Human Systems Management

The Internet is an intangible cyberworld created by the human mind. Exploring and exploiting this e-landscape requires a totally redefined mindset. The fact that it exists in the mental realm also makes it a nonlinear system. In this respect, understanding both intangible and nonlinear dynamics is a requisite to the proper exploitation of e-commerce.

The e-landscape is a new edge of chaos where order and disorder co-exist. It could be a goldmine for those who swiftly recognize structure in this highly disordered territory. The tremendous number of opportunities and uncertainties embedded in the submerged portion of this iceberg are still awaiting their explorers. Very likely existing strategies will have to be modified and new strategies will have to be used. This paper analyzes Singapore's e-commerce experience on the national basis with respect to this background.

The rapid spread of electronic commerce and online technology has created tremendous opportunities for economic efficiency and customer choice. However, at the same time, technology poses unparalleled intrusions into personal informational privacy. This article examines some of the ethical aspects of electronic commerce and consumer privacy.

The electronic commerce (e-commerce) revolution is changing the business processes dramatically. It permits new kinds of interactions among business firms, their customers and suppliers, as well as internally within the firms. E-commerce is shaking the foundations of many industries and is leading to new types of e-business models. The vast potential of this exciting way of doing business has led many universities to offer courses, options, majors, and even degrees in e-commerce. The objectives of this paper are to describe some of the legal issues that impact e-commerce activities and to explore their implications for the accounting profession. While both business-to-business e-commerce and business-to-consumer e-commerce are expanding at a brisk pace, laws dealing with e-commerce are lagging behind. This paper provides a brief overview of several legal issues that have emerged in the arena of e-commerce including the following: jurisdictional issues, web linking practices, intellectual property and copyrights, libel laws, sales and use tax issues, encryption regulation, privacy rights, domain name disputes, electronic agreements, and digital signatures. Implications of e-commerce related legal issues for the accounting profession and accounting students are also discussed.

Electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) provides an opportunity for firms to decrease their billing costs, while increasing their customer interaction. While many models exist, there is a dearth of information for determining which model would best fit customer characteristics and needs. This article examines the three primary models of EBPP, the characteristics of recurring bills, and customer concerns to develop an exploratory framework for determining which EBPP model a bill generating firm should deploy.

As the business importance of the Internet continues to rise, understanding of the factors that encourage internet use becomes critical. This report describes a modification of a Technology Acceptance Model to describe usage behavior. Utilization was hypothesized to be a result of anticipated near and long-term consequences, with experience and facilitating conditions also having an impact. Data from an international sample of 335 college students served to confirm the model. Promoters must concern themselves with making Internet use as easy as possible while actively promoting the benefits identified.

Most franchisors do not have necessary knowledge to run their businesses in this information age. This article describes our experience in designing and implementing a Franchising Knowledge Repository (FKR) prototype. This knowledge repository, available on the Intranet, will be an electronic distribution center of franchising-related materials. Based on a framework of knowledge management, this repository is a series of modules organized into two important dimensions: (1) levels of knowledge and (2) levels of user skills. This new form of knowledge dissemination increases the integration of theory and practice. The repository's knowledge modules adhere to a consistent format so users can locate the information easier. As an example, we describe in this paper a knowledge module for Location and Site Selection, a pictorial methodology for evaluating alternatives for site selection.

In the age of electronic commerce, the development of new network organizational forms has brought into practice transaction cost economics, inter-organizational collaborations, and strategic alliance. The development and management of network organizations are assisted by organizational analysis. This paper proposes an organizational visualization method for organizational analysis. The organizational visualization method is comprehensive in modeling a formal organizational structure for electronic commerce. It can be a practical technique for structural and process approaches to organizational development for electronic commerce.

This research provides a standard for generalizing the content of Internet storefronts. An element schema, which is created and defined using HTML tags categorizes the user interface and information elements presented on Internet storefronts. In order to explore the rule that elements play in characterizing popular and unpopular Internet storefronts, an analysis of the distribution of elements within the best and worst Internet storefronts was conducted. After extracting the elements underlying the construction of the best and worst Web-sites, a prototype storefront was reengineered to demonstrate the derived principles.