Examples of communities are:

• Topic-centered communities or communities of interest in electronic marketing, e.g., readers communities at Amazon.com, The Well, Dreamworks.
• Communities of value chains as found in virtual enterprises; e.g., single product manufacturing consortia, flexible consumer-driven organization of global supply chains, Open-EDI trading communities
• Communities for setting standards, e.g. Corba, WWW consortium, Open Trading on the Internet (OTP), EDI/XML or community programming as e.g. Linux, TeX, Gnu.

Research typically focuses on various single, often technical aspects of a community, e.g., on the communication and communication protocols (EDI, Edifact, or recently XML), on business processes and services supporting transactions. In computer science, multi-agent systems and their languages or communication protocols are studied.

This minitrack solicits research papers on communities and their relevance for electronic commerce on the one hand and information and communication technology with its potential for those communities on the other hand, encouraging research in particular on the relation, interplay or symbiosis between communities and communication channels. We solicit in particular conceptual frameworks or models for analyzing communities as well as established and emerging technology in electronic commerce. These models can be informal or formal, e.g. logical formalizations. Implementations of models are also solicited.

Some examples:

• Models to describe communities and their aspects relevant for Electronic Commerce. Conceptual frameworks, Organizational models, Cognitive models, Belief, Desire and Intention (BDI) models, Multi-agent systems, Formalizations, as, e.g., logical models.
• Modeling concepts or notions for virtual communities as constituted by communication platforms, e.g. coordination, trust, normative values for those emerging virtual communities in Electronic Commerce.
• Modeling how new communities are brought about and maintained on the Internet and how different communication platforms relate to different types of communities, as well as trust and risk management.
• Modeling the new notions of communities with methods from computer science in order to establish adequate platforms. We are in particular interested in formal and abstract models as well as implementations or general computer architectures.

Minitrack Chairs

Economics And Electronic Commerce

cross listed with Organizational Systems and Technology Track

We will encourage submission of manuscripts in a number of areas of electronic commerce such as the following:

• adoption and use of the Internet by individuals, families, organizations and marketplaces
• the emergence of new Internet-based channels for the distribution of goods and services
• payoffs from investments in electronic commerce technologies and the economic value of websites
• the economics of Internet search in product markets
• industrial organization of the Internet economy
• impacts of the Internet on intermediation and inter-firm relationships
• pricing of goods and services provided via the Internet
• digital convergence and the emerging information industry
• advertising and promotion via the Internet
• product design and differentiation strategies that take advantage of customer information on the web
• impacts of regulation and taxation of the Internet economy

Minitrack Chairs

Electronic Commerce And Supply Chain Management

The focus of this minitrack is on systems and processes that support the flow of information within and between organizations, as it occurs in the context of procurement, manufacturing, sales, and distribution of goods, information, and services. Two areas will be in the center of attention: supply chain management and inter-business procurement. Both have seen significant developments in recent years, in business practice as well as in the academic community. Emerging technology and systems, innovative process models, algorithms, and methodologies, as well as creative implementations of early adopters have created a rich field for research and practical applications.

Information system support for internal processes and data flows has been addressed in areas such as Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP), Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM), workflow design and management, and data base systems. Every one of these areas has long seen a wealth of conferences and journals devoted to it.

Between corporate boundaries, technologies, such as electronic data interchange (EDI) applications and inter-organizational systems have been discussed and analyzed in the business community as well as in the academic world. Attention has been given not only to the development and application of the technologies, but also to wider reaching consequences, such as the changes for business processes and market structures. The HICSS conferences as well as the annual Electronic Commerce Conference in Bled, Slovenia are two examples for larger venues that cover the area.

Increase in product variety and customization in the past few years have posed challenges to firms in terms of delivering products to customers faster and more efficiently. Managers feel the need to employ new technologies and quantitative tools to devise an integrated approach to managing their business, including procurement, inventory, manufacturing, logistics, distribution and sales. This broad, comprehensive approach is known as supply chain management.

