Provision Of E-services Research Articles

인터넷 패션쇼핑몰의 e-서비스스케이프가 구매의도에 미치는 영향

Abstract The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a conceptual model of purchase intentions, positive emotion, and e-servicescape that is defined as the online environment factors that exist during service delivery. Survey research method was used to gather data regarding consumers' perceptions of e-servicescape. Surveys were administered to 681 college students who experienced purchasing fashion products on the Internet. The results showed that e-servicescapes perceived by fashion consumers were composed of three dimensions: (1) Aesthetic appeal, (2) Ambient conditions, and (3) Layout & functionality. These dimensions of e-servicescape influenced consumers to lead positive emotions and purchase intentions. Additionally, positive emotions constituted a key variable for the purchase intention of fashion products during online exchange. The study revealed that consumers' interpretations of online environments exerted a powerful influence over positive emotion and purchase intentions. Also, it strongly endorsed the view that the purchase intentions of customers were linked to the extent to which they feel positive emotions by the e-service provider. This study provides insights into how consumers' interpretations of e-servicescape affect their subsequent positive emotions and ultimately their intentions to purchase. The findings of this study also have numerous implications for both services managers and internet developers related to fashion products.Key words: E-servicescape, positive emotion, purchase intention, fashion products

Assessment of ICT Adoption Stage for Promoting the Greek National Parks

The development of ICT introduces data and knowledge in a large audience, through the use of Internet. This paper assesses the internet model adoption using e-services in the 10 National Parks in Greece. The websites concerning Greek National Parks were studied and analyzed as to their qualitative and quantitative characteristics and were classified in the four maturity stages of ICT adoption. Most retrieved websites are classified in the third stage of ICT adoption, “Transformation”. The websites that promote these protected areas should evolve in further e-service provision. Findings can be helpful for managers, policy makers, web designers, environmentalists, entrepreneurs and government agencies.

New Questions for E-Government

E-government’s rise to prominence in the early 1990s was met with great enthusiasm amidst the promise that information communication technologies (ICTs) might fulfill the demands and expectations for improved democratic governance. Since then, significant progress has been made in terms of information provision and delivery of public services; yet, dialogue, a core dimension of democratic governance, remains largely unrealized within the digital context. This study employs content analysis within the frame of a check-off research protocol to determine if the population of state websites has the capacity to support digital democratic dialogue. The key question is whether there is an emphasis within the milieu of state websites to support e-dialogue outside the provision of information and e-services. The analysis suggests that efficiency rather than dialogue is the primary focus in the design of the state websites. Is, therefore, e-government a new development in the historical effort to enforce efficiency as a core value of governance?

Trust Development in E-Services: A Cohort Analysis of Millennials and Baby Boomers

Purpose: Building trust is crucial for e-service providers looking to develop long-term customer relationships. But consumers from dissimilar demographic groups behave differently. Therefore, this study investigates the question, How do consumers from different generational cohorts develop trust in a website?Methodology: An experimental study focuses on the navigation, vendor advice, privacy, and feedback mechanisms of an e-tailer website. The between-subjects design tests the effects of these four drivers on the online trust of 197 Millennials and 201 Baby Boomers.Findings: The presence of feedback mechanisms, navigation, and vendor advice are stronger determinants of online trust for Millennials than for Baby Boomers; privacy is a stronger determinant for Baby Boomers.Limitations: This study focuses on four crucial variables of the website interface; further research should include other variables. Extensions to other e-service settings, beyond online retailers, would be interesting. Finally, this study includes only Millennials and Baby Boomers rather than members of other generations.Implications: The results provide insights into how different generational cohorts dissimilarly develop online trust and highlight the need for managers to consider the online behaviors of cohorts when developing websites. Managers should emphasize the privacy elements for Baby Boomers but highlight navigation, vendor advice, and feedback mechanisms for Millennials.Originality: This study is the first to research generational differences in the development of trust online.

E-Service Quality: An Empirical Investigation

This study examines seven dimensions pertinent to e-service quality using 225 respondents conducted in Klang Valley. Results reveal that the efficiency of e-service quality mainly depends on the consumer's perception of the efficiency (which offers speedy and reliable responses) and trustworthiness of the e-service provider (which offers assurance of protection, security of the users' identity and personal information), and is not reliant on offers of convenience and personalization. Other than formulating policies and operating procedures based on customer needs, Websites should be well organized with succinct up-to-date, in-depth information and instruction because these are physical evidence of efficiency and trustworthiness.

