E-commerce Policy Research Articles

India’s Draft E-Commerce Policy - Reading Between the Lines

The Indian Government has recently called for stakeholder comments on a draft national e-commerce policy; a hotly-debated document which has drawn an equal measure of praise and flak, and raised the hackles of American authorities. This paper examines specific aspects of the Policy, which affects consumers and e-commerce platforms. The paper comes to the somewhat paradoxical conclusion that while ostensibly emulating Western notions on the protection of consumer privacy, India may be looking East towards China, for inspiration on simultaneously encouraging domestic e-commerce and facilitating state censorship.

“ИНТЕГРАЦИЯ ИНТЕГРАЦИЙ” И ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ БРИКС+

During 2017 BRICS Summit the Chinese government announced the idea to promote the “BRICS Plus” cooperation approach, encouraging closer partnership among the group of emerging markets and developing countries. The idea was fixed in the final declaration, but the mechanism of its implementation remains uncertain, as well as the list of participants. The paper aims at reflecting Russian approach to the implementation of the “BRICS Plus” concept and exploring direction of potential cooperation among the countries of the expanded format. The key idea underlying our projections is that all the BRICS countries are leading economies within one of the regional integration arrangements on their continents, so the member countries of these five integration blocks may form the ‘BRICS Plus circle’ for flexible and multi-dimensional cooperation. The implementation of the “BRICS+” idea may push interaction within a group of developing countries for strengthening stability and enhancing their role in the world economy. The new expanded format of “BRICS Plus” can serve as a platform for linking regional integration associations in two ways: (1) expansion of trade cooperation at the trans-regional level, gradual harmonization of foreign trade policies within five integration associations and (2) gradual shift of trans-regional agenda from trade cooperation to a wider range of areas. The author stresses, that in trade cooperation particular attention must be paid to the harmonization of technical regulations, as well as sanitary and phyto-sanitary standards. Besides, the expanded format of “BRICS Plus” may provide a network of bilateral currency swap agreements aimed at reducing dollar payments and stimulating settlements in national currencies. The system of currency swap agreements can be supplemented by the networks of interbank local currency credit lines agreements and harmonization of banking rules and procedures. The author concludes, that according to contemporary priorities of the developing countries and regional agendas of the five integration blocks the new directions of trans-regional cooperation may include (1) harmonization of e-commerce policies and creation of a common e-commerce information space (trans-regional e-Commerce platform) (2) inter-state cooperation in the interests of small and medium enterprises (3) creation of a consolidated technological platform at “BRICS Plus” level.

Creating a Sustainable Policy Framework for Cross-Border E-Commerce in China

This paper aims to adapt the social network analysis method to explore the characteristics of 59 cross-border e-commerce policies promulgated by the Chinese government from January 2013 to July 2018. On this basis, the paper quantitatively analyzes the internal structure and dynamic layout characteristics of sustainable cross-border e-commerce policy documents focusing on three dimensions: policy service contents, policy regulatory targets, and policy measures. The results suggest that policies involving service contents lack long-term strategic planning, especially those related to taxation and warehousing. In addition, policies regarding service system construction and demonstration construction follow an upward trend, whereas policies related to international cooperation and risk monitoring are less prevalent. Finally, it is suggested that the government pays attention to the supervision of payments, transactions, and goods in the early stage of development, but began conducting comprehensive supervision over all aspects of the cross-border e-commerce supply chain in 2015. Thus, there has been a relatively mature regulatory system established in China with particular attention to the aspects of quality and safety.

The Flipkart-Walmart Deal in India: A Look into Competition and Other Related Issues

The Competition Commission of India approved India’s highest-valued acquisition, Flipkart by Walmart, within the first phase of investigation itself, stating that it is “not likely to have an appreciable adverse effect on competition in India.” Unlike many other retail acquisitions, there has been strong protest from the traders and retailers’ organization to stop the deal and for the creation of an exclusive e-commerce policy and regulator. Meanwhile, the Draft National E-Commerce Policy, 2018, suggested greater regulatory scrutiny for mergers and acquisitions that may distort competition. In this context, the present study looked into the competition dimension of the deal and other related issues. The study suggests to evolve a regulatory system with long-term vision to sustain and support the domestically grown innovations while making the competition assessment more flexible to accommodate the challenges posed by digital revolution.

