A Framework for Determining Success Factors of an E-Commerce Initiative

Abstract

Businesses and entrepreneurs are rushing to the Internet to do business and reach new markets. While the Internet is used for cutting cost and generating revenue by conducting business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce (EC) and business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce, existing businesses and entrepreneurs are finding tremendous challenges to succeed. This paper examines the factors that are critical to the success of any company's e-commerce initiative and makes recommendations to businesses and entrepreneurs so they can overcome the challenges and exploit the opportunities presented by the Internet.     

A Framework for Supplier Relationship Management (SRM)

ABSTRACT

Vertical co-ordination of business-to-business relationships figures prominently as an effective response to inter-firm dependence. Current empirical works based on transaction costs economics, however, have scantily examined whether the alignment of inter-firm coordination really serves governance efficacy and lowers transaction costs. This study focuses on the transaction costs efficacy of vertical co-ordination in industrial purchasing relationships. Building on transaction costs arguments and related works within marketing and contingency theory, the author explores whether vertical co-ordination is an effective means to adapt to technologcal and economic inter-firm ties.

This research examines in particular possible impacts the buyer's manufacturing technology and deployment of specific assets on the governance efficacy of vertical co-ordination. Empirical findings from a survey of 171 industrial buying firms demonstrate that when asset specificity is substantial, increased vertical co-ordination reduces ex post transaction costs. Further, the governance efficacy of inter-firm co-ordination turned out to be more evident in purchasing relationships among buyers with flexible manufacturing technology (e.g., order based industries) than was the case in process production with high workflow rigidity.     

A Benchmark for B2B Use of E-Commerce

ABSTRACT

A telephone survey of 517 corporate executives in large and mixed-sized companies was used to determine the status of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce. Findings included that only one-quarter of respondents used B2B e-commerce in their businesses, but 41% said that their companies planned to add e-commerce to their Websites. Of those who conducted e-commerce, 73% found it a profitable way to reach customers without cannibalizing traditional sales revenue. The timing of the survey, between periods of economic expansion, makes this a valuable benchmark for the adoption of e-commerce.     

A Proposal for a Comprehensive Response-Rate Measure (CRRM) for Survey Research

Respondents must co-operate with researchers. This truism is a fundamental proposition for almost all research into consumer and buyer behaviour where people are asked for information. Respondents or more correctly their response are the life-blood of social and marketing research whether that be conducted by the academic or the business community. However, it is a resource that appears to be showing some signs of depletion if not downright exhaustion.

This paper conceptualises the activities of Interview Response Management (IRM) as a key role for project and field managers. The former trying to improve representativeness and the latter trying to manage the controllable interviewing factors that influence the level of response.

Interest in the area arose from our investigation of trends in the levels of response and co-operation that the public were giving to market research surveys. It was immediately evident that reports of response rates in published survey data and even that collected directly from commercial market research organizations demonstrated a lack of consistency. There was no standard approach for defining response rate. Consequently we devised a new typology of response rate measures under the acronym CRRM – Comprehensive Response Rate Measure. This definition incorporated the key concept of respondent eligibility along with methods to estimate eligibility when the actual status of a particular survey contact was unknown. The approach focuses on the results of an initiated interview attempt and the variety of outcomes that may occur. In addition the CRRM was designed as an input to the process of IRM by providing performance indices that would be useful to fieldwork managers. It therefore examines 'surrogate refusal', call-back outcomes, nominal co-operation and survey participation rate. The derivation of this suite of measures is discussed in the paper along with the recommendation for its reporting in all published surveys. The authors contend that a standardised method of recording and calculating response rate will lead to a better understanding of the trends in survey co-operation as well as a more accurate comparison between initiatives for improving response.     

企业流程再造与ERP成功实施的关系研究

采用企业资源计划(ERP)系统是企业信息化改造的核心,在过去的20年里被国内外企业广泛响应。一部分企业通过应用ERP实现了企业集成、绩效改进及竞争力的提升,而某些企业则投资巨大却没有达到预期的效果。利用分层回归分析方法,对企业管理再造与成功实施ERP的关系进行实证分析,验证了企业管理再造是成功实施ERP的关键因素。     

Collecting "Sensitive" Data in Business Ethics Research: A Case for the Unmatched Count Technique (UCT)

Some would argue that the more promising areas of business ethics research are "sensitive." In such areas, it would be expected that subjects, if inclined to respond at all, would be guarded in their responses, or respond inaccurately. We provide an introduction to an empirical approach -- the unmatched block count (UCT) -- for collecting these potentially sensitive data which provides absolute anonymity and confidentiality to subjects and "legal immunity" to the researcher. Interestingly, under UCT protocol researchers could not divulge subjects' responses even if they were inclined to do so. Beyond that, UCTs provide complete disclosure to subjects and there is no deception.     

Occupational Transitions and Corporate Responsibility in Layoffs: A European Research Project (SOCOSE)

One of the most prominent aspects of the present labour markets is an increase in occupational transitions. Employees experience insecurity to a much larger degree than ever before. Under these circumstances, the questions of blame and responsibility – for job-loss or unemployment –, so far much too readily focused on the individual, have to be re-considered. Transitions will also have to be framed by company based or labour administration interventions.This situation forms the entrance to the scientific evaluation that is central to the SOCOSE project. It aims at the formulation of an integrated European model for outplacement/replacement counselling. Thus, transparency will be added to the process of dismissal from the perspective of the individual employees, and they are assisted in re-entering the labour market at an early stage. This form of guidance will prevent long-term unemployment or might else prevent unemployment completely.The SOCOSE project started with a European comparison of existing outplacement interventions. The main focus, however, is the perspective of the individual that has been dismissed or is facing possible dismissal and his or her evaluation of this process. Crucial to this evaluation is the aspect of justice or fairness.First Results of this comparison across countries are presented, and the ongoing empirical studies are outlined on the basis of an exemplary case.     

