bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Multi-Agent Systems as Computational Organizations
Authors: Zambonelli Franco , Jennings Nicholas R. , Wooldridge Michael
Published: May 2011

The multi-agent system paradigm introduces a number of new design/development issues when compared with more traditional approaches to software development and calls for the adoption of new software engineering abstractions. To this end, in this chapter, we elaborate on the potential of analyzing and architecting complex multi-agent systems in terms of computational organizations. Specifically, we identify the appropriate organizational abstractions that are central to the analysis and design of such systems, discuss their role and importance, and show how such abstractions are exploited in the context of the Gaia methodology for multi-agent systems development.
Virtual Organization Support through Electronic Institutions and Normative Multi-Agent Systems
Authors: Cardoso Henrique Lopes , Rocha Ana Paula , Oliveira Euge´nio
Published: May 2011

The multi-agent system (MAS) paradigm has become a prominent approach in distributed artificial intelligence. Many real-world applications of MAS require ensuring cooperative outcomes in scenarios populated with self-interested agents. Following this concern, a strong research emphasis has been given recently to normative MAS. A major application area of MAS technology is e-business automation, including the establishment and operation of business relationships and the formation of virtual organizations (VOs). One of the key factors influencing the adoption of agent-based approaches in real-world business scenarios is trust. The concept of an electronic institution (EI) has been proposed as a means to provide a regulated and trustable environment, by enforcing norms of behavior and by providing specific services for smooth inter-operability. This chapter exposes our work towards the development of an agent-based EI providing a virtual normative environment that assists and regulates the creation and operation of VOs through contract-related services. It includes a presentation of the EI framework, knowledge representation structures for norms in contracts, and a description of two main institutional services, namely negotiation mediation and contract monitoring.
Social Coordination with Architecture for Ubiquitous Agents-CONSORTS
Authors: Jurumatani Koichi
Published: May 2011

We propose a social coordination mechanism that is realized with CONSORTS, a new kind of multi-agent architecture for ubiquitous agents. By social coordination, we mean mass users’ decision making in their daily lives, such as the mutual concession of spatial-temporal resources achieved by automatic negotiation of software agents, rather than by verbal and explicit communication directly done by human users. The prerequisite infrastructure for such an electronic negotiation mechanism is a multi-agent architecture for ubiquitous agents that are grounded in the physical world, by which software agents can trace users’ moving history, understand their intentions and preferences, and negotiate each other, all while protecting users’ privacy through temporal identifiers. The functionality of social coordination is realized in the agent architecture, where three kinds of agents work cooperatively, i.e., a personal agent that serves as proxy of the user; a social coordinator working as a service agent; and a spatio-temporal reasoner. We also summarize some basic mechanisms of social coordination functionality, including stochastic distribution and market mechanisms.
Virtual Communities and the Alignment of Web Ontologies
Authors: Juszczyszyn Krzysztof
Published: May 2011

The World Wide Web (WWW) is a global, ubiquitous, and fundamentally dynamic environment for information exchange and processing. By connecting vast numbers of individuals, the Web enables creation of virtual communities, and during the last 10 years, became a universal collaboration infrastructure. The so-called Semantic Web, a concept proposed by Tim Berners-Lee, is a new WWW architecture that enhances content with formal semantics (Berners-Lee, Hendler, & Lassila, 2001). Hence, the Web content is made suitable for machine processing (i.e., it is described by the associated metadata), as opposed to HTML documents available only for human consumption. Languages such as Resource Description Framework (RDF) and Ontology Web Language (OWL) along with well-known XML are used for description of Web resources. In other words, the Semantic Web is a vision of the future Web in which information is given explicit meaning. This will enable autonomous software agents to reason about Web content and produce intelligent responses to events (Staab, 2002). The ultimate goal of the next generation’s Web is to support the creation of virtual communities which will be composed of software agents and humans cooperating within the same environment. Sharing knowledge within such a community requires a shared conceptual vocabularies—ontologies, which represent the formal common agreement about the meaning of data (Gomez-Perez & Corcho, 2002). Artificial intelligence defines ontologies as explicit, formal specification of a shared conceptualization (Studer, Benjamins, & Fensel, 1998). In this case, a conceptualization stands for an abstract model of some concept from the real world; explicit means that the type of concept used is explicitly defined. Formal refers to the fact that an ontology should be machine readable; and finally shared means that ontology expresses knowledge that is accepted by all the subjects. In short, an ontology defines the terms used to describe and represent an area of knowledge. However, the shared ontologies must be first constructed by using information from many sources which may be of arbitrary quality. Thus, it is necessary to find a way to seamlessly combine the knowledge from many sources, maybe diverse and heterogeneous. The resultant ontologies enable virtual communities and teams to manage and exchange their knowledge. It should be noted, that the word ontology has been used to describe notions with different degrees of structure—from taxonomies (e.g., Yahoo hierarchy), metadata schemes (e.g., Dublin Core), to logical theories. The Semantic Web needs ontologies with a significant degree of structure. These should allow the specification of at least the following kinds of things: • Concepts (which identify the classes of things like cars or birds) from many domains of interest • The relationships that can exist among concepts • The properties (or attributes) those concepts may have
Agent-Based Modeling for Simulation of Complex Business Systems
Authors: Langdon Christopher
Published: May 2011