IS and Organization for Online Corporate Reputation Management

According to the Resource Based View, corporate reputation is seen as a core resource and a major factor in gaining competitive advantage. Thanks to the development of Web-based technologies, stakeholders can easily spread their own perspective about an organization, its products, services, brands, members, and so forth, affecting its corporate reputation. This work examines the Web side of corporate reputation conceptualized as ‘online corporate reputation’ and the exploitation of IT (Online Reputation Management Systems) to support the related management practices. Based on the experience developed by an Italian leading e-service provider, the authors highlight a promising field of practice and research from IS management and organizational perspectives.

A Quality-Based Pricing Model for Internet-Enabled Services

E-services are a contemporary emergent issue of e-commerce that can reduce costs and increase efficiency, enhance services to maximize profits, and enable customer relationships. Due to the popularity of e-services, e-service pricing is still a contentious issue, and e-service providers must consider customer perspectives when deciding the costs. This study utilizes perceived service quality as the pricing basis to generate an effective e-service price. The objectives of this paper are as follows: (1) to establish a pricing method based on service quality of a specific e-service; and (2) observe the relationship between the price and the customer’s perceived value. The proposed research approach employs the multi-attribute utility method, which can quantify the perceived service quality to estimate a final price from the proposed pricing approach. This study presents two major conclusions from selected cases (Wretch), as follows: (1) this paper investigates the relationship between price and quality. When the perceived quality of a user is poor, e-service providers should reduce costs and target profits to introduce a price lower than the original fee. Conversely, when the perceived quality of a user is good, e-service providers may reasonably increase the original price; and (2) this research investigates the relationship between price and perceived value. The generated price must be acceptable and appropriate to users, which enables them to generate more value of the e-service. In summation, the main contribution of this research is a pricing model for a specific e-service that uses a multiple attribute utility approach to establish an appropriate price based on perceived value. Keyword: Service Pricing, Internet Service, and Service Quality

The challenge of e-participation in the digital city: Exploring generational influences among community telecentre users

A primary challenge for the development of e-government and the digital city is participation by low-income, older and technology-challenged citizens. This paper reports on the role of inter-generational interactions in community telecentres in facilitating low-income, older and technology-challenged citizens in gaining access and using digital city infrastructure. Our research also finds that virtual communities are playing a role in supporting e-participation among older, technology-challenged citizens. We examine the influence and interaction of members of offline communities, who use telecentres, on virtual community participation. These communities and telecentres can provide support for the provision of e-services and the development of the digital city. We explore these issues based on empirical field research in community-based telecentres in a developing country. Inter-generational interactions are explored through an analysis using social networks, social identity and social representations theories.

The intangibility of e-services

This study examines the construct of intangibility within the e-services context and clarifies why business-to-consumer services are made more intangible when they are virtualized and offered as Internet e-services. Clarifying the intangibility of e-services and examining its consequents is important as service providers seek to encourage consumers to use lower-cost e-services. This research specifically develops theory to explain how and why an e-service's intangibility can increase consumer beliefs that it is risky to use, and furthermore removes the risk-reducing effect of the e-service's perceived ease of use. These consequents of an e-service's intangibility are important to clarify because e-service's usage is based in part on beliefs that they are safe and easy to use. Results from a structural equation model-based analysis of consumer survey data supported these two hypothesized effects. More specifically, the performance, financial, and privacy risk dimensions were most affected by consumers' experience of mental intangibility regarding the e-service. In addition, a qualification of a previously reported risk-reducing strategy for e-service providers was identified. Only when consumers' mental intangibility was low (i.e., they had a clear mental picture of the e-service) did the e-service's perceived ease of use function as a risk-reducing factor. An e-service's intangibility may indirectly impede consumer usage of a range of e-services. Theoretical and practical implications are offered.

Do You Need Content Management System?