Regulating the Digital Economy: Are We Heading for a Win-Win or a Lose Lose?

The digital economy has been growing by leaps and bounds in recent years, mostly as a result of new digital technologies that are promoting a global transformation to industry 4.0. The resulting expansion of digital trade has sparked off a political and policy controversy on digital economy and e-commerce, where its boundaries stand and how best to regulate it. Policy discussions on the topic however do not take into account the true expanse of digital trade, which encompasses hardware, software, networks, platforms, applications and data as its core elements, and stretches the boundaries of e-commerce policy to trade in goods, services and intellectual property protection. This Article focuses on the challenges in regulating the digital economy, with a particular focus on development, and offers a discussion of the interdependency between the economic, social, personal and developmental aspects of digital trade for developing countries. Section II opens with a detailed discussion on key digital technologies and their plausible impacts on employment globally and industrial catch-up of particular importance to developing countries, to highlight the divisive nature of digital technologies. Section III then analyses the unfulfilled promise of a pro-development perspective at the WTO looking at how multilateralism has currently failed e-commerce. The incoherence between digital realities and the policy debates at the WTO are presented to show how the institution is losing effectiveness in the war between countries to legitimize national policies on a universal level in this important area of policy making. Norm-setting through FTAs is also analysed at length in section III of the article, which provides a comprehensive review of the plurilateral and bilateral policy developments in e-commerce. The ramifications for developing countries are discussed in the form of a couple of examples. Section IV presents some options for developing countries for the future at the national and international level.

МЕГАТРЕНДИ РОЗВИТКУ ЕЛЕКТРОННОЇ ТОРГІВЛІ У КОНТЕКСТІ СУЧАСНОЇ ТЕХНОЛОГІЧНОЇ РЕВОЛЮЦІЇ

Висвітлено питання розвитку електронної (цифрової) торгівлі як однієї з ключових тенденцій у трансформації сучасного світового господарства.Акцентовано увагу на багатоаспектності проявів електронної (цифрової) торгівлі та на вираженій тенденції до подальшої диверсифікації форм цієї торгівлі в умовах інтенсивних технологічних перетворень сучасності. Її поширення пов’язано із зростаючою роллю ІКТ, при цьому доведено, що темпи та ефективність їх поширення у сфері торговельно-економічних операцій значною мірою зумовлюються наявністю інформаційно-комунікаційної інфраструктури належної якості.Показано, що нові перспективи розвитку електронної комерції пов’язані з новими ключовими технологіями четвертої промислової революції – аналітикою, побудованою на великих базах даних, блокчейн-технологіями, Інтернетом речей та штучним інтелектом. Автор стверджує, що новітні технології створюють фундамент для системної зміни самого характеру економічних та неекономічних відносин.Доведено, що процес поширення електронної торгівлі є суперечливим і пов’язаний з можливою наявністю як позитивних результатів, так і негативних наслідків. Позитивні ефекти зумовлені, насамперед, істотним скороченням витрат і розширенням асортименту пропозиції, збільшенням можливостей просування своїх товарів і послуг на ринку (особливо для малого й середнього бізнесу), істотним скороченням часу для здійснення комерційних операцій. Водночас підкреслено значення безпеки економічного розвитку та захисту прав особистості, оскільки в умовах поширення електронної торгівлі ризики в цих аспектах зростають.Особливу увагу приділено важливості координації політики щодо розвитку електронної торгівлі, а також охарактеризовано роль у розвитку та регулюванні електронної торгівлі провідних міжнародних організацій – ООН (ЮНКТАД і ЮНСІТРАЛ), СОТ, ОЕСР, Всесвітньої митної організації, Всесвітнього поштового союзу. На прикладі Європейського Союзу (політика формування єдиного цифрового ринку) та Євразійського економічного союзу (Цифровий порядок денний ЄАЕС до 2025 року) показано зростаюче значення міжнародної регіональної політики у вирішенні вказаної проблеми.

