Effect of technological breakthroughs on electronic markets

Electronic markets have profoundly affected competition and market structures. Many authors have argued that electronic markets can promote competition and increase allocational efficiency, primarily by reducing buyer and seller search costs. However, conventional competitive models do not explain several phenomena we actually observe in electronic markets. Consequently, a variety of researchers have introduced complications to the basic competitive search model, including asymmetric information, branding and product differentiation, network effects, and agency considerations in order to explain e-commerce behavior. However, most previous studies neglect the fact that such characteristics may reflect underlying market evolution processes. Depending upon the evolutionary pattern of a market, the behavior and performance of markets differ. In this paper, we construct a model to examine e-commerce in the framework of dynamic market evolution. Using a system of replicator dynamics, we split a market into two distinct parts and show that the competition within the two segments will follow different, though interrelated evolutionary patterns. We supply the conditions for the existence of a unique global stable equilibrium in this dynamical system. Our model suggests that exogenous increases in online customers triggered by technological breakthrough often play more important roles than price differentials in determining the evolutionary path of a market. By emphasizing the short term disequilibrium along the market evolution path, our study complements the competitive equilibrium view of electronic market. Xiaotong Li is an Assistant Professor of MIS at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. His research has appeared in many major journals including Communications of the ACM, Marketing Science, IEEE Transactions and others. His current research interests are in applied game theory and the economics of IT. He has been invited to give research seminars at many major research universities. Dr. Li has been invited to referee research papers for many academic journals including MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Marketing Science, Journal of MIS and Journal of AIS. He recently won the best paper award from IEEE Transaction on Engineering Management. Jatinder (Jeet) N. D. Gupta is currently Eminent Scholar of Management of Technology, Professor of Management Information Systems, Industrial and Systems Engineering and Engineering Management at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama. Most recently, he was Professor of Management, Information and Communication Sciences, and Industry and Technology at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. He holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering (with specialization in Production Management and Information Systems) from Texas Tech University. Co-author of a textbook in Operations Research, Dr. Gupta serves on the editorial boards of several national and international journals. Recipient of the Outstanding Faculty and Outstanding Researcher awards from Ball State University, he has published numerous papers in such journals as Journal of Management Information Systems, International Journal of Information Management, Operations Research, INFORMS Journal of Computing, Annals of Operations Research, and Mathematics of Operations Research. More recently, he served as a co-editor of several special issues including Design, Building and Evaluation of Intelligent DMSS of theJournal of Decision Systems, the Neural Networks in Business of Computers and Operations Research and books that include the Intelligent Decision Making Support Systems (i-DMSS): Foundations, Applications and Challengepublished by Springer-Verlag and Creating Knowledge-based Healthcare Organizations published by Idea Group Publishing. He is also the coeditor of the book: Managing E-Business published by Heidelberg Press, Heidelberg, Australia. His current research interests include e-Commerce, Supply Chain Management, Information and Decision Technologies, Scheduling, Planning and Control, Organizational Learning and Effectiveness, Systems Education, Knowledge Management, Information Security, and Enterprise Integration. Dr. Gupta has held elected and appointed positions in several academic and professional societies including the Association for Information Systems, Production and Operations Management Society (POMS), the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI), and the Information Resources Management Association (IRMA). James V. Koch is Board of Visitors Professor of Economics at Old Dominion University. Previously, he served as President of the University of Montana (1986–1990) and Old Dominion University (1990–2001). His recent published research has focused on: (1) the entrepreneurial behavior of college presidents and CEOs; and, (2) applied microeconomics. Dr. Koch has been a consultant to more than 75 corporations, foundations and legal firms.     

