The ten papers in this special volume of CAIS focus on environmental and policy influences on the diffusion of e-commerce in selected countries in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe.  They are part of a multi-year, multi-country study entitled,  Impacts of Electronic Commerce in the Global Networked Economy: A Multi-Country Stud

Dedrick, Jason

Gibbs, Jennifer

Kraemer, Kenneth L.

English

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Communications of the Association for Information SystemsVolume 10 Article 1January 2003Introduction to the Special Volume onGlobalization and E-CommerceKenneth L. KraemerUniversity of California at Irvine, kkraemer@uci.eduJason DedrickCenter for Research, Information, Technology and Organizationslt;pgt;University of California at Irvine, jdedrick@uci.eduJennifer GibbsUniversity of California at Irvine, jgibbs@gsm.uci.eduFollow this and additional works at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/caisThis material is brought to you by the AIS Journals at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). It has been accepted for inclusion in Communications of theAssociation for Information Systems by an authorized administrator of AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). For more information, please contactelibrary@aisnet.org.Recommended CitationKraemer, Kenneth L.; Dedrick, Jason; and Gibbs, Jennifer (2003) "Introduction to the Special Volume on Globalization and E-Commerce," Communications of the Association for Information Systems: Vol. 10 , Article 1.DOI: 10.17705/1CAIS.01001Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/vol10/iss1/1Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 11, 2003) 1-3                                   1 Introduction to the Special Volume on Globalization and E-Commerce by K.L. Kraemer, J. Dedrick, J. Gibbs       INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL VOLUME ON  GLOBALIZATION AND E-COMMERCE  Kenneth L. Kraemer Jason Dedrick Jennifer Gibbs Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations Graduate School of Management University of California at Irvine kkraemer@uci.edu    ABSTRACT The ten papers in this special volume of CAIS focus on environmental and policy influences on the diffusion of e-commerce in selected countries in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe.  They are part of a multi-year, multi-country study entitled, “Impacts of Electronic Commerce in the Global Networked Economy: A Multi-Country Study”. [www.crito.uci.edu/GIT/Project3d.asp] KEYWORDS: Globalization, E-Commerce I. THE RESEARCH PROJECT  The premise behind the globalization of e-commerce study is that the Internet and electronic commerce are bringing countries together to create a global networked economy.  Internet technology is said to have no regard for national borders. However, the people and companies that use the technology function within very different national environments.  So, one might reasonably expect national differences in the character of e-commerce when compared across countries.  Thus, the research addresses the following questions:  • How do global trends such as innovation and economic liberalization influence the international diffusion of the Internet and e-commerce?  • How do national environments and policies influence e-commerce use within countries? • What are the economic and social impacts of e-commerce and how are they affected by national environment and policies? This research project examines the impacts of e-commerce on a multi-country basis. It includes selected country case studies looking at the growth of e-commerce nationally, and also in more detail in three critical industry sectors: manufacturing, financial services, and distribution. These studies serve as a basis for cross-country analysis identifying key environmental and policy 2                                       Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 11, 2003)1-3                                  Introduction to the Special Volume on Globalization and E-Commerce by K.L. Kraemer, J. Dedrick, J. Gibbs  factors that influence the diffusion and impacts of e-commerce (Gibbs et al. forthcoming).    In addition, data is being collected in over 40 countries on e-commerce revenues and on environmental variables, such as openness to trade, foreign direct investment, industry structure, income, education, and information infrastructure, that might impact e-commerce diffusion.  This data is being used to identify trends and to analyze the relationship between environmental factors and diffusion of e-commerce use.  More detailed data is being gathered on the three industry sectors to use in comparative analysis.  The combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies facilitates the study of new, fast-changing e-commerce innovation in a fluid market environment. The project is being carried out by a team of researchers from around the world. The effort is led by CRITO (Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations) at the University of California, Irvine.  It involves collaboration with from one to four experts on each country.    II. THE SPECIAL VOLUME This special volume focuses on the second major question of the research study:   • How do national environmental factors and policies influence the diffusion of e-commerce use within individual countries? THE COUNTRIES The special issue presents ten country case studies, each of which systematically reviews major environmental factors and policies that might influence the diffusion of e-commerce use, and examines the extent to which they are major influences on business-to-business and business-to-consumer e-commerce in each country.  The countries represented are: • Brazil  • China  • Denmark  • France • Germany • Japan • Mexico • Singapore • Taiwan • United States   THE CONTENT Each case study presents the same basic information and then interprets it in terms of the expected or actual impacts on e-commerce.  