Rolf T. Wigand

Electronic Commerce: Definition, Theory, and Context

Electronic commerce is a relatively new concept that crept into the business vocabulary during the 1970s. A picture of electronic commerce is emerging in which the Internet will become the essential dial-tone for conducting business by the year 2000. This contribution addresses definitional, theoretical and contextual issues including the nature, drivers, enablers, and the magnitude of electronic commerce. The author discusses the role of electronic markets, the effects of information technology on electronic commerce, interactivity, and the evolution of disintermediation to reintermediation. A definition and typology of electronic commerce are offered. Theoretical and conceptual approaches to electronic commerce are advanced in terms of (1) transaction cost theory, (2) marketing, (3) diffusion, (4) information retrieval, and (5) strategic networking. Lastly, the author poses the question of how electronic commerce adds value.

Electronic Commerce: Effects on Electronic Markets

Electronic commerce is a rapidly growing area enjoying considerable attention in conjunction with the emergence of the Information Superhighway or the building of the National Information Infrastructure (NII). Numerous firms are beginning to position themselves on this superhighway in terms of providing hardware, software, information content or services. It has also become important for other firms to hang out a shingle on the highway in the form of a home page on the World Wide Web.

Industry-wide information systems standardization as collective action: the case of the U.S. residential mortgage industry

Vertical information systems (VIS) standards are technical specifications designed to promote coordination among the organizations within (or across) vertical industry sectors. Examples include the bar code, electronic data interchange (EDI) standards, and RosettaNet business process standards in the electronics industry. This contribution examines VIS standardization through the lens of collective action theory, applied in the literature to information technology product standardization, but not yet to VIS standardization, which is led by heterogeneous groups of user organizations rather than by IT vendors. Through an intensive case analysis of VIS standardization in the U.S. residential mortgage industry, VIS standardization success is shown to be as problematic as IT product standardization success, but for different reasons. VIS standardization involves two linked collective action dilemmas-standards development and standards diffusion- with different characteristics, such that a solution to the first may fail to resolve the second. Whereas prior theoretical and empirical research shows that IT product standardization efforts tend to splinter into rival factions that compete through standards wars in the marketplace, successful VIS standards consortia must encompass heterogeneous groups of user organizations and IT vendors without fragmenting. Some tactics successfully used to solve the collective action dilemma of VIS standardization (e.g., governance mechanisms and policies about intellectual property protection) are also used by IT product standardization efforts, but some are different, and successful VIS standardization requires a package of solutions tailored to fit and jointly resolve the specific dilemmas of particular VIS standards initiatives.

Die grenzenlose Unternehmung. Information, Organisation und Management

Fur die Unternehmen bringt die immer leistungsfahigere Informations- und Kommunikationstechnik Chancen, aber auch Herausforderungen. Durch den Einsatz der Technik konnen Kosten gesenkt, Prozesse effizienter gestaltet und neue Vertriebs- und Kundenpotentiale erschlossen werden. Gleichzeitig drangen neue Konkurrenten auf den Markt, da die Zugangsbarrieren zu den neuen elektronischen Markten im Internet niedriger sind als bisher. Aus den Verkaufermarkten werden immer starker Kaufermarkte.

Exploring Web users’ optimal flow experiences

Characterizations of users’ experiences on the Web are beginning to appear. Recently released research suggests that Internet use may reduce psychological well‐being, for instance by increasing loneliness and depression. Our current study implies that using the Internet may provoke enjoyable experiences through the flow state, which may in turn positively influence an individual’s subjective well‐being and improve a person’s happiness, life satisfaction, and positive affect. By surveying 304 Web users through an open‐ended questionnaire, this study captures a picture of Web users’ flow experiences regarding their optimal situations on the Web. Results suggest that using the World Wide Web is an activity that facilitates flow, which generates an optimal, extremely enjoyable experience with total involvement and concentration. Symptoms and dimensions of flow states on the Web are reported directly from subjects’ responses, such as merging of action and awareness, a loss of self‐consciousness, the sense of time distortion, enjoyment, and telepresence.