This article aims to provide a synopsis of agent-based modeling and how to adapt an agent-based research strategy for the scientific study of complex business systems. Agent-based systems have been a popular field of study in computer science for some time. While computer science-related research has been focused on the artifact itself, such as computational languages and algorithms, research in the management sciences is explicitly focused on business problems. Research in Information Systems (IS) has begun to advance knowledge in the use of agent-based systems as a means to seek different, computational explanations for business phenomena that have eluded scientific inquiry reliant on traditional—specifically, law and axiomatic—explanation (Kimbrough, 2003). The focus on business problems requires a different research approach than what is successful in computer science. Key modifications include first, the explicit articulation of benefits specific to the management sciences, and second, instrument validation.
Neuroglial Behaviour in Computer Science
Authors: Porto Ana B. , Pazos Alejandro
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents a study that incorporates into the connectionist systems new elements that emulate cells of the glial system. More concretely, we have considered a determined category of glial cells known as astrocytes, which are believed to be directly implicated in the brain’s information processing. Computational models have helped to provide a better understanding of the causes and factors that are involved in the specific functioning of particular brain circuits. The present work will use these new insights to progress in the field of computing sciences and artificial intelligence. The proposed connectionist systems are called artificial neuroglial networks (ANGN).
Leveraging Pervasive and Ubiquitous Service Computing
Authors: Zhang Zhijun
Published: May 2011

The advancement of technologies to connect people and objects anywhere has provided many opportunities for enterprises. This chapter will review the different wireless networking technologies and mobile devices that have been developed, and discuss how they can help organizations better bridge the gap between their employees or customers and the information they need. The chapter will also discuss the promising application areas and human-computer interaction modes in the pervasive computing world, and propose a service-oriented architecture to better support such applications and interactions.
Financial Markets in the Internet Age
Authors: Lumley Ross A.
Published: May 2011

The chapter reviews how the financial markets historically have been affected by new technologies and shows that, time and again, technological advances have impacted the very workflow of the financial market processes including the available financial instruments. Present technologies are discussed leading to a framework for how they form the basis for building intelligent agent systems. An overview of multi-agent systems is provided followed by several examples of multi-agent systems supporting investors in financial markets.
Once More Unto the Breach
Authors: Neal Mark , Timmis Jon
Published: May 2011

The field of biologically inspired computing has generated many novel, interesting and useful computational systems. None of these systems alone is capable of approaching the level of behaviour for which the artificial intelligence and robotics communities strive. We suggest that it is now time to move on to integrating a number of these approaches in a biologically justifiable way. To this end we present a conceptual framework that integrates artificial neural networks, artificial immune systems and a novel artificial endocrine system. The natural counterparts of these three components are usually assumed to be the principal actors in maintaining homeostasis within biological systems. This chapter proposes a system that promises to capitalise on the self-organising properties of these artificial systems to yield artificially homeostatic systems. The components develop in a common environment and interact in ways that draw heavily on their biological counterparts for inspiration. A case study is presented, in which aspects of the nervous and endocrine systems are exploited to create a simple robot controller. Mechanisms for the moderation of system growth using an artificial immune system are also presented.
Dynamic Pattern Recognition in Sport by Means of Artificial Neural Networks
Authors: Perl Ju¨rgen , Dauscher Peter
Published: May 2011

Behavioural processes like those in sports, motor activities or rehabilitation are often the object of optimization methods. Such processes are often characterized by a complex structure. Measurements considering them may produce a huge amount of data. It is an interesting challenge not only to store these data, but also to transform them into useful information. Artificial Neural Networks turn out to be an appropriate tool to transform abstract numbers into informative patterns that help to understand complex behavioural phenomena. The contribution presents some basic ideas of neural network approaches and several examples of application. The aim is to give an impression of how neural methods can be used, especially in the field of sport.
Evolutionary Computation as a Paradigm for Engineering Emergent Behaviour in Multi-Agent Systems
Authors: Smith Robert E. , Bonacina Claudia
Published: May 2011