Today the Web is used as a means to allow people and business to use services, get information and conduct transactions. Businesses today depend upon their visibility in their respective marketplaces and provision of e-services to customers. The Internet has become an important delivery mechanism of business visibility. Internet also significantly extends businesses capabilities to sell and buy worldwide. Therefore, the company website plays important role in maintaining and extending the business opportunities over the Internet.

‘It could be useful, but not for me at the moment’: older people, internet access and e-public service provision

Older people are commonly constructed as a group of heavy users of public services that misses out on opportunities presented online, mainly due to age-related barriers to accessing the internet. Drawing on a study of internet access in sheltered homes for older people, this article argues for the need to focus electronic service provision around the needs, preferences and abilities of the users of public services. A user-centred perspective in e-government and e-service provision requires an understanding of the socially shaped and locally situated nature of media use, which can in turn help prevent the tendency to see chronological age as the sole factor determining (non-) engagement with the internet. It also requires investment in making available assistance and support to access online digital media in order to prevent the disadvantaging of vulnerable service users.

A Strategic Orientation Model for the Turkish Local E-Governments

Increased environmental uncertainty and complexity along with budget constraints requires public organizations to manage strategically as never before. The environments of public organizations have become increasingly turbulent and more firmly interconnected. During the past two decades, governments have innovated new management tools such as strategic planning, outsourcing, and performance measurement to deal with complex governance and networks to provide their public services. Meanwhile, the drive to implement e-government has resulted in the formulation of many e-government visions and strategies, driven by their own sets of political, economic, and social factors and requirements. With this regard, recent developments in e-service provision of Turkish Local e-Governments deserve empirical and well-structured research. Building on the recent literature, this study draws a strategic orientation framework and tests it by analyzing the contents of strategic documents of 114 Turkish Local e-Governments.

Measuring the performance of the Electronic Service Acceptance Model (E-SAM)

Web-based electronic service (e-service) end-user adoption and implementation require an assessment of consumer contextual factors. This paper investigates factors which affect end-user experience and perception, motivation, support, control and usage frequency in the online/offline user task environment and the affect on web-based e-service adoption and implementation. Understanding end-users' continuous usage behaviour and developing web-based e-services to meet user specific requirements is the centre of attention for web-based e-service providers. Integrating end-user situation-specific personalisation factors into web-based e-service tasks may enhance web-based e-service usability. The survey captured 403 responses on user attributes towards a specific university website. This paper concludes by suggesting a conceptual framework for a web-based Electronic Service Adoption Model (E-SAM).

EID policy in a turbulent environment: is there a need for a new regulatory framework?

There is increasing interest in the EU about the central place of eIdentity (eID) in people’s lives. eID is increasingly seen as a bridge between the commercial viability of models based on large-scale provision of e-services and users’ need for privacy and security in online transactions. This paper examines technological, social and legal developments in the field of eID and asks whether there is the need for a new regulatory framework that both preserves users’ identity and enables the provision of advanced services. Firstly, the paper interprets recent market moves in the eID field as a response to a rising regulatory tide. Secondly, it examines some of the challenges arising from Web2.0, and four emerging socio-legal issues associated with eID—behavioural profiling, social engineering, redlining and other unsocial practices. Thirdly, the paper examines the capacity of the current regulatory framework to absorb this turbulence, and finds it wanting. Finally, it advances a novel model of eID regulation that may help regulators create an identity-preserving, transaction-friendly eID environment.

Ethical reciprocity in digitalized transactions: An empirical study of pre- and post-contractual behavior

Are unethical e-service providers more tolerant of disloyal users? Only a few studies have been done on the attitude of the e-service providers who behave unethically. This research intends to fill this gap in current literature. We identify two different perspectives, behavior consistency and ethical reciprocity, in explaining the attitude of e-service providers towards their users who have breached the service contracts. We further investigate such attitude in respect of the perceived mutual commitment between these providers and their users. We test our propositions by a survey on financial e-service providers and our findings support the perspective of ethical reciprocity.