Community Detection in Complex Networks: Multi-objective Enhanced Firefly Algorithm

Studying the evolutionary community structure in complex networks is crucial for uncovering the links between structures and functions of a given community. Most contemporary community detection algorithms employs single optimization criteria (i.e.., modularity), which may not be adequate to represent the structures in complex networks. We suggest community detection process as a Multi-objective Optimization Problem (MOP) for investigating the community structures in complex networks. To overcome the limitations of the community detection problem, we propose a new multi-objective optimization algorithm based on enhanced firefly algorithm so that a set of non-dominated (Pareto-optimal) solutions can be achieved. In our proposed algorithm, a new tuning parameter based on a chaotic mechanism and novel self-adaptive probabilistic mutation strategies are used to improve the overall performance of the algorithm. The experimental results on synthetic and real world complex networks suggest that the multi-objective community detection algorithm provides useful paradigm for discovering overlapping community structures robustly.

ICT Enabled Virtual Collaboration through Trust

The advent of information and communication technology (ICT) provides opportunities for employees with offices in geographically dispersed locations to communicate, share and collaborate on projects to achieve common business goals. Previous studies on computer-mediated communication and computer-supported cooperative work suggest that the higher utilization of ICT for supporting collaborative work is largely dependent on the business strategy, which promotes trust among parties. Our focus is on understanding the effect of virtual organizing for achieving higher collaboration in virtual settings. We identify the challenges for developing trust in a virtual collaborative environment. We describe how the process for virtual organizing helps promote higher levels of collaboration among parties in geographically dispersed locations. We posit that virtual organizing helps support creating, sustaining and deploying key intellectual and knowledge assets while sourcing tangible, physical assets in a complex network of relationships. Our analysis demonstrates that the real challenge for the management of virtual collaboration is trust and has to be guided by a shared business principle or shared vision. Eight propositions are offered based on this analysis. We conclude that virtual organizing as presented here suggests a set of rules and norms enabling and constraining actions that promote a desired and required higher level of trust. This, in turn, is critical (a) to the development and sustainability of virtual collaboration and (b) to ensure the optimal use of ICT.

Through a Glass Clearly: Standards, Architecture, and Process Transparency in Global Supply Chains

Despite evidence that a lack of interoperable information systems results in enormous costs, development, implementation, and effective use of interorganizational systems (IOS) remain an elusive goal for many companies. Lack of interoperability across systems is especially problematic for manufacturers dependent on global supply chains. We develop propositions about the characteristics of IOS that affect information transparency in supply chains. Specifically, we propose that data and process standards are necessary, but not sufficient, to solve such information transparency problems. Instead, standards need to be complemented by hub-type information technology architectures that are shared by organizations participating in an industrial field, not just by the participants in one manufacturers supply chain. These arguments are supported by an automotive industry case study involving data and process standardization and a shared, cloud-based architecture. We conclude with additional aspects of the case that may be relevant to addressing information transparency problems in global supply chains.

Information Technology Standards Choices and Industry Structure Outcomes: The Case of the U.S. Home Mortgage Industry

Vertical IS standards prescribe data structures and definitions, document formats, and business processes for particular industries, in contrast to generic information technology (IT) standards, which concern IT characteristics applicable to many industries. This paper explores the potential industry structure effects of vertical information systems (IS) standards through a case study of the U.S. home mortgage industry. We review theoretical arguments about the potential industry structure effects of standards for interorganizational coordination, and we compare the characteristics of XML-based vertical IS standards with those of electronic data interchange (EDI) to gauge the applicability of prior literature. We argue that the lower costs and wider accessibility of XML-based standards that use the Internet can result in significant changes to the structure of the mortgage industry. However, the nature of industry change will depend on the specific ways in which standards are implemented by organizations in the industry--there are many patterns of implementation with potentially different effects at the industry level of analysis. We illustrate these theoretical arguments with data from our case.

Investigating the Interplay between Structure and Information and Communications Technology in the Real Estate Industry

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are reshaping many industries, often by reshaping how information is shared. However, while the effects and uses of ICT are often associated with organizations (and industries), their use occurs at the individual level. To explore the relationships between individual uses of ICT and changes to organization and industry structures, we examined the residential real estate industry. As agents, buyers and sellers increase their uses of ICT, they also change how they approach their daily work. The increasing uses of ICT are simultaneously altering industry structures by subverting some of the realtors’ control over information while also reinforcing the existing contract‐based structures. This structurational perspective and our findings help to explain why information intermediaries persist when technology‐based perspectives would suggest their disappearance.