In the multi-agent system (MAS) context, the theories and practices of evolutionary computation (EC) have new implications, particularly with regard to engineering and shaping system behaviors. Thus, it is important that we consider the embodiment of EC in “real” agents, that is, agents that involve the real restrictions of time and space within MASs. In this chapter, we address these issues in three ways. First, we relate the foundations of EC theory to MAS and consider how general interactions among agents fit within this theory. Second, we introduce a platform independent agent system to assure that our EC methods work within the generic, but realistic, constraints of agents. Finally, we introduce an agent-based system of EC objects. Concluding sections discuss implications and future directions.
Understanding Consumer Reactions to Offshore Outsourcing of Customer Services
Authors: Sharma Piyush , Mathur Rajiv , Dhawan Abhinav
Published: May 2011

Offshore outsourcing is a fast-growing aspect of the world economy today and it has drawn attention from policy makers as well as public at large in many developed countries. However, there is hardly any research on how outsourcing of customer services may influence individual consumers, their perceptions, attitudes and behaviors. In this chapter, the authors first review the extant literature in the country-of-origin and services marketing areas to highlight key concepts and theories relevant to this area. Next, they show how offshore outsourcing of customer services may influence consumer perceptions about service quality, brand image and brand loyalty on one hand and impact customer satisfaction, complaint behavior and repurchase intentions on the other. The role of several relevant demographic and psychographic variables is also discussed. Finally, the findings from a survey-based study among customers in three developed countries (U.S., UK and Australia) are reported along with a discussion of managerial implications and future research directions in this area.
Web Initiatives and E-Commerce Strategy
Authors: Craig Ron
Published: May 2011

Business use of modern computers started in the 1950s. Since then, IT has progressed through a series of hardware, software and applications improvements, delivering more value to individuals, firms, and organizations for lower cost. Productivity improvement (efficiency), at both the individual and organizational levels, has been a major focus. As well, firms have learned how to gain competitive advantage from IT.
A Theoretical Approach to Evaluate Online and Traditional Trading on th NASDAQ Stock Exchange
Authors: Alryalat Haroun , Dwivedi Yogesh Kumar , Kuljis Jasna , Paul Ray J.
Published: May 2011

The aim of this chapter is to discuss current online and traditional trading on the NASDAQ stock exchange using theoretical approach. The paper aims to derive future trends for the online stock trading. The following are objectives of this paper: (1) To describe the current state of online trading; (2) To compare the execution of quality trades between market makers and electronic communications networks (ECNs)
Secure Identity Management in a Service-Based E-Learning Environment
Authors: Vossen Gottfried , Westerkamp Peter
Published: May 2011

E-learning environments and their system functionalities resemble one another to a large extent. Recent standardization efforts in e-learning concentrate on the reuse of learning material, but not on the reuse of application or system functionalities. The LearnServe system under development at the University of Muenster builds on the assumption that a typical learning system is a collection of activities or processes that interact with learners and suitably chosen content, the latter in the form of Learning Objects. This enables us to divide the main functionality of an e-learning system into a number of stand-alone applications or services. The realization of these applications based on the emerging technical paradigm of Web services then renders a wide reuse of functionality possible, thereby giving learners a higher flexibility of choosing content and functionalities to be included in their learning environment. In such a scenario, it must, however, be possible to maintain user identity and data across service and server boundaries. This paper presents an architecture for implementing user authentication and the manipulation of user data across several Web services. In particular, it demonstrates how to exploit the SPML and SAML standards so that cross-domain single sign-on can be offered to the users of a service-based learning environment. The paper also discusses how this is being integrated into LearnServe.
Structure Evolution of B2B Enterprise Networks
Authors: Zhao Kevin , Shaw Michael J. , Xia Mu , Subramaniam Chandrasekar
Published: May 2011

This chapter analyzes the structural dynamics of multilateral business-to-business (B2B) relationships based on game theoretical approach. It focuses on the evolution of network structures initiated by three major forces: a neutral intermediary, a dominant supply chain partner, and an industry consortium. We show the typical enterprise network structures, identify the conditions that cause structure reconfiguration, and demonstrate the change of social welfare in the evolution process. Web-based technologies have changed the landscape of enterprise networks, and the proposed framework will provide an analytical understanding of the endogenous formation and dynamics of enterprise networks in the information era.
BSC-Based Framework for E-Business Strategy
Authors: Wang Fen , Forgionne Guisseppi
Published: May 2011