Methodological Choices in Relationship Quality (RQ) Research 1987 to 2015: A Systematic Literature Review

Different methodological choices (i.e., data collection method, sample size, sample characteristics, and analytical instrument) in 122 relationship quality (RQ) peer-reviewed articles published in accredited academic journals between 1987 and 2015 are reviewed. The results revealed that RQ researchers need to look into other relationship types in which businesses/organizations engage in order to survive, as existing studies have been limited to interpersonal relationships (i.e., relationships between individuals), business to business relationships (B2B), business to customer relationships (B2C), and customer to business relationships (C2B). Also, the results show that too much attention has been given to the quantitative method of data collection, as only a small number of researchers in this field utilize the qualitative method. Furthermore, the sample choice and size identified in existing studies are somewhat constrained to the method of data collection employed. Researchers should be more transparent in providing detailed information on their methodological choices and the rationale for those choices.     

出口退税、行业集中度与出口行业“盯市”行为研究

本文以金融危机前后曾出现的出口退税较大调整为背景,应用面板平滑转换模型（ PSTR）对出口行业“盯市”（依市定价）程度与出口退税、行业集中度之间的关系展开探讨。研究结果表明,就行业集中度而言,无论危机前还是危机后始终对出口行业的PTM行为产生影响,且均与PTM存在平滑转变的非线性关系;出口退税仅在危机后的大幅提升后才对PTM影响显著,并表现为突变的快速向下的门限效应,而危机前对PTM并无影响;与出口退税相比,行业集中度对PTM的影响虽非立竿见影但却是缓慢且持久的。     

Research Methods in Taxation Ethics: Developing the Defining Issues Test (DIT) for a Tax-Specific Scenario

This paper reports on the development of a research instrument designed to explore ethical reasoning in a tax context. This research instrument is a version of the Defining Issues Test (DIT) originally developed by Rest [1979a, Development in Judging Moral Issues (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN); 1979b, Defining Issues Test (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN)], but adapted to focus specifically on the environment encountered by tax practitioners. The paper explores reasons for developing a context- (and profession-) specific test, and details the manner in which this was undertaken. The study on which it is based aims to compare the reasoning of tax practitioners in the tax-specific context and in the general social context covered by the original DIT, and to compare this with the reasoning of non-specialists in these two contexts. The paper therefore also considers the issues that arise when using such tests to compare reasoning in different domains or to compare groups. The focus on instrument development to measure ethical reasoning in a specific domain will contribute to the literature on research methods in the area of the DIT and will facilitate cross-study comparisons.     

A Social Contract Account for CSR as an Extended Model of Corporate Governance (II): Compliance,Reputation and Reciprocity

This essay seeks to give a contractarian foundation to the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), meant as an extended model of corporate governance of the firm. Whereas, justificatory issues have been discussed in a related paper (Sacconi, L.: 2006b, this journal), in this essay I focus on the implementation of and compliance with this normative model. The theory of reputation games, with reference to the basic game of trust, is introduced in order to make sense of self-regulation as a way to implement the social contract on the multi-fiduciary model of corporate governance. This affords understanding of why self-regulation, meant as mere recourse to a long-run strategy in a repeated trust game, fails. Two basic problems for the functioning of the reputation mechanism are examined: the cognitive fragility problem, and the motivational problem. As regards the cognitive fragilities of reputation (which result from the impact of unforeseen contingencies and from bounded rationality), the paper develops the logic and the structure that self-regulatory norms must satisfy if they are to serve as gap-filling tools with which to remedy cognitive limitations in the reputation mechanism. The motivation problem then arises from the possibility of sophisticated abuse by the firm. Developed in this case is an entirely new application of the theory of conformism-and-reciprocity-based preferences, the result of which is that the stakeholders refuse to acquiesce to sophisticated abuse on the part of the firm. Lorenzo Sacconi is professor of economics and Unicredit Chair in economic ethics and corporate social responsibility at the Department of Economics of the University of Trento, where he leads the LaSER - Laboratory of research in Social responsibility, Ethics and Rationality, and head of the graduate program (laurea magistralis) in “economic decisions, enterprise and corporate social responsibility”. He is also director of EconomEtica, the interuniversity centre for economic ethics and corporate social responsibility joining over 20 Italian Universities placed at the Milano-Bicocca University. Past president of tthe Italian Business Ethics Network and past member of the EBEN executive committtee, currrently he is a member of the executive committee of the Italian chapter of EBEN (EBEN Italy). On related subjects, he is author of the book: The social contract of the firm, Springer, 2000     

Configurations of business strategy and marketing channels for e-commerce and traditional retail formats: A Qualitative Comparison Analysis (QCA) in sporting goods retailing

This article applies a configurational approach to study the fit between retail format, business strategy, and multi-channel setup. Its empirical material consists of five case studies, and a data set of 74 sporting goods retailers in Sweden. Our results show that a retailer can create strategic advantages when its multi-channel setup fits with its business strategy, and that retail format is important for explaining differences in growth and profit, the former being assigned to e-commerce and the latter to physical stores. Moreover, the study reveals that to some extent online channels also have positive performance implications for physical store retailers.