Evolution and Regional Differences of E-commerce Policies for Rural Poverty Reduction Based on Topic over Time Model

Evolution and Regional Differences of E-commerce Policies for Rural Poverty Reduction Based on Topic over Time Model

Combining machine-based and econometrics methods for policy analytics insights

Computational social science supports study of e-commerce policy analytics issues.Advances have been made for the discovery of new policy-related insights.Areas covered are: business, consumer and social public and private settings.Machine-based methods are combined with explanatory econometrics and statistics.Empirical illustrations are in four contemporary e-commerce research issue areas.Mobile phone stock trading, music popularity, TV viewing, video-on-demand services. Computational Social Science (CSS) has become a mainstream approach in the empirical study of policy analytics issues in various domains of e-commerce research. This article is intended to represent recent advances that have been made for the discovery of new policy-related insights in business, consumer and social settings. The approach discussed is fusion analytics, which combines machine-based methods from Computer Science (CS) and explanatory empiricism involving advanced Econometrics and Statistics. It explores several efforts to conduct research inquiry in different functional areas of Electronic Commerce and Information Systems (IS), with applications that represent different functional areas of business, as well as individual consumer, social and public issues. Recent developments and shifts in the scientific study of technology-related phenomena and Social Science issues in the presence of historically-large datasets prompt new forms of research inquiry. They include blended approaches to research methodology, and more interest in the production of research results that have direct application to industry contexts. This article showcases the methods shifts and several contemporary applications. They discuss: (1) feedback effects in mobile phone-based stock trading; (2) sustainability of top-rank chart popularity of music tracks; (3) household TV viewing patterns; and (4) household sampling and purchases of video-on-demand (VoD) services. The range of applicability of the ideas goes beyond the scope of these illustrations, to include issues in public services, healthcare, product and service deployment, public opinion and elections, electronic auctions, and travel and tourism services. In fact, the coverage is as broad as for-profit and for-non-profit, private and public, and governmental and non-governmental institutions.

Interrogating the effect of environmental factors on e-commerce institutionalization in Tanzania: a test and validation of small and medium enterprise claims

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study is to interrogate the claims made by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Tanzania regarding the environmental factors that negatively affect their institutionalization of e-commerce. SMEs made claims that there was a lack of institutional readiness for e-commerce in Tanzania, as well as inadequate market forces readiness, supporting industry readiness, and socio-cultural readiness. A content analysis approach was used to interrogate institutional policy documents to determine the frequency of use of specific arguments that either support or negate the SMEs’ claims. The theory of communicative action was used as a framework to analyze the truthfulness, sincerity, clarity, and legitimacy of the claims made. The findings from the content analysis show that the Tanzanian Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) policy and SME policy pay scant attention to e-commerce readiness factors. The validity claim analysis did not reveal distorted communications by SMEs, but corroborated their claims that indeed environmental factors were not conducive to the institutionalization of e-commerce in Tanzania. These findings call for a national-level reassessment of e-commerce policies in Tanzania.

Exploring dimensional structure of antecedents of online shopping behaviour

This paper provides practical insights of conducting Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to reveal the underlying structure of a fairly big set of variables related to antecedents of online shopping behavior. The e-commerce policy formulated by the Indian government in March 2016, compelled online shopping players to focus more on improving customer experience, rather than giving large discounts, to achieve higher levels of loyalty. Therefore, understanding the antecedents of online shopping behavior becomes even more significant. To begin with, extensive scholarly literature review on studies related to antecedents of online shopping behavior was conducted. This helped in generating an initial pool of variables on motives for shopping online. However, since the literature was fairly heterogeneous, there was a need for an exploratory study. Based on the insights generated by a qualitative study and expert opinion, the final set of variables to measure online shopping behavior was shortlisted. An empirical study based on a sample size of 175 was carried out. EFA using Varimax rotation was run three times and a set of 46 items was reduced to 36. The total variance explained was 72.45%, the number of factors was reduced from 12 to 9 and a simple and interpretable dimensionality structure was identified. The study has practical implications for the e-tailers in terms of gaining a better understanding of the online shopper behavior in the context of changing market dynamics.

