Development Of E-commerce System Research Articles

Designing Systems for E-Commerce

Ethics is an important element in all aspects of computing, but proves to be a real problem in the development and delivery of E-Commerce systems. There are many aspects of ethics that can affect E-Commerce systems, but often research is focused on the ethics after the E-Commerce system has been implemented, focusing on issues such as trust, privacy and disclosure. This paper will discuss how ethical matters can affect the design of E-Commerce systems and how a framework designed for E-Commerce can be used to create and deliver effective, ethical E-Commerce systems .

Special issue on

The last few years have witnessed a rapid growth in development of web-based solutions to support or initiate new forms of e-commerce. Though a few normative approaches have been proposed for different stages of the development process, it is not clear yet how practitioners or consultants are actually developing these systems. As the e-commerce revolution matures, in-depth accounts of development of actual e-commerce systems have remained sketchy. Informal evidence suggests that highly localized approaches are being used to develop innovative e-commerce solutions. The stories being shared among successful practitioners are still largely anecdotal and confined to success stories or colossal failures. The debacle of dot.com businesses during 2001 has left these issues severely under-investigated. Accounts of both successful and not-so-successful actual e-commerce systems development projects would, therefore, be useful in furthering our understanding of this complex area of study. The three articles in this special issue provide interesting perspectives on understanding several ongoing practices in this arena. The article by Hevner et al identifies and discusses key concerns faced by several organizations that focus on systems development for e-commerce. Based on an in-depth case study of a medium sized e-commerce software development organization, they suggest the perspective of conflicting product versus project challenges in software development activities. Their analysis leads to identification of eight critical challenges in the three areas of organizational structure, relationship with external environment and the development environment. The authors elaborate on these challenges, suggest theoretical propositions for confirmatory research, and link the propositions to managerial actions to suggest implications for practice. The article by Chiasson presents an analysis of the process related to developing an e-commerce system for a startup venture in the on-line magazine ("e-zine") business using structuration theory as the theoretical lens. Following an action research approach, the study develops an understanding of the agency-structure relationship involved in shaping the technological and organizational structure. Conflicting design philosophies in the initial stage (multimedia 'front-end' versus content management through web-database integration) gives way to a role of the system in the later stages as a strategic change agent redirecting the company towards a new business focus. The analysis leads to a critical discussion of structuration theory and its limitations in acknowledging the importance of human reflexivity in the structuration process. The article by Henfridsson and Holmström discusses how e-commerce development in "internetworked organizations" may enable changes to the traditional corporate value chain. Based on an interpretive case study of the development of an on-line computer game, the authors describe an effort to enable customer involvement throughout the value chain including product development, evaluation, distribution and marketing. They find that the close customer involvement adds value by increasing the company's ability to respond to changing customer demands and preferences. Interestingly, they observe a greater dependency on the customers and their devotion for the game, which illustrates that internetworked organizations can be faced with the challenge associated with handling customers as partners in the value chain. The authors discuss implications for the role of customer involvement in virtual value chains, suggesting an extended view on the e-commerce development process. The articles by Chiasson, and Henfridsson and Holmström, thus, present in-depth studies of practices related to development of E-commerce systems in different organizational contexts. They exemplify several challenges presented in the first paper by Hevner et al. The three articles together present an in-depth account of the complexities involved in the process of E-commerce systems development, characterized by rapid technological development and often fast-paced projects driven by extreme competitiveness and changing market demands. The context of the three cases presented (e-commerce software development organization, startup venture in the on-line magazine business and on-line computer game developer) serves to highlight different challenges and concerns characterizing E-commerce development practice today. Further research can contribute to extend our understanding in other contexts. Findings presented in these papers can serve as early benchmarks of the significant challenges in E-commerce systems development today. A possible extension can include the development of prescriptive methodologies and models that may be customized for different contexts. Many of the challenges identified in these papers also have a rich history in systems development research. Further research should, therefore, strike a balance between proposing innovative ways to understand these challenges and adapting established ap-proaches and accepted wisdom for systems development to the particular context of E-commerce systems development.

