevant infrastructure and is now gaining momentum

Designing Digital Communities that Transform Urban Life: Introduction to the Special Section on Digital Cities

The pervasive integration of digital technology into cities provides new opportunities for information systems scholars to participate in the efforts in transforming urban life. It requires (a) the creation of a large-scale digital infrastructure, (b) the design of new services and applications, and (c) the re-examination of the meaning of social interactions in public and private spaces. In order to create an initial forum for multi-disciplinary dialogue to explore these issues, a research workshop was organized by the Irwin L. Gross Institute for Business and Information Technology, Temple University on November 1–3, 2007. This special section includes three papers from the workshop. These three articles point out that the future socio-technical reality of digital urban environments must be deliberately designed in order to magnifies the strengths of the most daring human design endeavor ever—cities

Future of Master’s Level Education in Information Systems

Master’s level programs in Information Systems provide exciting opportunities for schools and departments that are willing to actively engage with their corporate partners and other key stakeholders to develop products that simultaneously address the needs of students, employers, and other stakeholders and build on the core strengths of the IS discipline. This article reports on the results of a panel discussion on master’s level education in IS that took place at AMCIS 2010. The panelists included experienced program directors, curriculum experts, and academic administrators from both North America and Europe. Their contributions brought together descriptions of successful program models, in-depth understanding of how the context for master’s programs in IS is changing, and ideas regarding the future direction for master’s education in IS

Taming the Social Network Jungle: From Web 2.0 to Social Media

The authors explore various Web 2.0, social media as well as communication networks developments. Web 2.0 is defined and viewed as a paradigm shift. They examine how the vast amount and huge variety of information on the Web is attempted to be organized, sorted, ordered, tagged and classified. The nature and role of social networking sites are addressed, especially asking how businesses might find a role here. Moreover, the authors ask how one might reach and connect with Web 2.0 customers and what strategy businesses might pursue. Online shopping communities are explored and opportunities for retailers are identified. Lastly, questions and issues are raised about the implementation of Web 2.0 and the bottom line, i.e. an attempt to see what some businesses are doing in this context and how they embrace Web 2.0 technologies and applications. Conclusions highlighting four predictions for the future of social networking and social media are offered