Social influence process in the acceptance of a virtual community service

This study investigates the effect of subjective norms, tendency to social comparison, and social identity on behavioral intention to use an Avatar service. Use of a virtual community service can be regarded as social behavior or a behavior affected by social factors. This study relies on the link between subjective norms and behavioral intention in the theory of reasoned action, social identity theory, and social comparison literature. The proposed model was tested using survey data with the results lending support for the proposed model. The implications from this study are expected to contribute to the literature by shedding light on the social influence process in two ways. First, this study unveils how social factors including subjective norms, social identity, and tendency to social comparison affect behavioral intention to use a specific service from virtual communities. Second, this study will aid managers and academics to further understand the social nature of customer behavior with regard to using virtual community services and thus provide insight for the development of technology driven e-commerce. Jaeki Song is Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Quantitative Sciences at the Rawls College of Business Administration at Texas Tech University. His research interests include electronic commerce, web design, information systems strategy, and technology adoption. His work has appeared in Management Science, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Information & Management, and International Journal of Information Management. He also has published book chapters on Global Information Technologies and Electronic Commerce. Yong Jin Kim is Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems at the School of Management at the State University of New York at Binghamton. He holds a Ph.D. in MIS from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has 10 year industry experience. His research interests are in knowledge management, technological innovation, IS success, e-business, and information technology valuation. He has published papers in outlets such as MIS Quarterly, Communications of the ACM, Decision Support Systems, International Journal of Information Management, JITTA, and Knowledge and Process Management. He also has published book chapters on IS Success and e-learning.     

A literature review of electronic marketplace research: Themes, theories and an integrative framework

In this paper, we presented a literature review of the current status of electronic marketplace (EM) research. It consists of 109 journal articles published in 19 journals that are appropriate outlets for electronic commerce research. The results show that an increasing volume of EM research has been conducted from diverse theoretical perspectives. Based on content analysis, we identified eight research themes, five types of methodologies and six categories of background theories which most EM researches were grounded in. By combining research themes and the patterns of the background theories, an integrative framework of EM was proposed to represent the paradigms of EM researches. The framework shows that EM phenomena can be addressed from three perspectives: information systems, inter-organizational/social structure and strategic management perspectives. This framework suggests a parsimonious and cohesive way to explain key EM research issues such as EM adoption, success and impact.

A Semantic Web data retrieval implementation with an adaptive model for supporting agent decision structures

This paper proposes an adaptive learning approach that yields decision models that can be applied by a transactions agent. This model can learn effectively with a variety of data distributions. This research uses the Semantic Web as a data access approach. The Semantic Web is a method that sellers can use to publish semantically meaningful information on Websites so automated applications can reliably access that information. We implemented a Semantic Web composed of 30 vendors’ Web pages and a spider to search those pages to obtain product and vendor information. This information was used to train a learning agent, which then provided a decision model to a transaction agent. James Hansen is J. Owen Cherrington Professor in the Information Systems Department of the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. He is an associate editor for IEEE Intelligent Systems and Information Systems Frontiers. His research is in machine learning and planning as model checking. James B. McDonald is Professor of Economics at Brigham Young University. His research interests are in econometrics and quantitative methods. He has recently published in Econometrica, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Management Science, and Journal of Business Conan C. Albrecht is a professor of Information Systems at Brigham Young University. He teaches classes in enterprise development, middleware, and business programming. Conan researches computer-based fraud detection techniques, ecommerce platforms, and online group dynamics. He has published articles on fraud detection and information theory in The Journal of Forensic Accounting, The Journal of Accounting, The Communications of the ACM, Decision Support Systems, Information and Management, and other academic and professional outlets. Conan is currently working on an open source framework for computer-based fraud detection. The core of this research is detectlets, which encode background and detection information for specific fraud schemes. He is researching with the United Nations and the World Bank to use detectlets to prevent and detect fraud in third world countries. In the next few years, he hopes the system will serve as the foundation of a large, online repository of detectlets about all types of fraud. Douglas L. Dean is an Associate Professor at the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. He is also research coordinator for the Rollins Center for E-business. He received his Ph.D. in MIS from the University of Arizona in 1995. Dr. Dean’s research interests include electronic commerce technology and strategy, online communities, requirements analysis, and collaborative tools and methods. His work has been published in Management Science, Journal of Management Information Systems, Information and Management, The DATA BASE for Advances in Information Systems, Communications of the AIS, Expert Systems with Applications, Group Decision and Negotiation, and IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics. Bonnie Brinton Anderson is the LeAnn Albrecht Fellow and an Assistant Professor in the Information Systems Department of the Marriott School at Brigham Young University (Provo, UT). She received her Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Anderson has published in Decision Support Systems; IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics; Communications of the ACM; Journal of Accountancy, among others. She researches in the areas of knowledge management, information systems security, and intelligent agents.     