As a research discipline, supply chain management focuses on data flows and processes as they occur in the context of manufacturing processes. People and groups involved in this matter are internal departments managing processes such as order intake, production scheduling and distribution. In addition, relationships with suppliers and customers need to be managed. In markets that are evolving rapidly and that are characterized by tight competition, the relations between the players are becoming increasingly complex and interleaved. Business networking is becoming a management necessity as strategies such as core competence concentration, outsourcing, and lean management gain more widespread adoption. Information technology (IT) is acting as an enabler and as an additional driver in this dynamic environment; networking relationships such as electronic commerce or supply chain management are not feasible without IT. Developments in management and technology intersect more than ever, leading to new opportunities, threats and strategic necessities.

Emerging technologies and an increasingly global economy constantly open new business opportunities as well as new challenges and risks. Strategic alliances need to be reconsidered, as the tight integration of operations within the supply chain becomes feasible. Traditionally, supply chain oriented research has been focusing on manufacturing organizations, emphasizing production-orienting product flows. In the area of indirect procurement, however, i.e., goods and services that are not directly part of the end product, significant inefficiencies exist despite its large dollar volume for most organizations. The Internet and Web-based applications enable end users to perform purchasing operations electronically and are subsequently helping transform the role of the purchasing department into a more strategic one. Especially, the emergence of new standards, like XML or OBI, will have an important impact on both supply chain management and procurement processes.

The track will focus but not be limited to the following areas:

• Supply chain and procurement processes - using new technologies to develop innovative workflow design and benchmarking processes
• Decision support systems for Internet-based procurement and supply chain management
• Inventory control and inventory management - innovative methods and technologies
• Flexibility vs. automation - achieving product variety without complexity in the factory
• Coping with uncertainty - Internet-based optimization methods and tools
• Outsourcing vs. insourcing - reconsidering make or buy-decisions
• Supply chain coordination - impact of new technologies on architectures, business network design, and strategic alliances
• Economic and organizational impacts of emerging technologies on procurement and supply chains
• Negotiations and auctioning in Internet-based procurement
• Experiences with state of the art of Internet-based systems to support purchasing and supply chains
• Integration of innovative supply chain management and purchasing systems with ERP systems
• Internet-based payment in business-to-business settings
• Economic and legal issues in Internet-based supply chains and procurement systems
• Electronic commerce architectures to support supply chain management and business-to-business procurement
• The use of E-commerce in supply chain transformation
• Impact of emerging standards (XML, OBI, etc.) on supply chain management and business-to-business procurement

Minitrack Chairs

Electronic Commerce Systems Development - Modeling Methods and Methodologies

Internet and electronic commerce are two of the most profound events of this century. With cyber-sales expecting to double every year, web-based applications are receiving lots of attention lately. Developing web-based applications, though critical to the long-term competitiveness of most organizations, is hindered by the lack of information modeling methods and methodologies engineered to support web-based applications. We seek research papers, case studies and practitioner reports relating to modeling methods and methodologies. Of special interest are conceptual and empirical papers analyzing the "fit" of methods such UML to web projects. Also of interest are extensions to the textbook methods to cover requirement specification for web development.

Relevant topics for this minitrack include (but not limited to)

• Information Modeling
• Software Engineering
• Business Process Re-engineering
• Object-Orientation
• Requirements Engineering
• Enterprise Modeling
• Data Modeling
• Web-based Applications Development
• Visual Information Systems
• Method Engineering
• Component Based Modeling
• Geographical Information Systems
• Data Mining and Data Warehousing
• Client/Server Computing
• Groupware/Computer Supported Cooperative Work

Minitrack Chairs

Internet and Workflow Automation: Technological and Managerial Issues

Appropriate topics for the minitrack include, but are not limited to the following:

• Workflow system development and management using Internet and Intranet technologies.
• Design theory for intra- and inter-organizational workflow management systems.
• Development and comparison of alternative workflow management system architectures.
• System integration of workflow management systems with other technologies such as email, decision support systems, groupware, EDI, electronic commerce, and so on.
• Business process reengineering issues concerning the evolvement of workflow systems.
• Knowledge management (or organizational memory) in the context of
• workflow automation.
• Workflow modeling methodologies and languages.
• Economic models or frameworks for the study of WFMS in an organizational or inter-organizational context.
• Case studies and empirical research on implementation issues and/or the effectiveness of WFMS in practice.

