The University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin |
Electronic commerce has become one of the most discussed topics in newspapers and magazines within a few years following the introduction of the World Wide Web. With the open Internet and distributed computing technologies, computers, communications networks and digital technologies have become ubiquitous and familiar components of the modern economic as well as social interactions.
Electronic commerce (EC) and its open, interoperable computing infrastructure not only provide an efficient and scalable platform to conduct transactions but also enable computer-mediated activities between buyers and sellers and between social and economic groups. EC also facilitates interactive processes such as intelligent collaboration, real-time management and intermediation, and on-demand service delivery. In this way, EC applications affect the way firms operate, products are manufactured and distributed, and buyers locate desired products and make payments, and further cause fundamental changes in firm organization, seller-buyer relationship, and market clearing mechanisms, to name a few.
EC applications have grown tremendously within the last few years. Traditional EDI and other conventional uses of computing and networking are being reevaluated and modified to fit the EC environment, while new technologies, products and processes are introduced and experimented in the virtual marketplace. However, there is continuing uncertainty on what the critical technical issues are in terms of fostering and developing technologies that ensure a robust and scalable electronic commerce platform. Furthermore, one technology may impact a wide range of applications and processes, indicating the need for cross-disciplinary research and evaluation of each technology. The proposed Workshop is aimed at gathering leading researchers in electronic commerce community to survey current electronic commerce researches and to identify those areas of critical and pressing needs.
This program encourages and supports research in two broad and highly interrelated areas:
(1) integration, sustainable use, and impacts of information technology in groups, organizations, communities, and societies; and(2) theories and technologies for reasoning, decision-making, interaction, and collaboration in groups, organizations, communities, and societies. The research addresses issues and technologies at the level of groups, organizations, communities, and societies, and human-centered as well as technological aspects. Example topics include impacts and policy implications of information technology; integration of information technologies in workplaces and communities; social and organizational informatics; theories of knowledge, action, and information processing at group, organization, and societal levels; economics of information technology, computation, and networks; theories and models of organizational information/knowledge processing, and coordination; knowledge networking and collaboratories; multi-agent systems and distributed artificial intelligence; computer-supported cooperative work and decision-making; and computational organization research