E-business is far more about strategy than technology (Raisinghani & Schkade, 2001). An effective e-business strategy is concerned with e-business multidimensional characteristics associated with different levels, parties, elements, and growth pattern features (Bakry & Bakry, 2001). In the process, the strategy must incorporate the effects of the instant and global Internet communication mechanism on the company’s business management architecture. The global reach and interconnectivity of the Internet have spawned new models of e-business strategy and radically transformed existing ones (Pant & Ravichandran, 2001). Indeed, what distinguishes many of the dot-coms is not their new technical power, but the radical new business models (Hamel, 2000). Aided by such innovative e-business models, managers will be able to identify the major decision factors involved in their business strategies and generate strategies that would improve their overall performance and profitability. In the current context, four essential perspectives are identified to be associated with an e-business strategy: financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth. These four perspectives were first introduced in early 1990s as the balanced scorecard concept (BSC) (Kaplan & Norton, 1992). Because the BSC methodology explicitly focuses on links among business decisions and outcomes, it is intended to guide strategy development, implementation, and provide reliable feedback for management control and performance evaluation. This BSC rationale is thereby appealing to managers who face new challenges in the current turbulent e-business climate. The real challenge is to determine how the BSC can be successfully applied in the context of e-business’s constantly changing environment of interdependencies (Hasan & Tibbits, 2000). E-business introduces new business objectives and strategies and the old measures of success may no longer apply. It is anticipated that the departure from the original BSC for a strategic e-business management framework would be more radical than the existing BSC adaptations (e.g., Martinson’s balanced IS scorecard; Martinsons, Davison, & Tse, 1999).
Incorporating Commercial Space Technology into Mobile Services
Authors: Olla Phillip
Published: May 2011

This chapter will describe how space technologies can be incorporated into terrestrial 3G /4G mobile telecommunication infrastructure to provide convergent innovative applications and services. The utilization of space applications for non-military use has the potential to generate significant economic, social and environmental benefits on a global scale. The satellite infrastructure will become a key enabling factor in a growing range of mobile products such as: voice services, broadband Internet services, navigation, and observation systems. The chapter presents a framework derived from the literature to aid the development of viable business models expected from the amalgamation of mobile telecommunication and space infrastructure. The chapter also identifies the various actors involved in the delivery of these services which include: technology actors, service providers, network operators, consumers, and regulators.
Comparison-Shopping Agents and Online Small Business
Authors: Wan Yun
Published: May 2011

Since the commercialization of the Internet in the 1990s, online retailing has increased steadily. According to the most recent Department of Commerce Census Bureau report,1 retail e-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2004 were $15.5 billion, up 28.1% from the first quarter of 2003. E-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2004 accounted for 1.9% of total sales, compared with 1.6% of total sales for the first quarter of 2003. An important trend in this growth in B2C (business-to-consumer) e-commerce is the participation of small business on the Web. Considering that in the United States small business comprises more than 99% of employer firms,2 this trend is significant. Though the Web offers huge potential to these small businesses for growth and prosperity, and also offers them a very low entry cost, Web visibility becomes the major barrier for them. Small businesses often have difficulty putting up enough funding to compete with brand-name businesses in promotion. So small businesses are desperately in need of a less costly channel for increasing their Web visibility. In the past 4 years and especially since the economic slowdown in 2000, comparison shopping has become more and more popular among online shoppers. Because of the low cost of being listed on comparison-shopping Web sites and the relatively high conversion rate for online shoppers who use comparison shopping, many small businesses found this an ideal channel to increase their Web visibility. As a result, many early participating small businesses gained a customer base in the competition by displaying their products and service prices on comparison-shopping Web sites. Now, it is more and more clear that comparison shopping provides a unique opportunity for small businesses to reach a large customer population with relatively little cost. To help readers better understand this phenomenon, we give a comprehensive introduction to comparison-shopping agents and summarize recent research on their impact in e-commerce.
Applications of E-Commerce in Government
Authors: Stowers Genie N.L.
Published: May 2011