Optimizing Grounded Theory for Policy Research

Grounded theory (GT) has become an influential methodology for research inquiry which involves the texts of human communication and language use as its primary empirical focus of data collection and analysis. However, influential models of GT have been most typically applied to the process of interpreting nonformal and especially “unstructured” texts such as conversations, interviews, and online communications. By contrast, policy researchers have the rather different challenge of interpreting the innate contradictions, diverse imperatives, and often conflicting perspectives which inform the meanings of policy positions as well as documents across different contexts. Building upon the interdisciplinary implications of recent constructivist models of the methodology, this article investigates how an optimizing “knowledge-building” approach represents an exemplary model for using GT for policy document research purposes. It does so in relation to the case study of a project focused on emergent as well as contextual dilemmas of analyzing World Trade Organization e-commerce policies.

Convergence of Trademark Law and E-Commerce: Overview of US, EU and China Regulations on Trademarks and Domain Names

This comment outlines the significance of the relations between trademarks and information technology from a comparative law perspective. It further affirms the indispensability of an interdisciplinary approach for consistent theoretical and legal framework with regard to trademarks and domain names in the context of e-commerce policy and practices. The comment also highlights the importance of intellectual property rights for economic development. Key words : Industrial property, cybersquatting, internet domain names, metatags

The Fit Between Organizational B2B E-commerce Policy, IT Maturity and Evaluation Practices on B2B E-commerce Performance in Australian Healthcare Organizations

Healthcare organizations have started to make use of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce technologies in overcoming many of the challenges they face. However, healthcare executives have found it increasingly difficult to justify rising IT expenditures and are often under pressure to find a way to evaluate the contribution of their B2B e-commerce investments to business performance, as well as to find reliable ways to ensure that the business benefits from the investments are actually realized. Despite high expectations for the value of IT in healthcare, its adoption remains poorly understood and is also a relatively under-researched area. Hence, a case study approach was conducted: (1) to examine the relationships between organizational B2B e-commerce policy and strategy, organizational IT maturity, and evaluation practices and their effects on B2B e-commerce performance among Australian healthcare organizations; and (2) to develop a framework which can assist healthcare organizations in realizing B2B e-commerce benefits and satisfaction within the Australian healthcare organizations. A key contribution of this study is the development of a B2B e-commerce benefits and satisfaction framework which can be used by healthcare executives in examining the relationships between organizational B2B e-commerce policy and strategy, organizational IT maturity, IT evaluation practices, and e-commerce benefits and satisfaction. Key words: E-commerce, healthcare, IT maturity, IT investment evaluation, benefits.

Prioritising Research Agenda For E-Commerce In Malaysia

The recent advent of World Wide Web has changed the traditional marketing paradigm in a dramatic way. Under a computer-mediated marketing framework the operations are no longer controlled by boundaries and time constraints. The new paradigm provides firms the whole wired world as potential market to capture. This is the underlying rationale for the Malaysian e-commerce policy or marketing in a "computer-mediated-environment" in Malaysia. Although, the concept of e-commerce is relatively new in this country, but, it was widely accepted marketing medium among the developed nations. Whether Malaysia is able to reap the benefits of e-commerce largely depends on various factors ranging from the infrastructures, the skill base, the critical mass of internet users, legal policy and so on. Understanding the nature of the relationship and the significance of these factors require a good amount of research in the industry perspectives. This paper attempts to provide some guidelines about the research priorities in marketing of Malaysian produce and products under a computer-mediated-environment; taking into account the local and peculiarities of the firms and consumers' behaviour. In this respect the current paper draws literatures about e-commerce experiences of other countries for the purpose of benchmarking. The preliminary conclusion drawn from these literatures suggest that e-marketing outcomes are major reduction in transaction costs and an increase in productivity; which in turn radically change the traditional market structure, behaviour and performance framework. While it is envisaged that the private sector will take the lead role in the development of e-marketing in Malaysia, the government has a bigger role in ensuring its sustainability. The major research issues in economics and marketing are: the competitiveness of the related industries to allow higher investment in bandwidth and high-technology, integration of physical and online marketing, the economics of network management, characteristics and perception of the community on e-commerce, market and commercial governance, the current and future skill of the community, monitoring the changes in marketing functions and intermediary roles and providing macro indicators to measure the market.