Information technology workforce skills: The software and IT services provider perspective

It is now commonplace for an organization to turn to external firms for the provision of IT services and software. As technology advances and the business environment continues to evolve, a key challenge facing IT software and service providers is identifying critical skill sets, both today and in the future. The challenge is compounded as a result of the continuing growth of outsourcing and the increasing demand for technology solutions. This paper explores that challenge through a survey of IT software and service providers. We extend and complement previous studies of non-IT firms by comparing skills sought by non-IT organizations with those of IT services and software providers. Results indicate that, surprisingly, software and services providers place more emphasis on business domain and project management skills than on technical skills. This has implications for the hiring and retention practices of managers, and for academic curriculum and course offerings.

A framework for designing the enterprise-wide e-commerce portal for evolving organizations

The number of organizations offering e-commerce solutions is growing exponentially each year. Without a doubt, e-commerce will no longer be a choice for organizations rather it will be a competitive necessity to ensure business prosperity. Integral to the success of e-commerce is having good e-commerce software that can enable organizations to offer online products and services as well as integrate their business processes and supply chains within and with their collaborators or partners in a perfect, seamless manner. One of the main obstacles for adoption of e-commerce faced by many organizations; however, has been the lack of such proper integrated e-commerce software. There have been few ready-made software solutions offered by vendors, which can be customized for organizations’ business models and processes, and these solutions are based on “piece meal” approaches and thus lack much of the enterprise capabilities organizations need to adopt. In this paper, we suggest a framework for developing an enterprise-wide integrated e-commerce portal for evolving organizations. Such a framework will help any organization to design a distributed, extensible, cross-platform, collaborative and integrated e-commerce portal. Sushil K. Sharma is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. Prior to joining the faculty at Ball State, Dr. Sharma held the Associate Professor position at the Indian Institute of Management in Lucknow (India) and Visiting Research Associate Professor at the Department of Management Science at the University of Waterloo, Canada. He is of two text books (Programming in C, and Understanding Unix), and Co-editor of four edited books. Dr. Sharma has published more than 100 refereed research papers in many peer-reviewed national and international journals and conference proceedings. His contributions have appeared in journals such as; International Journal of Information Management, International Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management (IJHTM), Electronic Government Journal, Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations (JECO), Journal of Global Information Technology Management (JGITM), The Journal of Computer Information Systems (CIS), Journal of Logistics Information Management (JLIM), and International Journal of Management. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for International Journal of Cases on Electronic Commerce (IJCEC) and is on Editorial board for the International Journal of Electronic Finance (IJEF) and the Journal of Electronic Commerce in Organizations (JECO). In the past, he has also been a guest editor for special issue of Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management and Journal of Global Information Technology Management (JGITM). Dr. Sharma’s primary teaching and research interests are in e-commerce, computer and network security, ERP Systems, database management systems, and knowledge management. Jatinder (Jeet) N. D. Gupta is currently Eminent Scholar of Management of Technology, Professor of Management Information Systems, Industrial and Systems Engineering and Engineering Management at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama. Most recently, he was Professor of Management, Information and Communication Sciences, and Industry and Technology at Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana. He holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering (with specialization in Production Management and Information Systems) from Texas Tech University. Co-author of a textbook in Operations Research, Dr. Gupta serves on the editorial boards of several national and international journals. Recipient of the Outstanding Faculty and Outstanding Researcher awards from Ball State University, he has published numerous papers in such journals as Journal of Management Information Systems, International Journal of Information Management, Operations Research, INFORMS Journal of Computing, Annals of Operations Research, and Mathematics of Operations Research. More recently, he served as a co-editor of several special issues including the Neural Networks in Business of Computers and Operations Research and books that included Decision Making Support Systems: Achievements and Challenges for the New Decade and Creating Knowledge-based Healthcare Organizations published by Idea Group Publishing. He is also the coeditor of the book: Managing E-Business published by Heidelberg Press, Heidelberg, Australia. His current research interests include e-Commerce, Supply Chain Management, Information and Decision Technologies, Scheduling, Planning and Control, Organizational Learning and Effectiveness, Systems Education, Knowledge Management, Information Security, and Enterprise Integration. Dr. Gupta has held elected and appointed positions in several academic and professional societies including the Association for Information Systems, Production and Operations Management Society (POMS), the Decision Sciences Institute (DSI), and the Information Resources Management Association (IRMA). Nilmini Wickramasinghe, PhD, MBA, GradDipMgtSt, BSc. Amus.A (piano) Amus.A(violin): Currently, Dr Wickramasinghe is an associate professor and the associate director of the Center for the Management of Medical Technologies at Stuart Graduate School of Business, Illinois Institute of Technology. Her teaching interests cover the areas of knowledge management as well as e-commerce and m-commerce, IT for competitive advantage, organizational impacts of technology and healthcare issues. In addition, Dr Wickramasinghe teaches and presents regularly in many universities in Europe and Australiasia. She is currently carrying out research and is well published having written numerous book chapters, refereed journal articles and some books in the areas of management of technology, in the field of healthcare as well as focusing on IS issues especially as they relate to knowledge work and e-business. Dr Wickramasinghe is honored to be able to represent the United States of America for the Health Care Technology Management (HCTM) Association (URL http://www.hctm.net/events/2005/conference_2005.html).     

