Pricing with local interactions on agent-based electronic marketplaces

This paper investigates the optimal pricing strategies of a selling agent that is randomly matched with several heterogeneous buying agents whose reservation prices are initially unknown. The seller perceives the behaviors of the buying agents through a logistic distribution with unknown parameters. We study the optimal learning by experimentation model of the logistic distribution. We extend this framework to a dynamic pricing model in which the selling agent is randomly matched with buying agents that are able to communicate their purchase experience to other buying agents. We carry out multi-agent system simulations of this dynamic pricing decision problem and we discuss some properties of the price dynamics one can observe on such marketplaces.     

Adoption and impact of collaboration electronic marketplaces

This paper reviews and assesses several theoretical perspectives on one type of business-to-business electronic marketplace—collaboration marketplaces. Whereas transaction-oriented marketplaces are characterized by catalogs, auctions or exchanges, and support for negotiated pricing, collaboration marketplaces are characterized by planning capabilities such as continuous planning, forecasting, and replenishment or product life-cycle management. Collaboration marketplaces have different benefits than transaction-oriented marketplaces and different adoption considerations. Therefore, theoretical frameworks such as transaction cost theory, which apply quite well to transaction-oriented marketplaces, provide only a partial explanation of collaboration marketplace adoption. We compare alternative theoretical perspectives on collaboration marketplaces and discuss their implications for future research.     

Supplier selection in electronic marketplaces using satisficing and fuzzy AHP

Supplier selection is a critical and demanding task for companies that participate in electronic marketplaces to find suppliers and to execute electronically their transactions. This paper is aimed to suggest a fresh approach for decision support enabling effective supplier selection processes in electronic marketplaces. We introduce an evaluation method with two stages: initial screening of the suppliers through the enforcement of hard constraints on the selection criteria and final supplier evaluation through the application of a modified variant of the Fuzzy Preference Programming (FPP) method. The proposed method alleviates the information overload effect that is inherent in the environment of electronic marketplaces, facilitates an easier elicitation of user preferences through the reduction of necessary user input (i.e. pairwise comparisons) and reduces computational complexity, in terms of the number of linear programs to be solved, in comparison with the original FPP method. The FPP method is adopted and modified accordingly in order to tackle the issue of inconsistency/uncertainty of human preference models. Our approach is demonstrated with the example of a hypothetical metal manufacturing company that finds and selects suppliers in the environment of an electronic marketplace.     

Trust-oriented buyer strategies for seller reporting and selection in competitive electronic marketplaces

In competitive electronic marketplaces where some selling agents may be dishonest and quality products offered by good sellers are limited, selecting the most profitable sellers as transaction partners is challenging, especially when buying agents lack personal experience with sellers. Reputation systems help buyers to select sellers by aggregating seller information reported by other buyers (called advisers). However, in such competitive marketplaces, buyers may also be concerned about the possibility of losing business opportunities with good sellers if they report truthful seller information. In this paper, we propose a trust-oriented mechanism built on a game theoretic basis for buyers to: (1) determine an optimal seller reporting strategy, by modeling the trustworthiness (competency and willingness) of advisers in reporting seller information; (2) discover sellers who maximize their profit by modeling the trustworthiness of sellers and considering the buyers’ preferences on product quality. Experimental results confirm that competitive marketplaces operating with our mechanism lead to better profit for buyers and create incentives for seller honesty.     

Perceived quality factors of location-based apps on trust,perceived privacy risk,and continuous usage intention

Numerous location-based services (LBS) studies have suggested that the risk of disclosing personal privacy hinders consumers from adopting LBS, whereas scant attention has focused on clarifying how to mitigate the perceived privacy risk of using LBS. This quantitative study focuses on the effects of consumer quality perceptions (i.e. information quality, system quality, and service quality) on their trust in LBS, which consequently affects perceived privacy risk and continued usage intention towards LBS. Research data were collected through a market survey website; 1399 valid questionnaires were collected. Structural equation modelling analysis was applied to the data. The results revealed that information quality, system quality, and service quality were positively related to perceived trust. Perceived trust also correlated negatively with perceived privacy risk, but positively with continued usage intention. A managerial implication drawn from the findings is that LBS providers should develop more useful user interfaces or provide timely, personalised services to reduce perceived privacy risk and strengthen LBS continued usage intention.     

The effect of risk on trust attitude and trust behavior in interaction with information and decision automation

Situational risk has been postulated to be one of the most important contextual factors affecting operator’s trust in automation. However, experimentally, it has received only little attention and was directly manipulated even less. To close this gap, this study used a virtual reality multi-task environment where the main task entailed making a diagnosis by assessing different parameters. Risk was manipulated via the altitude, the task was set in including the possibility of virtually falling in case of a mistake. Participants were aided either by information or decision automation. Results revealed that trust attitude toward the automation was not affected by risk. While trust attitude was initially lower for the decision automation, it was equally high in both groups at the end of the experiment after experiencing reliable support. Trust behavior was significantly higher and increased during the experiment for the decision automation supported group in the form of less automation verification behavior. However, this detrimental effect was distinctly attenuated under high risk. This implies that negative consequences of decision automation in the real world might have been overestimated by studies not incorporating risk.

