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The emphasis on inter-organizational systems gave rise to concerns about inter-organizational relationships as trading partners became aware of the socio-political factors and trust that affect their relationships. This paper examines the importance of inter-organizational-trust in business-to-business E-commerce organizations. It examines how inter-organizational relationships impact trading partner trust, perceived benefits, perceived risks, and technology trust mechanisms in E-commerce that can in turn influence outcomes of business-to-business E-commerce. This paper develops a conceptual model and tests the model using a case study research methodology. The aim is to solicit qualitative in depth understanding of inter-organizational-trust in business-to-business E-commerce. Eight organizations from a cross section of industries that formed four bi-directional dyads participated in the third stage of this study. The first two stages include exploratory case studies in three organizations in the automotive industry that applied EDI via Value-Added-Networks in 1997, and a nationwide survey of organizations that examined the extent of E-commerce adoption in Australia and New Zealand in 1998. The findings identify the need for trustworthy business relationships in an E-commerce environment.

We present recent results from an EPSRC funded project VirTex (Virtual Textile Catalogues). The goal of this project is to develop graphics and image‐processing software for the capture, storage, search, retrieval and visualisation of 3D textile samples. The ultimate objective is to develop a web‐based application that allows the user to search a database for suitable textiles and to visualize selected samples using real‐time photorealistic 3D animation. The main novelty of this work is in the combined use of photometric stereo and real‐time per‐pixel‐rendering for the capture and visualisation of textile samples. Photometric stereo is a simple method that allows both bump map and colour map of a surface texture to be captured digitally. It uses a single fixed camera to obtain three images under three different illumination conditions. The colour map is the image that would be obtained under diffuse lighting. The bump map describes the small undulations of the surface relief. When imported into a standard graphics program these images can be used to texture 3D models. The appearance is particularly photorealistic, especially under changing illumination and viewpoints. The viewer can manipulate both viewpoint and lighting to gain a deeper perception of the properties of the textile sample. In addition, these images can be used with 3D models of products to provide extremely accurate visualisations for the customer. Until recently, these images could only be rendered using ray‐tracing software. However, recent consumer‐level graphics cards from companies such as Nvidia, ATI and 3Dlabs provide real‐time per‐pixel shading. We have developed software that takes advantage of the advanced rendering features of these cards to render images in real‐time. It uses photometrically acquired bump and colour maps of textiles to provide real‐time visualisation of a textile sample, under user‐controlled illumination, pose and flex.

Routing in ad hoc networks faces significant challenges due to node mobility and dynamic network topology. In this work we propose the use of mobility prediction to reduce the search space required for route discovery. A method of mobility prediction making use of a sectorized cluster structure is described with the proposal of the Prediction based Location Aided Routing (P‐LAR) protocol. Simulation study and analytical results of P‐LAR find it to offer considerable saving in the amount of routing traffic generated during the route discovery phase.

Electronic commerce (EC) transactions are subject to multiple information security threats. Proposes that consumer trust in EC transactions is influenced by perceived information security and distinguishes it from the objective assessment of security threats. Proposes mechanisms of encryption, protection, authentication, and verification as antecedents of perceived information security. These mechanisms are derived from technological solutions to security threats that are visible to consumers and hence contribute to actual consumer perceptions. Tests propositions in a study of 179 consumers and shows a significant relationship between consumers’ perceived information security and trust in EC transactions. Explores the role of limited financial liability as a surrogate for perceived security. However, the findings show that there is a minimal effect of financial liability on consumers’ trust in EC. Engenders several new insights regarding the role of perceived security in EC transactions.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model of innovative industries which face coopetition: firms compete while committing at the same time to R&D joint ventures and other cooperative agreements. These joint activities are likely to occur in presence of complementarities on demand or supply sides; they raise specific accounting issues concerned with recognition and measurement of intangible resources committed to, and generated from them.