An instrument for the measurement of customer perceptions of quality management in the software industry: An empirical study in India

Most of the available literature on quality management is based on management’s perception; few studies examine critical issues of quality management from the customer’s perspective, especially in the software industry. In order to gain an insight into what customers expect from a product/service, an analysis of quality management from customer’s point of view is essential. Such an understanding would help the managers to adopt strategies that can enhance the satisfaction level of their customers. The present study highlights the critical factors of quality management in the software industry from the customer’s perspective. Six critical factors are identified: and an instrument, comprising these factors, is developed and validated so as to measure the customer’s perception of quality management in the software industry. George Issac is an Assistant Professor in Mar Athanasius College of Engineering, Kothamangalam, India. He holds a B.Sc (Engg.) degree in Mechanical Engineering from Kerala University, and M.Tech and Ph.D degrees in Management from IIT Madras. His research areas are TQM and Organizational Behavior. He has published articles in the area of quality management in journals such as Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, and Quality Management Journal of American Society for Quality. Chandrasekharan Rajendran is a Professor of Operations Management in the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. His research interests are in TQM, Scheduling and Simulation. He has published several articles in international journals. He has publications in the area of TQM in journals such as Total Quality Management, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Service Industry Management, International Journal of Bank Marketing, and Journal of Services Marketing. He serves as referee for many journals. He is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship of Germany. R.N. Anantharaman is a Professor of Management in the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. His research interests are in TQM, Organizational Behavior and Industrial Psychology. He has published several articles in international journals. He has published research articles in the area of TQM, HRM Practices, Change Management, etc., in Journals such as Total Quality Management, International Journal of Production Research, International Journal of Bank Marketing, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Journal of Services Marketing, International Journal of Human Resource Management, and Journal of Transnational Management Development.     