     

Perceived usefulness,personal experiences,risk perception and trust as determinants of adoption of e-government services in The Netherlands

Recently Dutch government, as well as many other governments around the world, has digitized a major portion of its public services. With this development electronic services finally arrive at the transaction level. The risks of electronic services on the transactional level are more profound than at the informational level. The public needs to trust the integrity and ‘information management capacities’ of the government or other involved organizations, as well as trust the infrastructure and those managing the infrastructure. In this process, the individual citizen will have to decide to adopt the new electronic government services by weighing its benefits and risks. In this paper, we present a study which aims to identify the role of risk perception and trust in the intention to adopt government e-services.     

Factors associated with distressing electronic harassment and cyberbullying

Electronic harassment and cyberbullying can take various forms and involve a range of perpetrators. This study utilised survey results from 1673 New Zealand students aged 12–19 years to explore electronic harassment on the internet and mobile phones and the distress associated with it. Overall, a third of participants reported electronic harassment in the prior year, with half (53.7%) rating it as distressing. Specific hypotheses and findings were that: mobile phone harassment would be more common and distressing than internet harassment, this was supported with 7% more participants reporting mobile phone harassment and 5.5% more reporting distress from it compared to internet harassment; females would report more harassment than males, this was supported for mobile phone harassment as females’ odds of harassment was approximately twice that of males (however the hypothesis did not hold for internet harassment); females would report more distress from harassment, this was supported for both internet and mobile phone harassment, with females’ odds of distress approximately twice as high as males; that some forms and perpetrators would be associated with more distress than others, again this was supported with the most distressing form of mobile phone harassment being direct verbal aggression and for harassment on the internet being rumour spreading. The study also found a preponderance of harassment from school peers. As predicted there were multiple interactions between the harassment forms and perpetrators and gender. These results highlight important differences in how harassment is delivered and experienced across the mobile phone and internet modalities. The findings point to the need to explicitly consider mobile phone harassment, as well as better ways to tailor interventions to address distressing harassment. Schools are well placed to address electronic harassment alongside other bullying interventions.     

Perceived risks and customer needs of geographical accessibility in electronic commerce

Customer needs of geographical accessibility still plays an important role in electronic commerce, though the extent to which it does so varies according to the characteristics of products, services and the market strategies of firms. In this study, factors affecting customer needs of geographical accessibility and their structural relationships were investigated through a customer survey and statistical analysis using the methods of confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The result shows that the three independent factors, unease of delivery, complexity of services, and trust and reliability affect significantly customer needs of geographical accessibility, with perceived risks of distant orders being a mediating factor in the relationship.     

To sell or not to sell: Exploring sellers' trust and risk of chargeback fraud in cross‐border electronic commerce

Over the past few decades, chargeback fraud from buyers has been identified as a major risk faced by online sellers, particularly small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises, in cross‐border electronic commerce. However, most previous studies have focused on trust and perceived risk from the buyers' perspective and in domestic online marketplaces, while neglecting the importance of sellers' trust and perceived risk in the success of online transactions and the significance of cross‐border transactions. To fill this gap in the literature, this study examines both the antecedents and the impacts of sellers' trust in buyers and their perceived risk of chargeback fraud on sellers' intention to trade with buyers in the context of cross‐border e‐commerce. To this end, we develop a conceptual model that identifies a set of institutional mechanisms to enhance sellers' trust and reduce their perceived risk. Hypotheses are tested via a survey of 443 sellers on DHgate.com , one of the major cross‐border e‐commerce websites connecting the small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises of mainland China with overseas buyers. Our research makes concrete contributions to e‐commerce research and generates useful insights for third‐party online transaction platforms and online trade policy makers.     

Toward holistic insights into trust in electronic markets: examining the structure of the relationship between vendor trust and its antecedents

This review advances propositions regarding the structure of the relationship between vendor trust and its antecedents as this structure pertains to the relative and complementary effectiveness of trust-building strategies. By understanding how the relationship between vendor trust and its antecedents is structured and why this relationship is structured the way it is, we hope to gain more holistic insights into trust in electronic market transactions and to provide online businesses with a clear recommendation of how to establish trust in an effective and efficient manner. Thus, while past research has made important contributions by uncovering a great number of antecedents to vendor trust, this review examines two strategies more in depth: Vendor reputation and Web site trust. Drawing from the literature on trust, we propose Vendor reputation to be more effective than Web site trust. We also propose a small complementary effect between Vendor reputation and Web site trust that may help online businesses to generate superior vendor trust.     

