Ebook: Developing A Robust And Responsive E-society

E-business is a much hyped term for therelentless move towards conducting allbusiness transactions online. Too often this issimply equated with the implementation of aWeb site ranging from simple brochure wareto full-scale online operations. Working fore-business takes much more than this. Itinvolves organisational change, carries with itlegal and security implications and, perhapsmost importantly, requires attitudinal andsocietal change. This Special Issue of LogisticsInformation Management presents selectedpapers from the annual We-B conference heldin Perth, Western Australia, in November.The theme for the conference is e-society andfocuses on the broader issues affecting thesuccess of e-developments. The nine paperspublished in this Special Issue reflect thisdiversity and cover virtual organisations andthe management of e-business ande-government change, e-business interactionswith SMEs, older people and retail supplychains, and, security, copyright andjurisdiction issues. In the first paper of this Special Issue Loveand Tellefsen apply a model of constituentmarket orientation to a taxonomy of virtualorganisations and propose new models fordecision making and modelling in virtualorganisations. This work pulls two streams ofwork together across national boundariesbuilding on Tellefsen’s empirical studies inNorway and the virtual organisation changemodel developed by a group of Australianresearchers. The result is a much richerrepresentation of ‘‘virtualness’’ identifyingmany of the real-world processes such asleadership, learning, cultural harmony andtechnological and managerial innovation thatunderpin successful e-businesstransformations. Following from this, Gardner and Ashpresent their framework for changemanagement, again utilising cross-nationalstudies from Norway and the UK in twodifferent industries: oil and gas and banking.Their focus in this paper is on the dynamics ofchange and they use these two cases toillustrate this. The model they developdifferentiates between intended strategies andemergent strategies and shows the interplaybetween these in a complex networkede-business environment. A key concept is theintroduction of chaos and the need toembrace this within a change managementmodel. This has implications for all the key stakeholders and for long-term e-businesssuccess.The final paper in this group presents thefindings from a case study of e-governmentchange. Burn and Robins apply an acceptedmodel of e-business change developed byGuha et al. to a government environment.The case study examines the transition of aLegal Aid department from a traditionalgovernment bureaucracy to a more flexiblee-government model involving multiplestakeholders. As with e-business,e-government requires major business processchange and this paper examines this processin the context of this e-government initiativeutilising the Internet to provide extendedservices. This study is based solely inAustralia but could be said to represent across-cultural approach applying standardbusiness change theory in a governmentsetting.The next three papers in this issue examinedifferent ways to maximise online interactionand e-business effectiveness. Sandy andBurgess look at the world of small businessand specifically at how they can identifyadded value for specific products and servicesthough Web applications. They develop adecision chart, which can be applied by SMEsto determine suitable Web site features anddescribe the process of applying this within agroup of small business consultants. Thisstudy highlights the need for all businesses toidentify their unique set of business needsprior to embarking on Web site developmentand can be of considerable use to thoseemploying consultants to drive their onlinestrategies. Mackay et al. continue this theme withinthe retail industry and address the topic ofcustomer intimacy through sharing oninformation and online support. The authorsconducted an Australia-wide study to assesshow well Australian businesses areresponding to these challenges. One of thesurprising findings in this study is howunderdeveloped the e-tailing market is inAustralia in comparison with the USA andemphasises the need to take culturalenvironments into account when applying any‘‘global’’ statistics. The final paper in this group extends theinteraction into the community, specificallytargeting older people as the user group.Tatnall and Lepa apply an actor-networkapproach to determine why some older peopleembrace the Internet while others shy awayfrom the technology. This contrasts the twoends of the interaction motivation domain –fear of new and unknown technology anddelight at technological independence. Again,the authors find that it is not just thetechnology that drives the adoption but acomplex set of social interactions combiningthe intended or desired use with their need torelate to a wider world. The three examplesgiven of elderly users emphasise theimportance of allowing users to set their ownterms of reference within their own culturalframeworks. This paper also highlights theneed to apply different theories whenexamining complex social phenomena such asthis. The final group of papers looks at security,copyright patenting and jurisdiction issues.Hutchinson and Warren examine Internetbanking and the need for secureauthentication. They review the three areas ofsecurity in Internet banking at the level of thebank, the Internet and the customer. Theyprovide a decision map, which expandsthrough five stages before deriving thesecurity requirements for a particular actionand then illustrate this with a simple buteffective case walk-through. This frameworkcan be used for practical application but alsoprovides a model for future researchdevelopment.The final two papers are written byMark and Susan Stoney and specificallyaddress the problematic area of internationaluse of e-business from a legal perspective.The first paper provides a very usefuloverview of jurisdiction and how this carriesimplications for legal compliance, businessprotection and consumer trust. While thisissue has attracted global attention there islittle written for practitioners as to how theymight protect themselves in the internationalarena. The authors give some practical advicewith regard to contracts but also with regardto site utilisation. There may be a very strongcase to limit your interactions and possiblyeven your customer base. With these admonitions in mind, the finalpaper presents a compelling case for patentingyour e-business software and copyrightingyour programs. This provides an excellentoverview of current protection throughcopyright and the strengths and fundamentalweaknesses of copyright law. Four caseexamples bring home the complex problems, which can face even the savviest e-businesscompanies. Nevertheless, the more dauntingaspect they provide is one where a businesscan effectively patent a whole set of globalprocedures such as any wireless devicehooked up to the Web! These nine papers place e-business in asociological context and emphasise themultiplicity of interactions, which may beneeded to make e-business work. Similarlythey demonstrate the need for a variety ofdifferent research approaches, involvingmulti-disciplinary studies and cross-culturalcomparisons. More such studies are needed ifthe e-business world is to be more effectivethan our current traditional business islands.Finally, the Guest Editors would like tothank the many reviewers involved in thistwo-stage review process and particularthanks to Ms Lindsay Davies-Moore for herrole in managing the reviews and preparingthe manuscripts. Our thanks go also toDr Zahir Irani for his support as Editor of theJournal. Janice Burn Sue Stoney Previously published in: Logistics Information Management, Volume 16, Number 1, 2003