The rapid growth of the Internet and the number of online consumers have resulted in increased fears from privacy advocates, legislators and consumer groups regarding the guarantees of privacy when using e‐commerce and the Internet. Some companies collect marketing information on consumers’ Internet habits without their knowledge or consent. This study looks at stated policies appearing on the Web sites of a number of major e‐commerce companies regarding Internet privacy. This was accomplished by the examination of information related to current Internet policies posted on these firms’ Web sites. Also examined was whether these policies have been changed over a three‐year time period. Five policy categories were examined over this three‐year period using a consistent rating scale. These categories were privacy, returns, shipping, warranty, and security.
Students have traditionally shied away from the production and
operations management (POM) courses offered in schools of business in
favour of financial and marketing coursework. Looks at proposed reasons
for this phenomenon and surveys students regarding their perceptions of
the POM discipline and careers in manufacturing. While a number of
suspicions are confirmed, some surprising perceptions are uncovered. A
strategy for overcoming possible bias is offered.
Purpose -The present research is an updated and expanded continuation of an article by Parayitam et al. from 2008. The purpose of this study is to examine several internet policies and whether the communication of these policies to the customer has significantly changed during a ten year period. Design/methodology/approach -The study defines published policies of how a company operates with respect to different factors. The policies examined are privacy, security, shipping, returns, and warranty. Each of the policies described above were then rated as per the rating scale defined by the authors. The 525 e-commerce sites studied were divided into service and product sites, respectively. The e-commerce sites were also separated into 28 industry groups. The data were also collected on some of the other factors that were important in this study.Findings -E-commerce companies do not fully inform their customers. The results showed no significant relationships between the policy ratings and any of the other factors taken into account.Research limitations/implications -The net incomes collected were the companies' entire income, not exclusively from online sales. The present study used an unbalanced sample size consisting of more product sites than service sites. Practical implications -People doing business over internet with e-commerce companies need to read the privacy policy carefully and should be aware of how their information will be used by the e-commerce companies. Originality/value -The study provides valuable information about e-commerce companies in communicating their customer service policies and very little changes have taken place in the last ten year period.
This paper develops a global information technology model that captures the main drivers of a firm's IT applications in multiple markets with two illustrative company cases. The paper develops a global information technology model by drawing from consulting experience and the relevant literature. The bases for the model are – a firm's environment, level of technological diffusion within a firm, and prospective technology applications based on the existing inventory of IT applications that support the firm's operations. The paper provides a description of the model dimensions and furnishes an illustrative mapping on an Indian firm and an American firm's operations.
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