Online Business and E-Commerce Services in Libya as a developing Literature review

Online Business and E-Commerce Services in Libya as a developing country - Literature review Example Before E-Commerce can be adopted on a wide scale, however, there are many obstacles to be overcome. This chapter reviews the literature in terms of issues to be considered when planning the expansion of online business and e-commerce services in a developing country. The introductory section looks at definitions of e-commerce and theories as they apply to developing countries. Section 2.2. is wide-ranging and covers a selection of the large number of empirical studies conducted in different developing countries across the world. After this (Section 2.3) there is a consideration of previous work done on the readiness of society to accept and use e-commerce within developing countries with Arabic language and culture. Finally the literature on e-commerce potential in Libya is reviewed, including any specific challenges facing this particular context. The term â€Å"e-commerce† emerged in the late twentieth century with the increasing use of computers in everyday life. It can be defined very simply as â€Å"goods and services transacted over Internet† (Purohit and Purohit, 2005, p. 8) A more expansive definition is the following: â€Å"the sharing of business information, maintaining business relationships and conducting business transactions through telecommunications networks† (Zwass, 1996 and 2003, p. 8) This definition emphasises the importance of all the links in the chain from supplier to business and to customer. Zwass is keen to point out that it is not simply a matter of customers and businesses being linked through the World Wide Web by means of computers, but in fact it is a phenomenon that requires radically different organisational developments behind the scenes, involving both telecommunications and computers: â€Å"The most important of these are interorganizational information systems, standa rds for exchanging business documents, such as electronic data interchange (EDI), distributed database management systems, and collaboration technology.† (Zwass, 2003, p. 9) All of these dimensions are widely available in the developed world, and research in improving them, increasing innovation and leveraging more efficiency and profits from their use is continuing at a fast pace. Current interest in newer technologies such as digital signatures is growing but their usefulness in developing countries is questionable, since most transactions there depend on longstanding company to company relationships and there is a reluctance to enter into B2b relationships with people who are not familiar. (Humphrey et al, 2003, p. i) The phenomenal success of huge global retailers such as eBay and Amazon have demonstrated the value in creating flexible market places, with standard pricing, auctions and customer participation in both buying and selling as part of the whole business culture. One meta-analysis of articles on the adoption of online shopping cited the dot com bubble and the sudden crisis that occurred there as a reason why the early promise of huge growth in online business did not quite occur in the way that was originally predicted. (Chang et al., 2004) but all the signs are that these teething problems have been dealt with, and E-Commerce is