Introduction: advances in E-business engineering

Abstract

E-business is one of the most exciting and challenging research areas [9, 10, 14]. Today, not only large companies, but also medium or small-sized companies are learning that e-business is a required component of doing business. E-business has rapidly evolved in the last decade and this trend will continue. In this rapid process, a variety of e-business engineering methods and techniques have been developed [28]. There are many research issues needed to be addressed. As a result, there is a growing demand for insights into challenges, issues, and solutions related to the design, implementation, and management of e-business systems. To respond to the needs from both academic researchers and practitioners for communicating research results on e-business engineering and related topics, a number of related conferences organized by the IFIP TC8 WG8.9, IEEE SMC Society Technical Committee on Enterprise Information Systems, and other major research institutions have been held in the past years. Such conferences include IFIP International Conference on Research and Practical Issues of Enterprise Information Systems (Confenis), IEEE SMC International Conference Special Session on Enterprise Information Systems, International Forum of Information Systems Frontiers (IFISF), International Conference on Natural Language Processing and Knowledge Engineering, GCIS, and WCSE [19]. These conferences plus workshops organized by IFIP and IEEE have provided an international forum for researchers in academia and industry to present their most recent findings in e-business engineering. This special issue of Information Technology and Management presents expanded versions of 20 papers from the above-mentioned conferences held recently, authored by scholars from Austria, China, Japan, Russia, UK, and US. The purpose of this special issue is to report on the state-of-the-art of, and emerging trends in, research and practice in e-business engineering. To prepare for this issue, all authors were asked to respond to at least two rounds of peer review. Each paper emphasizes the importance of e-business engineering from a unique perspective. IoT is an emerging Internet-based industrial information architecture that can be employed to facilitate information flow in global supply chain networks [36]. An effective strategy of IoT can help firms to grasp the emerging opportunities from the IoT and improve competitive advantages. In the paper entitled ‘‘Towards a theoretical framework of strategic decision, supporting capability and information sharing under the context of Internet of Things’’, Li et al. of Shanghai Jiaotong University provide a theoretical framework which classifies IoT strategies into four archetypes from two dimensions of managers’ strategic intent and industrial driving force, and propose that market-based S. Xu Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, China