Efraim Turban

A Trust Model for Consumer Internet Shopping

E-commerce success, especially in the business-to-consumer area, is determined in part by whether consumers trust sellers and products they cannot see or touch, and electronic systems with which they have no previous experience. This paper describes a theoretical model for investigating the four main antecedent influences on consumer trust in Internet shopping, a major form of business-to-consumer e-commerce: trustworthiness of the Internet merchant, trustworthiness of the Internet as a shopping medium, infrastructural (contextual) factors (e.g., security, third-party certification), and other factors (e.g., company size, demographic variables). The antecedent variables are moderated by the individual consumers degree of trust propensity, which reflects personality traits, culture, and experience. Based on the research model, a comprehensive set of hypotheses is formulated and a methodology for testing them is outlined. Some of the hypotheses are tested empirically to demonstrate the applicability of the theoretical model. The findings indicate that merchant integrity is a major positive determinant of consumer trust in Internet shopping, and that its effect is moderated by the individual consumers trust propensity.

Integrating knowledge management into enterprise environments for the next generation decision support

Decision support and knowledge management processes are interdependent activities in many organizations. In this paper, we propose an approach for integrating decision support and knowledge management processes using knowledge discovery techniques. Based on the proposed approach, an integrative framework is presented for building enterprise decision support environments using model marts and model warehouses as repositories for knowledge obtained through various conversions. This framework is expected to guide further research on the development of the next generation decision support environments.

Introduction: DSS: Directions for the next decade

The idea of organizing a special issue about the next decade of DSS was borrowed from Keen’s paper (1987) in which certain predictions were made. Now, almost 15 years later, we are witnessing an unparalleled digital revolution brought by the Internet, intranets, superb multimedia and powerful and relatively inexpensive computing and storage facilities. With the increased number of new business models and e-commerce applications, we were interested to find out how DSS has been changed and what the DSS might look like in the next decade. Of the many papers that were submitted to the special issue, we selected what we believe represent some of the most important trends in DSS research and implementation. However, before we present the essentials of the six selected papers, let us look at some of the most visible changes that are relevant to DSS. One of the changes that already occurred is the name of this journal which was expanded to include electronic commerce. Journals do not change names too often. However, as explained by the editors, the new name reflects the changing business environment and the recognition that electronic commerce is a major revolution that impacts, among other things, managerial decision-making processes. Similar changes occurred in many other DSS-related concepts. For example, the term DSS itself is seen less and less frequently both in the trade journals and in the vendors’ Web sites. Instead, terms such as business intelligence and OLAP are very popular. As a matter of fact, these terms practically eliminated the term executive information systems (EIS) from most vendors’ Web pages and product lists. There is an increased recognition that business intelligence, which integrates many of the EIS, DSS and expert systems concepts, is becoming a necessary component in the second generation of enterprise systems, such as ERP, as well as in extremely integrated enterprise systems that include CRM and ecommerce components. Furthermore, this concept becomes highly related to data mining, which are incorporated into e-commerce, collaborative commerce and other derivatives of the digital revolution [5]. Even futuristic topics such as mobile-commerce recognize the need to incorporate decision support in resolving issues such as investing in advertisement, which is based on customers’ location. An example of the changes in the practical world is the inclusion of Web-based products and services in practically any DSS and especially in EIS-related vendors of the 1990s. The early definitions of decision support systems (DSS) focused on four novelties: (i) methods and instruments for dealing with unstructured or semistructured problems, which formed an improvement on management science and operations research methodology; (ii) interactive computer-based systems, which were built for managers and were more advanced than descriptive systems theory or traditional decision models; (iii) user-oriented systems, which formed a better platform for decision-making than batch-oriented MIS applications; and (iv) the separation of data and models in computer applications, which promised to form the basis for more effective modeling. The implications of these novelties promised to be three-fold: (i) decision-makers could, more effectively than before, deal with unstructured or semi-structured, difficult problems which up to that time required extensive experience and expert knowledge, as they had not been dealt within operations research or management science theory; (ii) decision-makers could make better and more reasoned decisions without using optimization tools and without mastering

Are intelligent e-commerce agents partners or predators?

Mobile agents are changing the face of e-business and reshaping business models. In the process these agents are also posing new concerns regarding who really owns information.

Software Agents for Environmental Scanning in Electronic Commerce

To properly implement and use electronic commerce systems companies need to evaluate considerable amount of information from their business environment in activities such as environmental scanning. This information is needed both for strategic management and for operational decisions. However, the relevant information may be difficult to find and interpret due to information overload and the fact that the information may be in many locations. Fortunately, most of the information is on the Web (Internet, extranets). To overcome the search problem, especially in large organizations, one should consider the use of software agents. This paper presents an overview for the utilization of such agents today and in the future by describing a prototype system designed for information monitoring and collection from Web sources for the pulp and paper industry. The paper also describes the use of other agents that can supplement the system in specific electronic commerce application areas. Finally, some implementation issues are discussed.

Adoption, implementation and use of lotus notes in Singapore

Notes (now Notes/Domino) is a comprehensive enterprise-wide groupware infrastructure technology that facilitates communication and collaboration. It is used for developing applications that increase productivity and profitability. This study reports the result of a field study conducted in Singapore. The results provide an insight about the adoption process of Notes, its strategic use of Notes and the benefits realized by organizations. In addition, this study attempts to relate different types of organizations (classified by their culture and technology levels) to the perceived impacts of the introduction of Notes. The major findings indicated that the adoption of Notes is strongly associated with the existing technology level of organizations. However, contrary to common belief, organizations with medium-technology levels are making significantly more use of Notes than organizations with high-technology levels. The study also indicated that organizations with a mechanistic culture use more of Notes for monitoring purposes while organizations with organic culture use it more for dissemination of information and for communication.

On inter-organizational EC collaboration-the impact of inter-cultural communication apprehension

Inter-cultural communication apprehension is one of the major factors that may influence the processes of inter-organization collaboration in electronic commerce. It is an obstruction, prohibiting inter-organization collaboration in different ways. If we can manage the inter-cultural communication apprehension properly, we may be able to bring organizations of different cultures together for successful completion of EC collaborative works. This paper summarizes previous works on inter-cultural communication apprehension and identifies three potential factors that could influence inter-cultural communication apprehension: cultural climate, technology environment and communication leadership. Also, this paper proposes a research framework and several hypotheses for future testing.

Organizational Assimilation of Web Services Technology: A Research Framework

Web services is an extremely promising technology that has the potential to revolutionize many aspects of information systems. Web services facilitates vendor-, platform-, and language-independent, loosely coupled, inexpensive integration of both internal and external systems. Although there is a general agreement that Web services will have a significant impact on applications of information technology in organizations, there is a disagreement regarding the speed and spread of assimilation due to a multitude of inhibitors. In this article, we identify 3 areas of assimilation of Web services in organizations: information systems departmental assimilation, intraorganizational assimilation, and interorganizational assimilation. We propose a research framework for investigating various issues related to organizational assimilation of Web services. In addition, we developed a projection of the assimilation patterns for the 3 areas of organizational assimilation of Web services. Based on the proposed framework, we outline a research agenda on the organizational assimilation of Web services.

Strategic Information Systems for Competitive Advantage

Strategic information systems (SISs) are systems that support or shape a business unit’s or organization’s competitive strategy (Callon, 1996, and Neumann, 1994). An SIS is characterized by its ability to change significantly the manner in which business is operated. It can also change the goals, processes, products, or environmental relationships to help an organization gain a competitive advantage.