From the Editors

Welcome to the last issue for this year. To paraphrase the old saying, how quickly time flies when one is having fun -- especially in the editorial role for Data Base. We continue to reap the benefits of seeing a number of projects that were already under development upon our arrival come to fruition. This special issue on e-commerce system development practices managed by Bjørn Erik Munkvold and Sandeep Purao is a fine example. The articles as a group provide good examples of how the business context can interact with the system development process. Specifically, we are able to examine both the commonality and differences for an e-commerce software development organization, startup venture for an on-line magazine business, and an on-line computer game developer.As we complete our first year, we continue to work on both operational and substantive issues. Operationally, we are in the process of creating an online tracking system for our editorial board members who now serve the same role as senior editors. Our goal in the future is to expand the system to provide information to other key stakeholders (e.g., authors and reviewers). Substantively, we continue to encourage researchers to provide either comprehensive survey reviews or framework papers covering key areas of IS. Also, in recognition of the merger of SIGCPR, a call for special section on IT personnel research is now underway with guest editors Fred Niederman and Munir Mandviwalla. We hope that our new SIGCPR members will look towards Data Base as a key outlet for their research.Yet, probably one of our most important goals we have embarked on is to emphasize the quality of Data Base articles. To that end, we are committed to publishing only theoretically grounded research (as opposed to purely descriptive works). Moreover, we firmly follow the precept of not sending out any papers for review that we do not feel have a good potential for acceptance. To date, we have increased the rejection rate at the front end to approximately 50 percent of submissions. Another significant percentage is sent back with the opportunity for the authors to improve and resubmit in the future. While the exact percentages will likely change in the future, we believe greater scrutiny at the front end should help improve the quality of published papers.Finally, in our last issue, we announced changes in our editorial board. During that entire process, we inadvertently left Elias Awad from the entire process. We traced the culprit ironically back to an incomplete "database" that we used. Upon contact, Elias has indicated that he was ready to take a much-deserved break. We certainly didn't blame him since he noted that he first joined the editorial board of Data Base back in 1974. Moreover, Elias literally started with ACM and SIGBDP (now SIGMIS) in the fall of 1964 out of the University of Chicago when he was a doctoral student at Northwestern. Now, that's dedication.

Evolution of the Use of IT for e-Business at Century Financial Services:

The case is based on one of the largest and oldest financial services companies in India, referred to as Century Financial Services. It explores the evolution of the use of information technology (IT) over time, from the use of basic efficiency enhancing systems to the development of advanced B2B and B2C E-Commerce systems. At each stage of the evolution, it describes the external drivers in terms of environmental changes, industry developments, customer demands and competitive pressures. It also presents the organizational factors influencing the evolution, in terms of leadership attitudes, the role of IS professionals, and aspects of organization culture. The case aims to give a comprehensive explanation of how internal and external factors together combined to change the focus of the company towards IT and influenced the adoption of E-Business. The case data was collected between April and August of 2000. Sources of data included past organizational documents, interviews, industry sources and databases, and secondary business literature.

Methodologies for developing Web applications

The Internet has had a significant impact on the process of developing information systems. However, there has been little research that has examined specifically the role of the development methodologies in this new era. Although there are many new forces driving systems development, many other issues are extensions of problems that have been there for some years. This paper identifies the main requirements of methodologies for developing e-commerce applications. A number of e-commerce application development approaches are examined and a methodology is proposed which attempts to address a number of issues identified within the literature. The Internet commerce development methodology (ICDM) considers evolutionary development of systems, provides a business and strategic focus and includes a management structure in addition to covering the engineering aspects of e-commerce application development. Many traditional systems development methodologies are perceived as being inadequate for dealing with the development of e-commerce systems. The paper proposes that there is a need for an overarching development framework where other more sub-system specific approaches can be integrated. However, any such framework should consider the strategic business drivers of the system, the evolutionary nature of systems, effective management structures and the development of a conducive organisational culture.