Electronic commerce, or e-commerce, is simply business that is conducted over the Internet. Government e-commerce applications are those e-commerce applications utilized by some level of government, whether it is federal, state, or local. In this article, we will distinguish between interactive transactions and e-commerce transactions. Strictly speaking, e-commerce applications are only those in which a financial transaction of some sort takes place. Interactive transactions would involve interaction with a Web survey or some other application like filing an online form requesting services or submitting a complaint, but financial transactions are not included. Electronic commerce applications are an important segment of the growing e-government service delivery field. Government e-commerce applications may involve G2B (government-to-business), G2G (government-to-government), or G2C (government-to-consumer or, in this case, citizen) mechanisms. Table 1 provides examples to illustrate the differences between e-government activities like information provision, non-e-commerce interactive transactions, and e-commerce transactions.
E-Commerce and Mobile Commerce Application Adoptions
Authors: Chen Charlie , Yang Samuel C.
Published: May 2011

E-commerce applications are primarily used at home and in the workplace. Utilitarian elements, including cognitive beliefs of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use (at the individual level), industry pressure, organizational readiness, economics, and trust (at the business level) are key determinants contributing to the usage of e-commerce applications. Mobile devices redefine the meaning of workplace. The use of mobile services could be in and outside the workplace. Hedonic elements, such as fun, culture, life style, and hype are key determinants contributing to the usage of mobile commerce applications. The purpose of our article is to discuss and clarify immediate determinants of e-commerce and mobile commerce applications based on the technology acceptance model.
Special Features of Mobile Advertising and Their Utilization
Authors: Sao Jari , Tahtinen Jaana
Published: May 2011

Mobile advertising, or m-advertising, refers to ads sent to and presented on mobile devices such as cellular phones, PDAs (personal digital assistants), and other handheld devices.1 M-advertising can be seen as a part of m-commerce (e.g., Mennecke & Strader, 2003), which is seen as radically different from traditional commerce (e.g., Choi, Stahl, & Whinston, 1997). Thus, it can be argued that m-advertising is also different. M-advertising enables the advertiser not only to send unique, personalized, and customized ads (Turban, King, Lee, Warkentin, & Chung, 2002), but also to engage consumers in discussions and transactions with the advertiser. Any retailer can make use of m-advertising. Thus this study focuses on the brick-and-mortar retailers’ use of m-advertising in Finland. In Finland, mobile phone subscriptions reached 84% of the population at the end of the year 2002 (Ministry of Transport and Communications Finland, 2003), and more than 30% of the users under 35 years and over 20% of all users have received m-advertising in the form of SMS (www.opas.net/suora/mob%20markk%20nous.htm). However, there are no commercial solutions available for the MMS type of m-advertising. Therefore, the empirical setting of this study is a service system SmartRotuaari, which is a part of a research project (see Ojala et al., 2003; www.rotuaari.net) offering the retailers an infrastructure and a service system for context-dependent m-advertising in the city of Oulu in Northern Finland. This study focuses on permission-based m-advertising. In Finland, that is the only form of m-advertising that is legal. Firstly, we will discuss the features of m-advertising that make it unique. Secondly, we will present some empirical results from the SmartRotuaari case. Based on the recognized features, we study which of them retailers utilized in their m-ads, as well as those remaining unused. The aim is to find out how well the uniqueness of m-advertising was portrayed in the m-ads. The study concludes by suggesting how retailers could improve the use of m-advertising in order to fully harness its power.
Serving Customers in a Hybrid World
Authors: Mulle-Lankenau Claas , Wehmeyer Kai , Klein Stefan
Published: May 2011

In contrast to a widely held belief that online and offline channels of click and mortar companies should be tightly integrated, this chapter proposes a taxonomy of four multi-channel strategies that show varying degrees of integration and mutual support of online and offline activities. Each of the four basic strategies is illustrated by an example from the grocery retail industry in order to underscore the strategic choice companies have even within an industry. In a second step, we have developed a set of indices that we use to analyze multi-channel retailers’ Web sites. The indices are used to classify and discuss the four case companies’ implementations of multi-channel strategies in the Web channel.
E-Marketplace Regression of National Trucking Exchange
Authors: Koch Hope
Published: May 2011

