Electronic commerce research and applications (ECRA) co-editors' introduction for volume 8, issue 4, July - August 2009

• Main Authors: KAUFFMAN, Robert John, Chau, Patrick Y. K., Payne, Terry R., Westland, J. Christopher
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2009
• Subjects: Computer Sciences
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/7232
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Economic theory and economic analysis methods, including analytical modeling and econometric analysis of empirical data, are well represented in the prior research that Electronic Commerce Research and Applications has published. This issue is devoted to four articles that share common theoretical and methodological perspectives from economics. ECRA’s Coordinating Editor, Rob Kauffman, selected these papers from some of the regular submissions that were accepted to the journal. The authors explore topics that relate to price dispersion and weekend effects in online retailing, the economics of personalization when consumer privacy is a concern, and coalition-building and the efficacy of group-buying on the Internet. Additional details of the papers are described in the Guest Editor’s Introduction.The Co-Editors welcome our research and industry colleagues to consider proposing the development of another special issue on economics-related topics. Some of the issues of interest include paid search and advertising, e-commerce business models and competitive strategy, IT investments and the development of IT infrastructure for e-commerce and e-business activities, and the economics of social networks. We will shortly have new special issues appearing in Electronic Commerce Research and Applications on the topics of “Social Networks and Web 2.0”, and “Electronic Auctions on the Internet”.Electronic Commerce Research and Applications emphasizes “developmental reviewing”. The Editorial Board, including the Co-Editors and all of our Area Editors, all share a common approach. We are looking for new papers that create some interest on the reader’s part. It is often the case that an interesting paper is not as well developed as the review team might like it to be. When a paper is interesting, the Area Editor and Co-Editor will typically go out of their way to give the author input and advice that will help the person to revise their work. This will help to ensure that the paper retains its interest, but also that it will show greater theoretical depth, methodological rigor and managerial relevance. As usual, we would like to thank the Area Editors and the reviewers who put a lot of time toward the development of the articles in this special issue. We are grateful for the care they showed in the development of the authors’ work, and their willingness to do so without any public recognition for the efforts that they have made behind the scenes.If you would like to volunteer to review for this journal, we would welcome having you involved. We also have additional needs for people to review papers that involve computer science, design science and the technical side of IS and e-commerce research, so we welcome your interest in these areas too.