Editor’s Introduction 21(1)
Vladimir Zwass, Editor
International Journal of Electronic Commerce,
Volume 21, Number 1, 2016-17, pp. 1-11.
The two papers that open this issue and the twenty-first volume of the International Journal of Electronic Commerce investigate the aspects of competition among multichannel e-tailers. As the competition among electronic, brick-and-click, and largely brick retailers is heating up, driven by the volume leaders in both categories, proper channel organization will make a difference between success and failure. The complexity of the competition in this environment is reflected in the first of the papers, authored by Jing Li, Umut Konuş, Fred Langerak, and Mathieu C.D.P. Weggeman. The authors consider the entry of an offline retailer into online sales. What would be its effects on the sales of the new entrant and on the sales of existing competitors? How would the distribution of sales of the existing competitors between the offline and online channels affect the sales of the new entrant? Would the purchase patterns differ between existing and new customers? Based on extensive empirics in one of the industries, the paper offers guidance to new entrants and helps them benefit from their late entry into e-commerce.
Although disintermediation has not been as fast and furious as was predicted in the early days of e-commerce, there certainly is a secular trend in that direction. A part of that trend is direct selling online by manufacturers, known as manufacturer encroachment. Aside from the ability to address the ultimate customer directly, the manufacturer (but not the retailers) also has the advantage of knowing its production and distribution costs. What are the optimal contracts a risk-averse e-tailer can offer to the manufacturer? Should the manufacturer encroach or should it rely on the information asymmetry vis-à-vis the retailer for profit advantages? Ping Chen, Bo Li, Yushan Jiang, and Pengwen Hou use formal modeling to study this setting and offer the answers.
Since online auctions take great advantage of the opportunities of e-commerce to aggregate the buyers and sellers, much research has been directed at the auction design. Here, Achita (Mi) Muthitacharoen and Stefan Tams make a novel contribution to this research stream by studying the role of auction duration in buyers’ strategies—and consequently, in sellers’ choices in two-sided platform-based markets. Using data collected on eBay, the researchers show that action duration has a major impact on bidders’ odds of winning and on the buyer surplus. By combining the buyer and seller perspectives in auction analysis, the authors contribute to our knowledge of mechanisms that are so compatible with the Web medium.
Business-to-business commerce is the predominant component of e-commerce, when financial aggregates are considered. In the next paper, Jengchung V. Chen, Bo-chiuan Su, and Timothy M. Hiele take a transaction-costs economics perspective to empirically study the impact of the costs of information technology (IT)-based interorganizational coordination on the size and productivity of participating firms. Deploying a comprehensive firm-level data set, the authors find significant—and salutary—effects of the deployment of IT on coordination costs, with the consequent reduction of firm size. This study contributes to the recently rejuvenated debate on the productivity impacts of IT.