Minitrack Chairs

Managing Information on the Web

The objective of this minitrack is to provide a forum for researchers to disseminate and exchange ideas on technical and managerial aspects of managing information on the Internet.

The minitrack will solicit papers on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Knowledge-supported web information management
• Integration of web and non-web information
• Web warehousing
• Web-based software development
• Knowledge management on the Internet
• Environmental scanning on the Internet
• Knowledge discovery and data mining on the Internet
• Strategic applications of web information
• Impact of web information on competition, organizations, and market structures
• Managerial issues of managing web information

Minitrack Chairs

Marketing in Electronic Commerce

There has been a lot of speculation about the effect of the Internet and the WWW on marketing but not enough empirical research has been performed so far. There are many topics in electronic marketing that can be addressed as part of this minitrack.

Topics of special interest include, but are not limited to:

1. Direct Marketing
   • The Internet and the WWW have revolutionized the area of direct marketing. While in the physical world, direct marketing has at best targeted large populations based on similar demographics, companies are now able to target their advertising and promotions down to the individual customer. Companies like DoubleClick and 24/7 Media enable companies to deliver ads to customers based on their browsing and purchasing behavior on the web. Permission marketing has also become very popular: The customer gives permission to the company to send him or her information on products and promotions. New technologies are constantly being developed to enable companies to deliver interactive ads and promotions to those customers who are most likely to respond.
2. Market Research
   • The ability to collect massive amounts of data on consumer activity on-line has changed the way companies do market research. Cookies, shopping engines and guides, software agents, web logs, and on-line surveys enable companies to get real-time information on what customers want to find. New analysis software has also made it possible to mine all this information and help provide better customer service, develop effective marketing strategies, and overall increase sales. Collaborative filtering, customer profiling, and customization are some of the consequences of these new capabilities.
3. Brand
   • Some companies have their brand awareness and image (Keller 1993) tied inextricably to the Internet, while others view the Internet as merely an additional marketing channel with no impact on their brand. Are companies successfully enhancing their brand via their web site, or are they sending mixed messages? Should their products be positioned differently on the Internet, e.g., should some brands be sold through auctions rather than catalogs? Will premium brands suffer, because consumers can be more price-sensitive with shopping guides and software agents? Or will consumers be more willing to pay premium prices in some categories, because they can quickly find exactly what they want? Which companies can convey their brand effectively on their own? Which should link their web site to other web sites, forming alliances with other brands at the risk of diluting their own? As these research questions suggest, the Internet medium is more than a mere channel for most companies.
4. Consumer Behavior
   • Buying on-line can be a very different experience than buying in the physical world. How do customers behave on the web? Do lower search costs mean decreased customer loyalty? Are customers really given more control on the web? What attracts a customer's attention on a 2-dimensional monitor screen? While consumer behavior in the physical world has been studied for decades, little empirical research has been performed to examine what determines consumer attitudes and behavior on the web.
5. Business-to-business marketing
   • The majority of electronic commerce takes place between businesses. How has the Internet changed the marketing practices between companies? Are printed brochures and catalogs replaced by electronic versions? Is the technology enabling longer relationships in the supply chain lowering the need for marketing and advertising between companies? Or is it lowering switching costs thus increasing the need for effective advertising of products and services in order to retain partners in the supply chain?