Importance of Measures of Past Performance: Empirical Evidence on Quality of e‐Service Providers*

There has been considerable interest in the management accounting research literature in studying how managerial and worker compensation depends on measures of their performance. Stemming from the theoretical analysis of Holmstrom 1982, Banker and Datar 1989, and others, several empirical studies have sought to examine the implicit role and impact of different performance measures (e.g., Antle and Smith 1986; Lambert and Larcker 1987; Bushman, Indjejikian, and Smith 1996; Ittner, Larcker, and Rajan 1997; Banker, Potter, and Srinivasan 2000). Since the economic theory motivating this research stems from a model of moral hazard with unobservable effort from the agent, the only performance measures that appear relevant are those whose distributions are shifted by the agent’s choice of effort level. As a result, the focus of past research has been on measures of future performance that are contingent on agent’s effort. In this paper, we focus on the role of measures of past performance and accomplishments in determining compensation for services provided. Measures of past performance we consider in this study are observable by both the principal and the agent, and differ from the predecision precontract information in Baiman and Evans 1983 that is available only to the agent. Past performance in our study provides a signal on the intrinsic ability or quality of a service provider. In an adverse selection setting where the service provider’s intrinsic ability is not observed directly by the purchaser of the service, measures of past performance and accomplishments are likely to be informative (Darrough and Melumad 1995). The compensation paid for the service, therefore, is likely to depend on the past performance and other signals on the provider’s ability to deliver valuable service. Murphy and Zabojnik (2003), for example, find that as large corporations now tend to hire chief executive officers (CEOs) externally rather than through internal promotions, transferable skills are more important than firm-specific skills. As a

Make it Fun But Also Functional: An Attribute-Specific and Dynamic Perspective on E-Service Quality

Managers are under increased pressure to verify the return on their quality investments. This is especially true for e-service providers given the highly competitive market dynamics in the Internet. Here, increasing customer satisfaction is pivotal for firm performance. Yet, being faced with limited resources to spend, valid and attribute-specific implications on how to allocate resources for enhancing satisfaction are most important. By investigating the type of effects of quality on satisfaction, our findings help to prioritize attributes that boost satisfaction and avoid overspendings on attributes with decreasing returns on quality. Moreover, we explore dynamic shifts in the effect direction and intensity a service quality attribute has on customer satisfaction in the Internet. By applying a time-based cohort analysis in two different e-service settings, a stable pattern of effect dynamics of service quality on satisfaction is identified. Both results are vital for e-service managers as they help to improve the efficiency of service quality enhancing activities in the Internet.

Building a theoretical framework for e-service export performance

Advancements in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in general, and the internet, in particular, are having a major impact on service marketing. The global marketplace has been increasingly integrated and exporting has emerged as the most popular expansion strategy for international firms. In this context, e-services have emerged as a profitable and competitive industry attracting considerable attention. However, literature has not reached a consensus on how to best categorise e-services and surprisingly, the performance of e-service providers has not been investigated in an exporting context. This study attempts to fill these gaps by proposing a categorisation scheme for e-services and suggesting a conceptual framework about the performance of e-service exporters.

An innovative revocation scheme for one-to-many E-services

E-service providers usually encrypt each E-service message to prevent unauthorized receivers from reading the content and they change the encryption keys periodically for security reasons. In some one-to-many E-services, like global positioning systems (GPS) or news feeds systems, it is not reasonable to ask customers to stay on-line all the time and save the changes of keys to the system. If registered customers are not on-line, they will miss the re-keying messages and will not be able to decrypt any E-service content. We propose a practical revocation scheme for one-to-many E-services with stateless and service diversity properties. Our scheme reduces the key-storage requirement of service providers to a constant size and customers are not required to be on-line constantly (stateless). Also, service providers can provide various E-services for their customers at the same time (service diversity) and customers can request any E-service or cancel it whenever needed.

Fuzzy multi-attribute cost–benefit analysis of e-services

E-service evaluation is a complex problem in which many qualitative attributes must be considered. These kinds of attributes make the evaluation process hard and vague. Cost–benefit analyses applied to various areas are usually based on the data under certainty or risk. In case of uncertain, vague, and/or linguistic data, the fuzzy set theory can be used to handle the analysis. In this article, after the evaluation attributes of e-services and the fuzzy multi-attribute decision-making methods are introduced, a fuzzy hierarchical TOPSIS model is developed and applied to an e-service provider selection problem with some sensitivity analyses. The developed model is a useful tool for the companies that prefer outsourcing for e-activities. It is shown that service systems can be effectively evaluated by the proposed method. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Int Syst 22: 547–565, 2007.