Stakeholder Mapping as an Assessment Framework for Policy Implementation

In this article we develop a ‘Stakeholder Mapping’ approach to ex-ante policy evaluation. The proposed framework helps to assess policy implementation activities by applying several tests to evaluate the completeness, non-redundancy, proper assignment and internal consistency of a policy design. We illustrate the method by applying it to the analysis of e-commerce policy in Iran. We conclude by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the approach.

Barriers to e-commerce policy in logistics: an exploratory study of the Pearl River Delta, China

With the help of the information and communication technology and the continual ingress of foreign direct investment, the use of the internet in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) has developed rapidly. While physical infrastructure is a key factor for successful world trade, government policy relating to e-commerce is also a critical element to success. This study, based on the feedback of questionnaires and interviews with practitioners in the logistics industry in the PRD, has collected empirical evidence and confirmed causes of the barriers related to e-commerce policy in logistics operations in the PRD. These included availability and interpretation of rules and regulations, interface between the Chinese law and international law, execution of law and policy, and electronic payments in e-commerce in the PRD. The impact of the observed barriers to e-commerce policy may result in reduced competitiveness for the logistics operations of multinational enterprises in China.

Community Level Socio-Economic Impacts of Electronic Commerce

As electronic commerce grows, an important socio-economic side effect will be increased competition with the traditional businesses in any given local community. Our research suggests that local merchants typically go online in order to better access distant markets, but are often unprepared to cater to remote customers and hence do not fare well. In this paper, we suggest that it is important to consider now how electronic commerce may influence the health of local economies. Despite the rhetoric that electronic commerce is free from the constraints of geography, we argue that there are good reasons to reconsider the role of physical location in making e-commerce policies. We show that using transaction cost and competitive advantage approaches, supplemented by perspectives from research on social networks and trust, it is possible to develop locally sensitive Web strategies for businesses in a given community. We highlight generic strategies that local businesses can use to leverage their physical presence in a market with electronic commerce in order to better compete with distant Web-based companies.

E-PROCUREMENT DIFFUSION IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN OF FOODSERVICE OPERATORS: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY IN GREECE

Despite e-procurement’s benefits, most firms are slow in adopting it. As prior studies on e-procurement have primarily focused on investigating its benefits or adoption mainly in manufacturing, research examining the factors influencing the adoption and diffusion of e-procurement by foodservice operators is minimal. This study fills in this gap by reviewing the literature that identifies potential e-procurement adoption factors and then by testing the latter’s impact by gathering data from Greek foodservice operators. Findings showed that e-procurement is adopted by few firms, while e-procurement is diffused only in intrafirm (operational) and not interfirm (more strategic) supply chain processes. Lack of e-procurement knowledge, skills, trust, and risk perceptions were found to be the major inhibitors of e-procurement adoption. Implications for foodservice operators, Internet model developers, and e-commerce policy makers are given.

European e-commerce policies in the pioneering days, the gold rush and the post-hype era

The emergence of e-commerce in Europe is a fascinating policy study with key actors in all EU countries firmly assured that digitalization of the economy is the key to the magic kingdom of strong economic growth and the facilitation of global commerce. Moreover, the digital economy would require asserted policy responses to ensure that European jobs would not be taken over by the dominant US IT industry and the global, multinational industry players utilizing the technology. In this contribution we reveal how Denmark, Germany and France had rather similar policies furthering knowledge diffusion but were rather reluctant to use direct economic incentives, normative instruments, or e-government initiatives such as e-tendering and e-procurement. Yet the three countries pursued very different paths on the route towards the digital economy both when it comes to the responsiveness of government and to the implementation in society.

Negotiating the Net: The Internet in South Africa (1990–2003)

The adoption of an analytical approach based on the examination of Critical Negotiation Issues provides a vehicle for a richly textured account of policy contestation from the perspective of its participant actors. This approach also accounts for the impact of such contestation on the diffusion of the Internet in a developing country such as South Africa. By tracking issues that have high relevance to the development of the Internet, that are highly contested, and which, if left unresolved, will impede diffusion, the changing policy environment and its impact can be better understood. In the case of South Africa four Critical Negotiation Issues in particular have impacted the development of the Internet: competition between ISPs and IAPs; access to facilities; telecommunications liberalization, privatization, and deregulation; and e-commerce policy.