A typical outline covers: • National Environment o Demographics (urbanization, population density, age distribution) o Economy (wealth, GDP, foreign trade, industry structure, foreign investment)  o Human Resources (education, IT skills) o Infrastructure (transportation, distribution,  telecommunications and information, Internet) o Business and consumer readiness, preferences, attitudes • National Policy  o Policy institutions o Enabling policy (telecommunications liberalization, financial deregulation, investment in infrastructure, IT skills development) o E-commerce policy (tax treatment of electronic transactions, e-government initiatives, R&D, incentives to private sector, legal framework, promotional efforts) • Extent of E-Commerce use (overall, B2B, B2C) Communications of the Association for Information Systems (Volume 11, 2003) 1-3                                   3 Introduction to the Special Volume on Globalization and E-Commerce by K.L. Kraemer, J. Dedrick, J. Gibbs • Conclusions about the influence of environmental and policy factors on diffusion currently and in the future.  By following the same outline, the papers allow easy comparison across the ten countries.  As the papers show, differences in environmental and policy factors are significant and do, indeed, shape the extent, timing and impacts of e-commerce adoption.   The papers contain a large amount of information and, as a result, are quite long, typically requiring 50 pages in Journal format and 75 in Article format. With CAIS being electronic it is possible to publish this extensive material.  We believe that the data that is collected in these papers is fundamental input not only to the group of scholars researching the world-wide impact of e-commerce, but to those interested in other international information systems questions.  THE AUTHORS  The authors of the articles in this volume were selected for their knowledge of e-commerce, their understanding of the nature of business and culture in their country, and their access to the statistical data about the country. On the whole, the authors believe that e-commerce is in its ascendancy and are optimistic about its future despite the recent economic slowdown. They present both the drivers and barriers to e-commerce adoption in their countries. The authors also tend to reflect the special perspectives of their country in their conclusions about the current and future status of e-commerce. The contributions of the authors to this series is greatly appreciated.  THE INITIAL PAPERS  The first four papers in this special volume deal with China, Germany, France, and Mexico.  They are being issued together with this Introduction.  The six remaining papers in the series will be published individually.  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research is a part of the Globalization and E-Commerce project of the Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations (CRITO) at the University of California, Irvine. The material in this special issue is based upon international data collection supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0085852. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. Editor’s Note: This article was received on November 19, 2002 and published on January  31, 2003.   REFERENCES   Gibbs, J., Kraemer, K.L., and Dedrick, J.  (forthcoming 2003) Environment and Policy Factors Shaping Global E-Commerce Diffusion: A Cross-Country Comparison, The Information Society.   Copyright © 2003 by the Association for Information Systems. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and full citation on the first page. Copyright for components of this work owned by others than the Association for Information Systems must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists requires prior specific permission and/or fee. Request permission to publish from: AIS Administrative Office, P.O. Box 2712 Atlanta, GA, 30301-2712 Attn: Reprints or via e-mail from  ais@gsu.edu.                                                ISSN: 1529-3181 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Paul Gray Claremont Graduate University AIS SENIOR  EDITORIAL BOARD Cynthia Beath Vice President Publications  University of Texas at Austin  Paul Gray                                 Editor, CAIS                                Claremont Graduate University Sirkka Jarvenpaa Editor, JAIS University of Texas at Austin Edward A. Stohr Editor-at-Large Stevens Inst. of Technology Blake Ives                                Editor, Electronic Publications  University of Houston Reagan Ramsower Editor, ISWorld Net Baylor University CAIS ADVISORY BOARD   Gordon Davis University of Minnesota  Ken Kraemer Univ. of California at Irvine Richard Mason Southern Methodist University Jay Nunamaker                    University of Arizona Henk Sol Delft  University Ralph Sprague University of Hawaii CAIS SENIOR EDITORS  Steve Alter U. of San Francisco Chris Holland Manchester Business School, UK Jaak Jurison Fordham University Jerry Luftman Stevens Institute of Technology CAIS EDITORIAL BOARD    Tung Bui University of Hawaii H. Michael Chung  California State Univ.  Candace Deans University of Richmond Donna Dufner U.of Nebraska -Omaha Omar El Sawy  University of Southern California Ali Farhoomand The University of Hong Kong, China  Jane Fedorowicz Bentley College Brent Gallupe Queens University, Canada Robert L.  Glass Computing Trends Sy Goodman  Georgia Institute of Technology Joze Gricar University of Maribor Slovenia Ruth Guthrie California State Univ.  Juhani Iivari University of Oulu Finland Munir Mandviwalla  Temple University M.Lynne Markus  Bentley College Don McCubbrey  University of Denver Michael Myers University of Auckland, New Zealand Seev Neumann                  Tel Aviv University, Israel Hung Kook Park  Sangmyung University, Korea  Dan Power  University of Northern Iowa Nicolau Reinhardt  University of Sao Paulo, Brazil    Maung Sein  Agder University College, Norway Carol Saunders University of Central Florida Peter Seddon  University of Melbourne Australia Doug Vogel  City University of Hong Kong, China Hugh Watson  University of Georgia Rolf Wigand  University of Arkansas Peter Wolcott University of Nebraska-Omaha ADMINISTRATIVE PERSONNEL                                                                              Eph McLean  AIS, Executive Director Georgia State University Samantha Spears Subscriptions Manager Georgia State University Reagan Ramsower Publisher, CAIS Baylor University  

Introduction to the Special Volume on Globalization and E-Commerce

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