Pay Now or Later? The Impact of Temporal Separation of Payments and Consumption on Consumer Payment Preferences

In this chapter, we draw on the behavioral economics literature to identify the conditions under which consumers would prefer one of three pricing schemes (pre-payment, pay-as-you-go, and post-payment). We suggest that consumer preferences for particular pricing schemes are likely to be determined by systematic relationships that exist among a variety of psychological variables. We offer nine empirical propositions that identify when consumers will prefer different pricing schemes.

Perceived Risk and Escrow Adoption in Online Consumer-to-Consumer Auction Markets

Escrow is an emerging trust service in online consumer-to-consumer auction markets in preventing Internet fraud. This chapter studies the effect of traders’ perceived risk on the adoption of online escrow service (OES). This research establishes decision-making models for both the honest trader and the monopolist OES provider. Perceived risk rate (PRR), a dynamic measure of perceived risk for online traders, is introduced to link the two decision-making models together. A calculative model for PRR is proposed, and the primary outcomes from the computer simulation for PRR measurement are presented. This chapter reveals that OES adoption is positively correlated to the estimated level of traders’ PRR. A higher PRR definitely leads to a higher OES adoption rate and hence reduces the Internet fraud in the auction markets. In addition, an overestimate of PRR leads to higher adoption rate, lower defrauding rate, and higher fraud blocking rate.

Information Transparency Hypothesis

This chapter explores the private and social desirability of information transparency of a business-to-business (B2B) electronic market that provides an online platform for information transmission. The abundance of transaction data available on the Internet tends to make information more transparent in B2B electronic markets. In such a transparent environment, it becomes easier for firms to obtain information that may allow them to infer their rivals’ costs than in a traditional, opaque market. How then does this benefit firms participating in the B2B exchanges? To what extent does information transparency affect consumers and the social welfare in a broader sense? Focusing on the informational effects, this study explores firms’ incentives to join a B2B exchange by developing a game-theoretic model under asymmetric information. We then examine its effect on expected profits, consumer surplus, and social welfare. Our results challenge the “information transparency hypothesis” (that is, open sharing of information in electronic markets is beneficial to all participating firms). In contrast to the popular belief, we show that information transparency could be a double-edged sword. Although its overall effect on social welfare is positive, its private desirability is deeply divided between producers and consumers, and even among producers themselves.

Inter-Firm Collaboration and Electronic Business

This chapter studies the joint effects of inter-firm collaboration and electronic business on firm profitability primarily in Finnish manufacturing. It is found that deeper forms of inter-firm collaboration boost financial performance but that high e-business intensity might even strain profitability. Firms that simultaneously have high inter-firm collaboration and e-business intensities as well as use electronic networks for conducting their collaboration are also more profitable. Based on this, two conclusions are drawn. First, suitable e-business practices facilitate inter-firm collaboration. Once in place, inter-firm collaboration tends to be immensely more productive with supporting electronic means. Second, e-business investment has to be accompanied by complementary organizational innovations, in this case a new form of external (and also internal, although not observed directly in the data used) organization of the firm, that is, inter-firm collaboration.

Surviving a Standards War

In April 1997 a consortium of hardware manufacturers and movie studios launched the DVD format. By that fall, electronics retailing giant Circuit City announced its intention to launch a partially incompatible format known as DIVX. This chapter assesses Circuit City’s strategy to establish the dominant standard for digital video technology. We identify several key principles that any firm must consider when deciding how to compete in a market with evolving standards. We argue that virtually all of these factors weighed in against Circuit City, so that its effort was destined to fail.

Transparency Strategy in Internet-Based Selling

Internet-based selling offers firms many new opportunities regarding the strategies for design of mechanisms to support consumer transactions. This chapter examines the use of transparency as a strategy for Internet-based selling for maximizing firms’ value from their selling activities on the World Wide Web. We define transparency as the extent to which a seller reveals private information to the consumer and explore three of its most often observed dimensions: product, price, and supplier transparency. We evaluate consumers’ responses to each kind of transparency in terms of their willingness-to-pay. We position the theory in the context of the online air travel industry to showcase its applicability and the power of its theoretical insights in an appropriate real world context. We also generalize our findings to suggest some managerial guidelines that will help managers who want to make choices regarding transparency strategy in other Internet-related business contexts.

Partnering for Perfection

New technological innovations have made it possible for new intermediaries to create value in business processes that involve the procurement of manufacturing and services supplies. Associated with these innovations is the emergence of business-to-business (B2B) electronic markets. These act as digital intermediaries that aim to reduce the transaction costs and mitigate the risks inherent in procurement. They improve buyers’ capabilities to search for attractive prices and also serve to increase the liquidity of sellers’ products. In this chapter, the authors explore the evolution of B2B e-market firms in terms of the strategies they employ to “perfect” their value propositions and business processes for the firms. This is a critical aspect of their attractiveness as business partners for the buyers and sellers that participate in their electronic marketplaces. The key theoretical perspectives of this work are adapted from economics and strategic management. They enable the authors to construct a “partnering for perfection” theory of strategic alliances in e-procurement markets. This perspective is captured in a series of inquiries about “why” and “when” B2B e-markets are observed to form alliances. The authors carry out an innovative econometric analysis that delivers empirical results to show the efficacy of the theory in interpreting real world events. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of this work in academic and managerial terms.

Economics of Immediate Gratification in Mobile Commerce

In this chapter we attempt to build a bridge between mobile commerce and the emerging field of behavioral economics. We first provide examples from mobile commerce and link them to behavioral economics. We then build a stylized model to assess the impact of hyperbolic discounting on the profit-maximizing behavior of a monopolist firm. We find that the monopolist makes lower profits compared to exponential discounting consumers for low levels of (positive) network externalities. As the network externalities increase, first-period prices increase, second period prices decrease and the profits increase in equilibrium.

Structure Evolution of B2B Enterprise Networks

This chapter analyzes the structural dynamics of multilateral business-to-business (B2B) relationships based on game theoretical approach. It focuses on the evolution of network structures initiated by three major forces: a neutral intermediary, a dominant supply chain partner, and an industry consortium. We show the typical enterprise network structures, identify the conditions that cause structure reconfiguration, and demonstrate the change of social welfare in the evolution process. Web-based technologies have changed the landscape of enterprise networks, and the proposed framework will provide an analytical understanding of the endogenous formation and dynamics of enterprise networks in the information era.