This article discusses a business-to-business (B2B) electronic marketplace’s (e-marketplace’s) turnaround. National Trucking Exchange (NTX), a pseudonym, became one of the first true B2B e-marketplaces when it transferred its dial-up exchange to the Internet in 1996 (Patsuris, 2000). For 5 years, NTX struggled to conduct transactions. When the business environment changed and NTX incorporated powerful organization’s preferences, its turnaround began. NTX’s experience shows how using power and overcoming competition facilitates bringing a critical mass of competitive organizations together to form an information-technology initiative benefiting the entire industry. The article discusses NTX’s background, describes its business, and offers lessons from NTX’s turnaround. These insights are based on a case study (Dube’ & Pare’, 2003; Eisenhardt, 1989) of NTX’s B2B e-marketplace. The study spanned the dot-com boom, bust, and stabilization. The research included field visits with NTX, its organizational members, and a buyer and a seller that declined NTX’s membership invitations. Data collection included participant observations, system demonstrations, interviews, surveys, and internal and external document reviews. We interviewed the people in each organization responsible for the organization’s NTX participation. NTX is a B2B e-marketplace for the United States transportation industry. B2B e-marketplaces bring together businesses wishing to sell and those wishing to buy goods and services. They promise trading communities increased business purchasing efficiency and economy by replacing traditional, limited seller-buyer networks with a B2B e-marketplace with many more sellers competing on cost, quality, and service. Sellers can contact more buyers more efficiently. NTX’s founder and a venture capitalist group formed NTX in 1994 to solve the transportation industry’s unused-capacity problem. Unused capacity occurs when carriers deliver products along their routes and their remaining trailer capacity is empty (Patsuris, 2000). The American Trucking Association estimates that United States carriers travel 12% of their miles without a payload (Patsuris).
Enhancing Customer Service Operations in E-Business
Authors: Barnes David , Hinton Matthew , Mieczkowska Suzanne
Published: May 2011

In today’s increasingly competitive markets, greater emphasis is being placed on customer service as a means of achieving competitive advantage. Many organizations believe that e-business can provide opportunities to improve customer service operations by enabling them to get closer to the customer and enhance the organization-to-customer contact experience. However, use of the Internet fundamentally changes the nature of the customer contact experience. This article investigates this phenomenon from an operations management perspective, by examining the customer service encounter during the business processes of ordering and delivering in e-business. Empirical results from case research investigating eight companies that use e-business in their customer service operations are reported and discussed. The article concludes that unless the emotional aspects of customer service are considered alongside the functional, then barriers to enhanced customer service in e-business will not be overcome.
Privacy and Security in the Age of Electronic Customer Relationship Management
Authors: Romano Jr. Nicholas C. , Fjermestad Jerry
Published: May 2011

This article presents a value exchange model of privacy and security for electronic customer relationship management within an electronic commerce environment. Enterprises and customers must carefully manage these new virtual relationships in order to ensure that they both derive value from them and minimize unintended consequences that result from the concomitant exchange of personal information that occurs in e-commerce. Based upon a customer’s requirements of privacy and an enterprise requirement to establish markets and sell goods and services, there is a value exchange relationship. The model is an integration of the customer sphere of privacy, sphere of security, and privacy/security sphere of implementation.
Enhancing Competitiveness of B2B and B2C E-Commerce
Authors: Aigbedo Henry
Published: May 2011

A framework that is often used to describe the transformation of society relates to the percentage of people involved in or impacted by a given paradigm at some point in time. Even though some of these paradigms co-exist at a given point in time, one of them tends to dominate and exert considerable influence on the others. Several authors have described such evolution in different contexts. For example, Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons (2004) suggest that societies have undergone the following transformation, one leading to the next in succession: agrarian, manufacturing, service, and information. Since its introduction a little over a decade ago, the Internet, which exemplifies the leap into the information age, has had a profound impact on many areas of human endeavor, indeed, far more than had been imagined or anticipated. This impact on society is apparent through its widespread use in government, education, medicine, engineering, as well as in business. Considering the number of people involved and the dollar amount of sales transacted over the Internet, it seems reasonable to infer that it has had the greatest impact in business during the past millennium. The Internet continues to play a significant role in making enterprises to be more competitive.
Customer Perspective of CRM Systems
Authors: Pan Shan L.
Published: May 2011

The 1990s has been a boom period of enterprise systems (ES). Many organizations have experienced the technical, integration and business process re-engineering benefits of implementing ES. As of today, a number of ES have been developed, namely customer relationship management systems (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. In particular, CRM systems have gained significant interest, both in the industry as well as in the academic area, in the recent years. The understanding of the customer’s perspective would help to define the CRM systems to better cater to the customers’ needs in achieving their loyalty and satisfaction. With a better understanding from the point of the customers, management would be able to plot their directions in their CRM endeavour. Therefore, this research intends to look at CRM systems from the perspective of the customer through the conduct of focus group discussion.
Providing Value to Customers in E-Commerce Environments
Authors: Minocha Shailey
Published: May 2011