A US Client’s learning from outsourcing IT work offshore

Based on 45 interviews and significant documentation, we explore the offshore outsourcing experiences of a US-based biotechnology company. This company offshore outsourced 21 IT projects to six suppliers in India. Senior managers and the official documents from the Program Management Office consistently reported that offshore outsourcing was successful in reducing the company’s IT costs. But interviews with knowledgeable participants actually managing the projects suggest that many projects were not successful in meeting cost, quality, and productivity objectives. We found evidence that this company’s offshore strategy to simply replace domestic contractors with cheaper, offshore suppliers was a poor fit with its social and cultural contexts. Specifically, we found that strong social networks between the company’s internal IT employees and domestic contractors were not easily replicated with offshore suppliers. Furthermore, the internal project management processes were often incompatible with offshore suppliers’ processes. This paper also analyzes seven project characteristics that differentiate highly-rated projects from poorly-rated projects. These project characteristics are type of IT work, size of supplier firm, location of supplier employees (onsite/offshore), dollar value of the contract, duration of the project, timing of the project, and client unit managing the project. The paper concludes with four overall insights for clients and suppliers.

I can’t get no satisfaction: How bundling and multi-part pricing can satisfy consumers and suppliers

Bundling and multi-part pricing may save etailers from mortal challenges attacking the music industry. These strategies are attractive to customers, perhaps spelling the difference between pirating and legally purchasing music; they allow “custom pricing” to capture more of the consumer surplus, and just as importantly, they contribute to developing new artists for long-term viability of the music industry. The many ways to bundle include exact firm-selected bundles, category bundling, customer-selected bundles, and mixing these with individual products. Each of these approaches has specific advantages for different market segments, making up for generally lower prices in the competitive online world. Multi-part pricing affords additional opportunities to capture more of the consumer surplus. These ideas are especially relevant to online music because of the ease of packaging products, the low cost of reproducing music on demand, the reduced friction of consumer/firm interaction, the low cost of monitoring complex behavior, and the enhanced measurement of performance. In the online world, content offerings are revitalized when offered as bundles or service packages. Sam Bodily is the John Tyler Professor of Business Administration at The Darden School, University of Virginia. He has published textbooks and an assortment of practical and scholarly articles in journals ranging from Harvard Business Review to Management Science. Several of his publications relate to perishable-asset revenue management, the stimulation of demand from price-sensitive customers through discount pricing. More generally his publications relate to decision and risk analysis, decision modeling and strategy modeling. He has edited a special issue of Interfaces on Strategy Modeling and Analysis. Prof. Bodily teaches a first-year MBA course in decision analysis, and has a successful second year elective Management Decision Models, and has taught eStrategy and Strategy. He is a past winner of the Decision Sciences International Instructional Award. He has taught numerous executive education programs in strategy, risk analysis, and financial decision analysis for Darden and private companies around the world. Before joining the Darden School faculty, Prof. Bodily was on the faculties of MIT Sloan School of Management and Boston University. He has been a visiting professor at INSEAD, Stanford University and the University of Washington. He has Ph.D. and S.M. degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. from Brigham Young University. Rafi Mohammed is an economist who holds advanced degrees in economics from the London School of Economics & Political Science (Diploma) and Cornell University (Ph.D.). His fields of specialty include applied microeconomics, business strategy, marketing, and pricing. An article from his dissertation on pricing and bundling in the music industry was published in the top academic strategy/economics journal, the Rand Journal of Economics. Most recently, Rafi was a consultant and thought leader at Monitor Group in its Cambridge, Massachusetts and Santa Monica, California offices. He has led business strategy and marketing projects in the consumer package goods, film, media, high technology, and music industries. He is the lead author of the McGraw-Hill textbook Internet Marketing: Building Advantage in a Networked Economy (second edition, April 2003). This textbook has been adopted by over 150 universities (co-authored with Robert Fisher, Bernie Jaworski, and Gordon Paddison). Concurrent to his position at Monitor Group, Rafi was awarded a Batten Fellowship in Strategy at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia. Rafi currently is an economic/strategy consultant and is writing a trade book on pricing and bundling.