The paper develops a heuristic industrial economic model characterized by joint utility of outputs for custumers on the demand side, and potential complementarities in R&D activities on the supply side. The authors’ model describes different scenarios generated by alternative corporate pricing strategies. In particular, these strategies (as implemented by firms or imposed by regulators) influence both infrastructure corporate investments and the creation and stability of coopetitive relationships.

The model scenarios show that especially accounting for intangible resources – related to processes of innovation and R&D – should deserve specific attention. Firms and regulators need to properly account for both hard intangibles that have market prices of reference, and soft and ethereal intangibles that factually have not. A stock method of accounting for intangibles results then which is narrow and biased, because of its focus on hard intangibles alone. A flow method of accounting should be preferred, which tracks the cumulated investment flow of direct and indirect expenditures in innovation and development, properly allocated within and between firms.

The paper argues for regulatory frameworks that enable increasing the positive effects of cooperation while repressing collusive behaviours (technological standardization, fiscal incentives to welfare‐improving innovation and strategy, public research, costumers’ protection, and so forth). Concerning the overall industrial organization, the paper's theoretical analysis shows the need for better recognition and measurement of intangibles and complementarities in costing and pricing, for both corporate and regulatory purposes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that affect Palestinian customers’ use of online banking services.

An empirical study was conducted using a questionnaire in order to test the hypotheses. The questionnaire was distributed to 500 respondents selected by the participating banks. A total of 369 complete questionnaires were returned. The study’s independent variables include technology adoption propensity, customers’ value for online personalization, customers’ privacy concern, e-trust, technological leadership and loyalty. Palestinian customers’ usage of online banking services is the dependent variable.

The results of the model tested clearly suggest that the use of online banking services is influenced, respectively, by the technological leadership, e-trust, e-loyalty, customers’ value for online personalization, customers’ concern for privacy and propensity of technology adoption. Finally, this paper suggests that policy makers should develop a prioritized hierarchy of actions in developing the effective use of bank’s online services, based on the t- and p-values of the latter mentioned factors.

One limitation of the study is relying on self-reported cross-sectional data collection, rather than longitudinal surveying. Despite such limitation, the study provides the Palestinian banking sector with recommendations to promote online banking services based on the empirically identified factors affecting such service adoption.

Palestinian banks should promote the adoption of online banking services by supporting personalization of services, privacy and trust. Customers should always be informed that their bank is among the first banks to introduce the latest state-of-the-art online services. Technology innovative and diverse online services should be offered by banks to attract customers.

Although numerous research studies have studied the factors affecting customers in using electronic and online banking services, few studies have considered such usage in the developing countries, such as Arab countries in general and Palestine in particular. This is the first study to examine the factors affecting the adoption of online banking services in Palestine. This study provides empirical evidence to fill in the gap by providing a deeper understanding of the factors affecting the usage of online banking services in the country. The findings of this study can help decision makers in the Palestinian banks to develop practical plans that might accelerate and expand the adoption of online banking emphasizing personalized and trusted services offered with high level of security and privacy.

The emergence of internet-enabled technology has led to the software service model in which the software firm, instead of the consumer, maintains software ownership. This model can curtail software piracy more effectively than the traditional on-premises software model. However, software firms are not abandoning traditional on-premises software but embracing both models simultaneously. In this study, the authors consider a firm’s software bundling decision in combination with its piracy deterrence strategy. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The authors build three stylized models to analytically compare the bundling strategies under three scenarios: no piracy, piracy is present and piracy is present while the firm applies digital rights management (DRM).

The authors find pure bundling (PB) to be the optimal strategy due to the combination of competition and cannibalization effects in mixed bundling (MB). Simultaneously, consumers may enjoy greater surplus in PB than in MB, making PB the preferred strategy for both the firm and consumers. Interestingly, the win-win outcome coexists with some degree of piracy in the market.