Effective advertising, good usability, and creating value are important in an e-commerce environment to attract and retain customers. In the human–computer interaction (HCI) literature, research into the success or failure of business to consumer (B2C) e-commerce sites has primarily focussed on usability. While increasing usability is important, even if an e-commerce Web site conforms to the Web design heuristics and usability guidelines, it might not always generate a positive total customer experience (TCE). Therefore, it is important that along with usability heuristics, customer relationship management (CRM) strategies are integrated into the design of the e-commerce environments for developing robust and long-term online customer–organisation relationships. We report on a project that is part of an ongoing cross-disciplinary research programme at the Open University, United Kingdom, which aims to integrate HCI and CRM strategies into the design and evaluation of e-commerce environments. In this project, we examined the customer’s interaction with e-commerce environments and how a B2C relationship can be effectively supported from a customer’s perspective. Based on intensive research that involved collecting data from naturalistic observations of customers shopping on e-tailing environments, interviews, group interviews, and by identifying the negative incidents or obstacles that mar the customer’s TCE, we have developed E-SEQUAL (E-SErvice QUALity), a framework for online service quality. E-SEQUAL is an evaluation instrument consisting of e-CRM (CRM for e-economy) or customer relationship-enhancing heuristics and HCI heuristics which can be applied to integrate customers’ perceived dimensions of service quality into the design and development of e-commerce environments. E-SEQUAL can provide guidance to e-businesses regarding integration of front- and back-end business processes, and across different customer touch points such as phone, fax, e-mail, and so on. It can be applied by Web designers, marketing professionals, and developers to come up with requirements for integrating customers’ expectations, and perceptions of service quality and value into the design of e-commerce Web sites. Furthermore, it can be used as an evaluation instrument by usability professionals for evaluating the conformance of an e-commerce environment against HCI (usability) and e-CRM heuristics.
Business Information Integration from XML and Relational Databases Sources
Authors: Fermoso Garcia Ana María , Berjón Gallinas Roberto
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces different alternatives to store and manage jointly relational and eXtensible Markup Language (XML) data sources. Nowadays, businesses are transformed in e business and have to manage large data volumes and from heterogeneous sources. To manage large amounts of information, Database Management Systems (DBMS) continue to be one of the most used tools, and the most extended model is the relational one. On the other side, XML has reached the de facto standard to present and exchange information between businesses on the Web. Therefore, it could be necessary to use tools as mediators to integrate these two different data to a common format like XML, since it is the main data format on the Web. First, a classification of the main tools and systems where this problem is handled is made, with their advantages and disadvantages. The objective will be to propose a new system to solve the integration business information problem.
Implementation Management of an E-Commerce-Enabled Enterprise Information System
Authors: Sarkis Joseph , Sundarraj R. P.
Published: May 2011

The integration of enterprise systems and the supply chain to an organization is becoming more critical in an ever-changing, globally competitive environment. Quick response will require close relationships, especially communications and information sharing among integrated internal functional groups as well as the suppliers and customers of an organization. Texas Instruments (TI), headquartered in Dallas, Texas, has come to realize this requirement for building and maintaining its competitive edge. Thus, it sought to implement an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system with a focus on linking it with a global electronic commerce (e-commerce) setting, an innovative and current issue (Weston, 2003).
Staffing Electronic Commerce Projects
Authors: Niederman Fred , Hu Xiaorui
Published: May 2011

Electronic commerce (e-commerce) personnel are instrumental in developing and maintaining electronic commerce programs and projects within firms. In spite of the dot-com bust, the number of firms developing and using e-commerce for interactions with customers and suppliers is growing. Personnel competence as individuals and as a group can be a decisive force in determining the level of success of e-commerce projects. In this chapter, we present a conceptual framework as an extension and reformulation of several of the currently active fit theories of human resource management and industrial psychology. We propose consideration of five categories of skills that should be present in organizational e-commerce workforce (human computer interface, data storage and analysis, transaction/application development, infrastructure, and project management). Finally, based on the adjusted concepts of fit, we present a set of propositions showing expected relationships between organizational and fit related variables on workforce outcomes.
Delivering Superior Customer Perceived Value in the Context of Network Effects
Authors: Tseng Fan-Chen , Teng Ching-I , Chiang David M.
Published: May 2011

Network effect refers to the phenomenon that the value of connecting to a network depends on the present number of customers connected to that network. The self-reinforcement characteristic of the network effect strengthens the strong firms and weakens the weak firms. In the extreme form, network effects may produce a winner-take-all market. Therefore, competitive strategies are critical for companies in markets characterized by network effects. To succeed in the market, a firm must be able to deliver superior value to customers compared to its competitors. This study proposes a conceptual model for describing the market situations characterized by network effects. Based on this model, this study clarifies how companies can deliver superior customer value in the context of network effects. This study proposes two major approaches: increasing total customer value and reducing total customer costs. Various practical methods are proposed for implementing these two approaches.
Challenges for Deploying Web Services-Based E-Business Systems in SMEs
Authors: Bose Ranjit , Suumaran Vijayan
Published: May 2011