Intuition,risk, and the formation of online trust

Understanding how consumers evaluate website trustworthiness is a critical factor for online vendors. The dominant view espouses a deliberative trust formation process whereby shoppers evaluate security certificates, return policies, user feedback and the like, implying a highly rational underlying trust calculus. In this paper we use a laboratory experiment to explore an alternative perspective, based on the non-rational associative reasoning approach. Our findings show that when faced with a no-risk hypothetical decision about whether or not they would purchase a book from an online bookseller, subjects’ decision-making processes were indeed consistent with the dominant deliberative view. However, when confronted with a decision entailing risk (i.e., sharing sensitive personal information with an unknown website), subjects became reliant on their non-rational, gut-level intuition. We adopt a dual-process reasoning theory to make sense of these findings, and recommend that vendors take into account associative reasoning factors when designing online interfaces. Future research directions are provided.     

Evaluating transaction trust and risk levels in peer-to-peer e-commerce environments

Trust evaluation is critical to peer-to-peer (P2P) e-commerce environments. Traditionally the evaluation process is based on other peers' recommendations neglecting transaction amounts. This may lead to the bias in transaction trust evaluation and risk the new transaction. The weakness may be exploited by dishonest sellers to obtain good transaction reputation by selling cheap goods and then cheat buyers by selling expensive goods. In this paper we present a novel model for transaction trust evaluation, which differentiates transaction amounts when computing trust values. The trust evaluation is dependent on transaction history, the amounts of old transactions, and the amount of the new transaction. Therefore, the trust value can be taken as the risk indication of the forthcoming transaction and is valuable for the decision-making of buyers.     

The importance of trust and community in developing and maintaining a community electronic network

Focusing on two rural cities in Minnesota, this paper analyses ways in which these communities have gone about providing information technology to their citizens. This paper will explain why one city has chosen to take an entrepreneurial approach to networking and the other city has chosen a more collaborative approach, promoting equal access for its citizens. Based on interviews, focus groups, and surveys in the two cities, we find that these divergent approaches are related to fundamental cultural differences in the two communities. One city seems to have a more pronounced reservoir of social capital, meaning that people in this community tend to be more trusting, have more cohesive social ties and are prone toward collaboration. Cooperation and social trust, particularly among community leaders, seem to have played large roles in triggering the development of a community electronic network. Moreover, we discover that political engagement and interpersonal trust among the citizenry in this city seem to be pivotal in sustaining and perpetuating the community endeavor.     

一种基于风险和推荐的用户信任计算方法

结合客观的风险评估和主观的推荐信任共同计算用户可信度,并利用推荐可信度和域可信度来识别和惩罚提供虚假反馈的服务方,提出了基于风险和推荐的用户信任计算方法。仿真实验表明,该模型具有较好的动态适应性,能够准确反映用户行为,为信任决策提供安全、可靠的依据。     

Expectations and outcomes in electronic identity management: the role of trust and public value

This paper is concerned with the issues facing stakeholders attempting to develop, implement and maintain electronic identity management (IdM) systems in government. It argues that perceptions of electronic IdM vary, and thus a single conceptualisation of the concept is difficult. Using data collected from stakeholders in 17 European countries, Canada, New Zealand and the U.S.A. from 2003 through 2007, a qualitative analysis identifies 10 dominant stakeholder areas of concern which we term ‘themes’. These are then mapped onto a framework of public value due to Grimsley and Meehan which relates services to outcomes and the development of trust. We conclude by questioning the conceptualisation of trust within the context of IdM, and suggesting that considering trust as the mitigation of relational risk is more appropriate. We also consider the usefulness of public value as a notion for informing IdM and highlight the lack of national differences in our diverse data set.     

Financial risk and its impact on new purchasing behavior in the online retail setting

This paper examines the effect of financial risk on perceptions of service quality and relationship-marketing quality in the online retail environment. Perceptions of financial risk were found to be negatively associated with service quality. In particular, a well-designed and attractive Web site was found to mitigate perceptions of financial risk during early trial-buy purchasing. Relationship-marketing quality was not affected by financial risk. This study adds to an enhanced understanding of how risk perceptions influence assessment of service quality and relationship-marketing quality. While the drivers of service quality and relationship-marketing quality have been examined extensively in the online setting, a surprising lack of research investigates the role of risk perceptions in the early stage, buy-trial purchasing behavior. This emerging area of research interest is deserving of more attention. Our findings provide valuable normative guidance to researchers interested in the affects of perceived risk (particularly financial risk) on new online shoppers, emphasizing the interdependency between Web site design and risk perceptions.     

Business relationships in internet-based electronic markets: the role of goodwill trust and transaction costs

Abstract.  Transaction costs and goodwill trust, which differentiate between transactional and collaborative relationships, were found in existing research to play a significant role in the way organizations use internet technologies to manage their relationships with customers and suppliers within electronic markets (EM). However, a thorough investigation of role that the two dimensions play together in shaping the use of EM is lacking from the mainstream literature. This research addresses transaction costs and goodwill trust together to clarify the transformations that internet use has brought on the nature of interorganizational relationships that develop between EM players. The research finds the use of EM in collaborative relationships is governed by trade-offs between different outcomes that different EM functionalities have on organizational objectives. Organizations assess these trade-offs, and select those functionalities that best serve to achieve their collaborative relational objectives. In contrast, no trade-offs are find in the transactional model, as the use of EM here is driven principally by transaction cost reductions.