Online gaming is a weighty component of e-commerce and might see expansive growth with the budding take-up of virtual reality. The sustainability and success of these ventures depend on the loyalty of the gamers. Here, Ching-I Teng adopts the novel goal-gradient perspective to identify the antecedents of this loyalty that are rooted in the relationship between the gamers and the game. The author finds that the length, depth, and breadth of this relationship significantly affect the motivation and, consequently, the loyalty of gamers. This work gives game offerors a new tool in assessing the prospect of a gamer’s loyalty and places another tool in the box of loyalty researchers.
As the International Journal of Electronic Commerce enters its twenty-first year of publication, I would like to express my gratitude to our authors, our readers, the Editorial Board, and the technical editors of the journal. Very special thanks go, as always, to our referees—the primary guarantors of quality. Here are the reviewers of the International Journal of Electronic Commerce:
W.M.P. van der Aalst
Marc Adam
Hyung Jun Ahn
JaeHyeon Ahn
Sonia M. Camacho Ahumada
Pervaiz Alam
Hossam Ali-Hassan
Muhammad Aljukhadar
Tariq Al-Naeem
Paul Alpar
Reina Arakji
Ofer Arazy
Yoris Au
Anteneh W. Ayanso
Hyunmi Baek
Kallol Bagchi
Siva Balasubramanian
Subhajyoti Bandyopadhyay
Somnath Banerjee
Youngsok Bang
Gaurav Bansal
Reza Barkhi
Stuart J. Barnes
John “Skip” Benamati
Izak Benbasat
Raquel Benbunan-Fich
Alexander Benlian
Bettina Berendt
Guido Berens
Hemant Bhargava
Amit Bhatnagar
Ganesh Bhatt
Martin Bichler
Jesse Bockstedt
Waifong Boh
Indranil Bose
Nicola Breugst
Glenn Browne
Scott Buffett
Jinwei Cao
Lanlan Cao
Yong Cao
Aihwa Chang
Hsin-lu Chang
Mohamed Hédi Charki
Debabroto Chatterjee
Abhijit Chaudhury
Sophea Chea
Ramnath Chellappa
Andrew Chen
Daniel Chen
Jianqing Chen
Jin Chen
Kuan Chen
Zeng Chen
Hsing K. Cheng
Waiman Cheung
Lei Chi
Robert T.H. Chi
Roger Chiang
Alina Chircu
Chaochang Chiu
Kyungsub S. Choi
Joobin Choobineh
Zeng Chun
Wingyan Chung
John M. Clark
Theodore H. Clark
Randy Cooper
Nicoletta Corrocher
José Carlos Cortizo
Dianne Cyr
Qizhi Dai
Ronald Dattero
Jason Dedrick
Elena Delgado-Ballester
Chrysanthos Dellarocas
Haluk Demirkan
Xuefei (Nancy) Deng
Patrick De Pelsmacker
Douglas Derrick
Sarv Devaraj
Rajiv Dewan
Jasbir Dhaliwal
Tommaso Di Noia
Eugenio Di Sciascio
Soussan Djamasbi
Francesco Donini
Georgios I. Doukidis
William J. Drake
Wenjing Duan
Debora Dunkle
Robert Easley
Christophe Elie-Dit-Cosaque
Sean B. Eom
Andrea Everard
Chun-I Fan
Ming Fan
Xiaowen Fang
Yulin Fang
Bijan Fazlollahi
Alexander Felfernig
Jane Feng
Xiao Feng
Daniel R. Fesenmaier
Eliezer Fich
Pat Finnegan
Jerry Fjermestad
Oliver Fodor
Johann Füller
Brent Furneaux
Dennis F. Galletta
Bashar Gammoh
Dale Ganley
Guodong (Gordon) Gao
Roberto Garcia
Ina Garnefeld
Xianjun Geng
Sonja Gensler
George M. Giaglis
Steven Glover
Paulo Goes
Kim Huat Goh
Sigi Goode
Nelson Granados
Dawn Gregg
Ulrike Gretzel
Bin Gu
Xunhua Guo
Alok Gupta
Saurabh Gupta
Sumeet Gupta
Jungpil Hahn
Kunsoo Han
Dale Hanley
Matthew J. Hashim
Khaled Hassanein
Cheng Suang Heng
Tejaswini Herath
Thomas Hess
Traci J. Hess
Oliver Hinz
Lorin M. Hitt
Chin-Fu Ho
Susanna Ho
Sarah Hsieh
Pei-Fang Hsu
Paul Hu
Qing Hu
Chun-Yao Huang
Liqiang Huang
Qian Huang
Kai Lung Hui
Wendy Hui
Yujong Hwang
Renato Iannella
Ghiyong Im
Bharat A. Jain
Radhika Jain
Jeevan Jaisingh
Dietmar Jannach
Bernard J. Jansen
James J.J. Jiang
Zhenhui (Jack) Jiang
Sung Jin
Alice Johnson
Wen-Sheng Juang
Arnold Kamis
Gerald Kane
Atreyi Kankanhalli
Maurits Kaptein
Varol Kayhan
Weiling Ke
Tayfun Keskin
Lara Khansa
Melody Y. Kiang
Dan Kim
Dongmin Kim
Hee-Woong Kim
Jung Seek Kim
Kihoon Kim
Kwansoo Kim
Taeha Kim
Young-Gul Kim
Ruth King
Gary Klein
Ilsang Ko
Cenk Kocas
Chang E. Koh
Joon Koh
Rajiv Kohli