E-business initiative in many companies had started in the 1990s. These companies have recently begun to explore the use of Web Services (WS) technologies within their e-business context, since they provide an attractive, language-neutral, environment-neutral programming model that accelerates application development and integration inside and outside the enterprise. Despite these advantages, companies are slow to deploy WS because it requires a considerable shift in their application development process. While a few studies have reported on some of the reasons for this wait-and-see approach, a thorough and systematic investigation of the challenges from the stakeholders’ — providers, consumers, and standards organizations — perspective is needed. This study addresses that and provides a framework for studying the factors that impact the deployment and use of WS. The framework is used to analyze small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as they play a vital role in generating employment opportunity and turnover within many major economies globally.
Intrusion Detection and Vulnerability Analysis of Mobile Commerce Platform
Authors: Zhu Changhua , Pei Changxing
Published: May 2011

Intrusion detection and vulnerability analysis play the same important roles in wireless infrastructure as in wired infrastructure. In this chapter we briefly present the methods and technologies of intrusion detection and vulnerability analysis. Then we give the security issues in various wireless networking technologies, analyze the vulnerability of the enabling technologies for the mobile commerce platform, and propose a distributed wireless intrusion detection & vulnerability analysis (WID&VA) system that can help to address the identified security issues. Finally, we conclude this chapter and discuss the future trends.
E-Commerce Taxation Issues
Authors: Raisinghani Mahesh S. , Petty Dan S.
Published: May 2011

This article is designed to give the reader a balanced perspective on some of the issues surrounding the current discussions related to state and local taxation of Internet access fees and sales transactions. It attempts to express the issues being discussed and presents several viewpoints. The proponents of Internet taxation are searching for technological and administrative system to meet their goal. After much deliberation, the Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce released its final recommendations to Congress in April 2000. Major emphasis is being placed on simplification, neutrality, avoiding double taxation and accepting the existing tax rules with no new taxes.
Personalization of Web Services
Authors: Maamar Zakaria , Mostéfaoui Soraya Kouadri , Mahmoud Qusay H. , Mostéfaoui Ghita Kouadri , Benslimane Djamal
Published: May 2011

This chapter presents a context-based approach for personalizing Web services so that user preferences are accommodated during the performance of Web services. Preferences are of different types varying from when the execution of a Web service should start to where the outcome of this execution should be delivered. Besides user preferences, this chapter argues that the computing resources on which the Web services operate have an impact on their personalization. Indeed, resources schedule the execution requests that originate from multiple Web services. To track this personalization, three types of contexts are devised, namely user context, Web service context, and resource context. A fourth type of context denoted by security enables protecting the content of each of these three contexts. The objective of the security context is to report on the strategies, which permit protecting, overseeing, and assessing the content of the contexts subject to management operations.
E-Commerce Standards
Authors: Hawk Stephen , Zheng Weijun
Published: May 2011

This chapter introduces XML-based e-commerce standards that have emerged within the past decade. The chapter describes the history of e-commerce standards, and then presents representative horizontal and vertical e-commerce standards by detailing their functionality, and how their development has been shaped by various stakeholders. The chapter also describes the potential for these standards to transform B2B practice by providing three industry examples. The chapter finishes by suggesting directions for future research by describing factors that could influence the future of these standards. Due to the central role these standards are likely to play in future e-commerce activity, most firms will at some point need to become aware of their capabilities, their application, and potential impact. This chapter is intended to provide an overview of the situation as it is understood today, and presents likely scenarios for how these standards may progress.
The Impact of RFID Technology on a Firm's Customer Capital
Authors: Joia Luiz Antonio
Published: May 2011

The emergence of radio frequency devices associated with smart tags—in what is called radio frequency identification (RFID) technology—has been widely discussed in the logistics field, mainly with respect to the implications accrued from this technology in the improvement of organizational efficiency and the creation of strategic ecosystems. However, very little research is available regarding the benefits of this technology in leveraging the relationship of firms with their customers, especially in the retailing arena. Hence, the purpose of this chapter is to analyze the potential of RFID technology with respect to the relationship between retailers and their clients, in order to understand how this technology is capable of increasing a firm’s customer capital, in-line with intellectual capital taxonomy. Lastly, from this study, prospective scenarios are elaborated concerning the use of this technology to increase a firm’s customer capital.