Minitrack Chairs

System Support For Electronic Business On Internet

Electronic business on Internet is defined as an interdisciplinary activity which includes electronic commerce, interaction aimed at generating new business ideas and opportunities, decision making in conditions of interest, and various activity accelerators - all that based on the state-of-the art hardware and software infrastructure. The best approaches are those which combine synergistically the business and the technology issues!

The infrastructure involved (both hardware and software) is aimed at accelerating the existing activities/transactions and also at opening up new and qualitatively different types of activities/transactions. The issues are best understood through examples, and some of them are given below (mostly covering the recent research experiences).

One of the problems in business oriented search is how to sort the WWW presentations based on the business potentials. Current approaches do sorting based on keywords match, which is potentially useful, but far away from efficient. One possible approach is to incorporate the hardware/software infrastructure which records business-related activities (recording clicking at icons and/or buttons of WWW presentations), forms the appropriate indexes, and validates them. For example, "caching" may have the weight of +1, "printing" the weight of +2, "purchasing" the weight of +4, "repeated purchasing" the weight of +8, etc... Single purchasing which is not repeated again may bring negative points, etc... Providers which offer such a capability will be more attractive for businesses worldwide. However, for maximal efficiency, such a capability must be based on the interaction of business and technology.

Papers are solicited in the field of system support for electronic business on Internet. Special attention is dedicated to research efforts which combine business related methodologies and technology aware system engineering in synergistic ways, in order to maximize business effects and to resolve technology bottlenecks.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• algorithmic and system solutions for efficient search, classification, and extraction of mission critical data in business application of various types,
• proxy caching for intra- and inter-organizational caching,
• co-design on the hardware/system/software levels, for maximization of business goals,
• home, office, and production automation based on Internet infrastructures and appropriate mission-aware accelerators.

Minitrack Chairs

Virtual & Knowledge-based Organizations

As the organizational norms and behaviors need to change when firms move from the physical to virtual space, so do their use of information technologies for various intra and inter-organizational operations. Use of a proprietary groupware changes to the use of the intranet. Time-consuming, expensive supply chain management practices change to Computer-Aided Acuquision and Logistics System (CALS). Dedicated , private firm-to-firm networks are rapidly replaced by the extranet using the internet. Everything except the core competency of the firm will be outsourced to the firm's networked alliances. Emergence of an virtual organization such as cyberbank, cyber trading firm, cyber auctioneer enables the production and retailing without heavy investment into physical facilities. Knowledge creation and sharing takes on the global scale thanks to the global network and knowledge repository. Thus, two of the most distinquishing characteristics of a virtual organization must be IT-! enabled networking of related firms and utilization of corporate knowledge as a strategic asset.

The following topics address the main theme of this minitrack on virtual & knowledge-based organizations.

• virtual banking, trading, retailing
• virtual organization
• network organization
• virtual reality
• virtual value-chain
• knowledge-based organization
• knowledge management
• knowledge management systems
• knowledge value-added
• intra and inter-firm knowledge sharing

Minitrack Chairs

Web Engineering

This problematic was recently referred to as Web Crisis - indicating that the lack of a structured approach will stuck the process of developing or federating more complex systems in the Web relating to cost reduction and quality improvement. In the recent years this "web-experience" in the Hypermedia and Web community evolved a new discipline called Web Engineering, which is actually the application of software engineering practice in the Web.

The Minitrack's major focus is on the design of Web applications, focusing mainly on processes, models and methods for designing these kind of applications. An active discussion with focus on Web engineering and its influence on other communities is anticipated by also inviting papers on inter-disciplined topics.

Some of the topics to be discussed are the following (the list is not exhaustive):

• Design Models & Methods
• Software Development Process
• Design Pattern & Pattern Mining
• Frameworks & Architectures
• OO-Technology, Component-based Software Engineering

for Web Information Systems, specifically in Electronic Commerce and similar strategic areas. Further, an active discussion with focus on Web Engineering and its influence on other communities is anticipated by also inviting papers on inter-disciplined topics, like: Federation of heterogeneous WIS, Standards, Hypermedia design, etc.

Minitrack Chairs