The results provide important insights for firms and policy-makers and contribute to the literature on piracy and product bundling. First, the authors show piracy could be another driver for product bundling, which has never been discussed in prior literature. Second, the authors suggest an alternative perspective; that PB may be a desirable outcome for both firms and consumers when considering piracy and DRM. More surprisingly, this desirable outcome occurs with some level of piracy in the market. The presence of piracy leads to competition and cannibalization effects in MB, which eventually results in the win-win outcome in the software market for both the firm and the consumers.

Companies are increasingly leveraging digital technologies toward innovation strategies that deliver novel features to customers sequentially through successive new product generations (i.e., successive innovation). Extant literature examining successive innovation is both limited and fragmented across marketing and management literatures. Our goal is to synthesize literature on concepts related to successive innovation (such as versioning and upgrades) to identify the core dimensions of successive innovation and provide a cohesive framework to guide future research in this domain.

Given the equivocality in understanding the conceptual domain of successive innovation, we review and synthesize literature across three disciplinary domains: marketing, management, and information and decision sciences. Based on the emerging patterns from the literature review, we develop a conceptual framework of successive innovation with the aim of moving the discussion toward greater theoretical clarity.

Based on the literature review and synthesis, we identify three core-dimensions that define successive innovation and compare these across digital and physical product realms: coexistence, embeddedness, and adoption controllability.

Our proposed conceptual dimensions of successive innovation, and discussion of differences across physical and digital product domains, offer important directions for future research and a common vocabulary.

As physical and digital successive innovations can differ in coexistence, embeddedness, and adoption controllability, firms need to consider relevant barriers to adoption of successive product generations and select appropriate strategies to promote and communicate successive innovation. Our proposed successive innovation conceptual dimensions help managers comprehend the complexity of arranging such innovation in business and consumer segments.

Our contribution to the emerging literature on successive innovation is threefold. First, by conducting a comprehensive literature review, we integrate insights from different fields of inquiry (i.e., marketing, management, and information and decision sciences). Second, based on the synthesis of the literature, we offer a conceptual framework of successive innovation, which aims to move the discussion toward greater theoretical clarity. Third, based on our review and conceptual framework, we discuss a set of future research directions to guide academic research efforts.

For most of us in the industry, and certainly the members of CEMA, 1992 could have been much better. To look back over the black spots would serve only to remind us that we are not yet out of the woods. Despite the continuing recession with its attendant gloom and despondency, the Association has had some high points during the past year.

Prepaid mobile Internet is one of the most profitable services that are composed of multiple attributes. The overall utility of Internet service can be broken down into the sum of the utility of individual attribute levels. Based on the multi-attribute theory, rational consumers choose the service that yields the highest utility from a number of possible alternatives. Determining the optimal attribute levels that satisfy consumers' preferences and maximize the total revenue of the firm is a challenging multi-attribute decision problem for any mobile operator. When designing mobile Internet services, adopting a robust composition of services against different realizations of competitors' strategies can bring advantages for network operators. The purpose of this study is to determine the optimal attribute levels of prepaid mobile Internet packages with the aim of maximizing the total revenue of the firm by considering the paradigms of multi-attribute utility theory about consumer choices and the issue of uncertainty in counterpart services offered by the competitors.

This paper formulates the problem of multi-attribute pricing and design of mobile Internet plans in a competitive environment by developing deterministic and robust scenario-based mathematical models and considering the paradigms of multi-attribute utility theory about consumer choices. The proposed robust scenario-based models are based on three different paradigms, including maximizing expected revenue, minimizing the negative deviation from expected revenue and minimizing the maximum regret. A comprehensive numerical analysis is conducted to evaluate and compare the efficiency of the proposed models.

The evaluations reveal that deploying recourse policy can result in higher revenue for the firm when facing uncertainty. By doing sensitivity analysis, this paper shows that consumer preferences for brand attribute and consumers' purchase frequency can influence the revenue of network operators.

This paper develops a novel deterministic multi-attribute product line design (PLD) model to address the problem of determining the price and composition of prepaid mobile Internet plans. Furthermore, the issue of uncertainty in counterpart services offered by the competitors is studied for the first time in the PLD literature.