Informational Determinants of Customer Acquisition and eTailer Revenue

Firms have leveraged the Internet in innumerable ways to derive business value from this technology. However, one class of firm that is distinctively dependent on this platform is the online retailer or eTailer. One aspect of this distinctiveness is that eTailers depend on their Web portals to attract customers, engage them in purchase activities, and execute transactions connected with a purchase ultimately leading to revenue generation. In this study, we wish to examine the informational determinants of this customer interaction and their relationship to eTailer revenue. We propose a two-phase path model of customer acquisition leading to revenue generation. Informational determinants are included in the path structure. The model is empirically tested using a dataset of 500 eTailers. The results indicate that the model is able to explain a large proportion of the variability in financial performance of these eTailers. We find that the type of information made available on the eTailer’s website, along with transactional capabilities and customizability, significantly correlate with customer acquisition. Analytical capability correlated significantly with the transition to phase two – which we refer to as conversion. These findings have implications for information technology governance within firms as they manage their IT investments to deliver maximum value

Putting Numbers on Intangible Benefits

Intangible benefits have been a thorn in the side of information technology project valuation efforts. These benefits are often comparable to tangible benefits in magnitude, and so should not be ignored. Yet, unless we can attach numbers to them, it is difficult to combine them in a consistent way with tangible benefits to reduce the chances of underestimating the true value of a project. The lack of agreement in both theory and practice on how to treat intangible benefits suggests that it continues to be an unresolved yet important issue. In this paper, we suggest a disciplined way, based on system dynamics, to quantify so-called intangible benefits. Although it is not algorithmic, the method still has substantial structure and can be implemented and estimated to varying degrees of detail to suit project needs. The method is demonstrated by applying it to a cellular service provider context. A simple but key notion that is used to develop our approach is that of induced observability. Ithelpstooperationalizeintangiblebenefitsinawaythatfacilitatesquantificationforpurposes of project valuation

Managing Customer Turnover In Online Services: A Systems Thinking Approach

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The Mechanics of Internet Diffusion in India: Lessons for Developing Countries

The issue of Internet diffusion in an economy over time is of interest to several stakeholders, including policy makers, regulators, investors, and businesses. It is particularly important in developing countries, which see the Internet as a major driver in achieving social and developmental goals. Concerns about the so-called ìdigital divideî also lend some urgency to the issue. However, Internet diffusion is driven by social as well as technical factors, and developing countries have distinctive characteristics that make their adoption process different from that in industrialized countries. This paper develops a causal model of Internet diffusion in developing countries, using the systems dynamics methodology. The modeling approach allows us to combine standard contagion mechanisms inherent in diffusion, such as innovators and imitators, with the distinctive regulatory, economic, and social circumstances in developing countries. The structure of the model is first justified using India as a specific developing country context. Next, the simulated values generated by this structural model are compared against actual values for Internet adoption in India for the period 1996ñ2001, and the fit is found to be reasonably good. These initial findings support model validity. Using a technique called dominant loop analysis the model suggests that, among all the different drivers, poor telecom- munications infrastructure and high telephone charges are the major barriers to diffusion. In conclusion, we discuss the issues to be addressed in the remainder of this ongoing work

The Dynamics of Organizational Information Security

In recent times, it has become evident that information security is not achieved through technology alone. Rather, it depends on a complex interplay among technology, organizational and managerial issues, and events in the external environment. Senior management attention, training, and sound operating procedures are just as important as firewalls and virtual private networks in arriving at a robust security posture. In this paper, we represent the interactions among these technical and organizational drivers using the system dynamics methodology, to develop a high level model of organizational information security. Since the basic system dynamics construct is the feedback loop, our model is able to expose the counteracting mechanics that work to reinforce and erode security, respectively. By doing so, it can inform the process of crafting an appropriate level of security—a problem facing most organizations. Since the model is based on simulation, it is also possible to test what-if scenarios of how the security posture of the organization would fare under different levels of external threats and management policies

System Dynamics Modeling Of Ict Diffusion

IS scholars have been studying the diffusion of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for some time now and certain research methods have emerged as the dominant ones in this body of literature. In this paper, we first note these methods citing representative studies and then present an alternate approach to studying ICT diffusion using systems dynamics (SD). Any diffusion, by nature, is a temporal phenomenon. The essence of SD is to uncover the underlying network of cause-effect relationships that is generating a temporally evolving behaviour. Thus it is a natural for studying ICT diffusion, particularly when diffusion is driven by complex interactions among contextual variables. SD has not received much attention in the ICT diffusion literature, but this method has strengths that complement those of the other methods currently in common use, thereby enhancing our understanding of the phenomenon. The characteristics of SD also make it particularly appropriate for studying ICT diffusion in the Pacific Asia region which is characterized by substantial differences in contextual variables that drive ICT diffusion, such as literacy rates, economic development and infrastructure sophistication, besides having wide diversity in cultural norms

Drivers of Knowledge Contribution in Open Fora: Findings from Wikipedians

Today’s social computing platforms include many open content fora where users voluntarily create and edit content online. This has opened up a new mechanism for knowledge acquisition raising related research questions, including identification of the reasons why people contribute to open fora. While altruism is mentioned most frequently, it has been suggested that there may be additional drivers in play. To explore this possibility, we examine contribution behavior in the Wikipedia context using qualitative data from two focus groups of Wikipedians. Content analysis of the data reveals a number of different drivers of contributor behavior which we then map into the Motivation-Ability-Opportunity (MAO) theoretical framework developed in the organizational behavior literature on work performance. The mapping can provide a theoretical basis for quantitative examination of contributor behavior and lead to more effective methods of managing collective knowledge in other open forum settings, such as corporate wikis

The Dynamics of Sustainability of Electronic Knowledge Repositories

ICIS 2007 Proceedings - Twenty Eighth International Conference on Information System