Marios Koufaris
Kevin Kuan
Christoph Kuhn
Ram Kumar
Jason Kuruzovich
Des Laffey
Hsiangchu Lai
Kee-hung Lai
Nancy Lankton
Michel Laroche
Ulrike Lechner
Albert L. Lederer
John Ledyard
Dongwon Lee
Eun-Jung Lee
Ho Geun Lee
Hong Yoo Lee
Inseong Lee
Jungwoo Lee
Myung-Soo Lee
Sang-Yong (Tom) Lee
Thomas Lee
Yaobin Lee
Chin Laung Lei
Jan Marco Leimeister
Dahui Li
Mengxiang Li
Ting Li
Xin Li
Xinxin Li
Xitong Li
Yung-Ming Li
Huigang Liang
Paul Licker
Annouk Lievens
Chieh-Peng Lin
Fu-ren Lin
Jack Lin
Mei Lin
Yucong Lin
Zhijie Lin
Peng Ling
Jun Liu
Xianghua Liu
Ying Liu
Yipeng Liu
Eleanor T. Loiacono
Alexander Lopes
Paul Benjamin Lowry
Xianghua Lu
Chuan Luo
Xueming Luo
Christoph Lutz
Xianghua Lv
Mark Lycett
Xiao Ma
Pruthikrai Mahatanankoon
Adam M. Mahmood
Rolf Mahnke
Ronald Maier
Stanislav Mamonov
Kent Marett
Sarit Markovich
Sean Marston
Nelson Massad
Christian Matt
Uwe Matzat
Kurt Matzler
Tamila Mavlanova
Jerrold May
Scott McCoy
Roberto Mejias
Thomas Miller
Randy Minas
Dinesh Mirchandani
Birendra Mishra
Sunil Mithas
Hamid Mohtadi
Alemayehu Molla
Ramiro Montealegre
Achita (Mi) Muthitacharoen
Kichan Nam
Ravi Nararayanaswamy
Matthew Nelson
Ralitza Nikolaeva
Oded Nov
Rainer Olbrich
Akinori Ono
Peter Otto
Zafer D. Ozdemir
Jun Pang
Insu Park
Sungjune Park
Craig Parker
Bhavik Pathak
Praveen Pathak
Ravi Patnayakuni
David Paul
Kenneth Peffers
Alex Pelaez
Robin Pennington
Iryna Pentina
Christoph Peters
James Pick
Roger A. Pick
Yves Pigneur
Bhuminan Piyathasanan
Huseyin Polat
Simpson Poon
Jaana Porra
Constance Porter
Key Pousttchi
Chris Preist
Lingyun Qiu
Vandana Ramachandran
K. Ramamurthy
Sridhar Ramaswami
C. Ranganathan
R. Ravichandran
Sury Ravindran
Gautam Ray
Louis Raymond
Yuqing Ren
Manuel Resinas
Hyeun-Suk Rhee
Christoph Riedl
Suzanne Rivard
Lionel P. Robert Jr.
Nicholas C. Romano
Timo Saarinen
Khawaja Saeed
Rajib Saha
Pallab Sanyal
Christian Schlereth
Jochen Scholl
Petra Schubert
Carsten Schultz
Judy Scott
Ravi Sen
Sagnika Sen
Mark Sena
Sylvain Sénécal
Purvi Shah
Yung-Cheng Shen
Susan A. Sherer
Amit Sheth
Savannah Shi
Zhan Shi
Hung-Pin Shih
Choon Ling Sia
Param Vir Singh
Sanjukta Das Smith
Rajib Soha
Jai-Yeol Son
Ryan Sougstad
William Spangler
Martin Spann
Bruce Spencer
Rajendra P. Srivastava
Thomas Stafford
Craig Standing
Charles Steinfield
Stefan Stieglitz
Troy J. Strader
Bo-chiuan Su
Mani Subramani
Chandrasekar Subramaniam
Ashok Subramanian
Eung-Kyo Suh
Justin Sydnor
Chuan-Hoo Tan
Daisy (Jing) Tan
Yong Tan
Qian Tang
Xinlin Tang
Monideepa Tarafdar
Alfred Taudes
Ernie Teo
Thompson Teo
Ronald Thompson
Simon Thompson
James Y.L. Thong
Daniel Tolstoy
Noam Tractinsky
Arvind Tripathi
Yanbin Tu
Y. Alex Tung
Ofir Turel
Nicolas Turenne
Tuure Tuunanen
Andrew Urbaczewski
Jean-Claude Usunier
Sonja Utz
Rustam Vahidov
Peter van Baalen
Sebastian Voigt
Nir Vulkan
G. R. Wagner
Steven Walczak
Zhiping Walter
Alex Wang
Bin Wang
Edward Wang
Eric T.G. Wang
Hui Wang
Kai Wang
Qiu-Hong Wang
Sophia Wang
Weiquan Wang
Sidne Ward
Sunil Wattal
Thomas Weber
K.K. Wei
John D. Wells
Hannes Werthner
Rolf T. Wigand
Fons Wijnhoven
Guido Wirtz
Christina Wong
Chuck Wood
Dazhong Wu
Ping Amy Wu
Torrie Wu
Zixin Wu
James Wyse
Lan Xia
Chun-Xiao Xing
Lizhen Xu
Yunjie (Calvin) Xu
Ling Xue
Ruiliang Yan
Christopher Yang
Kyunghoon Yang
Zhiyung Yang
Rebecca Yen
Denny Yin
Byungjoon Yoo
Chul Woo Yoo
Yufei Yuan
Fatemeh (Mariam) Zahedi
German Zenetti
Chun Zeng
Cheng Zhang
Dongsong Zhang
Han Zhang
Jennifer Zhang
John Zhang
Ping Zhang
Xiaoquan Zhang
Huimin Zhao
Kexin Zhao
Xia Zhao
Haichao Zheng
Xiao-Hui Zheng
Lina Zhou
Wei Zhou
Yilu Zhou
Zhongyun (Phil) Zhou
Hongwei Zhu
Youlong Zhuang
And now, let us proceed with the papers.