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This chapter presents a summary of the literature on the influence of the Internet and other digital innovations on markets, consumers, and firms. The review leads to a list of topics in need of research in the general areas of big data, online and mobile advertising, consumer search, online privacy, online reviews, social networks, platforms for online transactions, and the impact of the Internet on retail markets, including multi-channel and omni-channel retailing. We discuss the big data approaches that have been applied to problems of targeting and positioning and suggest areas for further development of these approaches. We also discuss the emerging area of mobile advertising, which can further enhance targeting. On the consumer side, the evidence indicates that the Internet has greatly lowered the costs of search and access to retailers. Much of the consumer data are transmitted to sellers, and much of the online advertising is transmitted to consumers, through platforms, such as Google. We conclude that better models of competition among these platform firms are needed and that they need to be examined for anti-trust violations. While online retailing has grown rapidly, it still has a relatively small share of retail sales. Since sellers can combine the advantages of online and offline channels, it has been common for sellers to branch into multi-channel retailing. Given the increased availability of detailed consumer data, omni-channel selling, which emphasizes strategies for the various touchpoints that lead to a transaction, is an area for further development.

Innovations in technology and evolution of internet elicited the usage of technology and internet during the shopping process of consumers. Changes in consumer shopping processes opened doors for shifts in consumer buying behavior. As a result of the variations in consumer buying behavior, retailers formed new channel structures to fulfill customer requirements. New channel structures created different retailing formats and enhanced the complexity of retailing processes. As the complexity of retailing processes increased, complexity of consumer shopping behavior increased as well. In this sense, multichannel retailing emerged and expanded all around the world and paved the way for omnichannel retailing. Transformation of multichannel retailing to omnichannel retailing created two different shopping forms as: Showrooming and Webrooming. In this chapter, showrooming and webrooming concepts will be studied and the complementarity dimensions of these concepts will be explained in detail.

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to demonstrate an understanding of:

The way in which consumers use mobile devices to engage with fashion retailers online.

What external and internal stimuli can be used to engage with consumers and encourage online interaction?

The lens in with the Stimulus–Organism–Response (SOR) model is applied to understand consumer behaviour.

How marketing can used both to trigger consumption activities and to encourage more sustainable behaviours?

This chapter reports the findings of a large-scale study investigating the issues that arise when firms introduce a new Internet channel. Our analysis offers three key contributions. First, we provide a framework to guide firms in anticipating and understanding the unique challenges of introducing an Internet channel. Second, we present a menu of alternatives to address these challenges. Finally, we pose a series of questions which identify which solutions are most appropriate given the particular market and firm context.

Online retailers often lack nexus within a purchaser’s home state and do not collect sales tax at the point of sale. Consumers exacerbate the loss of tax revenue by typically not remitting the use tax on these purchases. To date, very little research addresses the effectiveness of methods to increase use tax compliance, and the need for more work is well documented in the literature.

This study examines, in a controlled economics-based experiment, the effectiveness of current approaches to close the use tax gap. Participants are randomly assigned to one of three treatments to determine the extent to which they would voluntarily pay use tax on a purchase transaction. The experiment mimics the natural environment and measures the participants’ actual compliance with cash payouts.

We find individuals are significantly more likely to pay the use tax when given detailed information about their online purchases and the use tax obligation compared to only receiving a description of the use tax. We also find compliance is significantly higher when individuals have a separate state income tax line on which to report use tax liability.

Unlike personal income tax compliance, consumers are more likely to evade use tax payments because taxing authorities are usually unable or unwilling to audit consumer purchases. This makes an examination of the effectiveness of reporting and collection methods worthwhile. This study measures use tax compliance based on actual consumer behavior with real economic consequences rather than taxpayer intentions, as reported in prior work. This is important because intentions and behavior are often different, especially in an economic setting. Finally, policymakers will benefit from an effectiveness-assessment of actual methods, rather than hypothetical and potentially unfeasible approaches, to try and increase use tax compliance.

To determine the new responsibility and new form of CSR required in an evolving ecosystem, this chapter covers the historical evolution of CSR including the various additional labels CSR has attracted, and its many surrogate, complementary, and alternative terms and themes. Some parties still view CSR as just a form of Philanthropy; however, current definitions for CSR involve many components, which have adapted over time. The new CSR definition provided by the European Commission in 2011, for example, mirrors some of the changes created by the inclusion of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in 2015. The creation of shared and integrated value and the ongoing development of the social enterprise industry are further developments, alongside the growing trend toward B-Corp registration, the increasing emphasis on ‘business-for-purpose’ and the rise of the ‘be the change’ movement. This chapter discusses this journey and reveals how CSR has followed a cycle of social movements through several industrial revolutions. As we head toward the Fourth Industrial Revolution and usher in the new era for Globalization 4.0, this requires new business models, new labels, and new adaptations of CSR. These concepts are introduced in this chapter and developed further in later chapters.

Smart card-based E-payment systems are receiving increasing attention as the number of implementations is witnessed on the rise globally. Understanding of user adoption behavior of E-payment systems that employ smart card technology becomes a research area that is of particular value and interest to both IS researchers and professionals. However, research interest focuses mostly on why a smart card-based E-payment system results in a failure or how the system could have grown into a success. This signals the fact that researchers have not had much opportunity to critically review a smart card-based E-payment system that has gained wide support and overcome the hurdle of critical mass adoption. The Octopus in Hong Kong has provided a rare opportunity for investigating smart card-based E-payment system because of its unprecedented success. This research seeks to thoroughly analyze the Octopus from technology adoption behavior perspectives.

Cultural impacts on adoption behavior are one of the key areas that this research posits to investigate. Since the present research is conducted in Hong Kong where a majority of population is Chinese ethnicity and yet is westernized in a number of aspects, assuming that users in Hong Kong are characterized by eastern or western culture is less useful. Explicit cultural characteristics at individual level are tapped into here instead of applying generalization of cultural beliefs to users to more accurately reflect cultural bias. In this vein, the technology acceptance model (TAM) is adapted, extended, and tested for its applicability cross-culturally in Hong Kong on the Octopus. Four cultural dimensions developed by Hofstede are included in this study, namely uncertainty avoidance, masculinity, individualism, and Confucian Dynamism (long-term orientation), to explore their influence on usage behavior through the mediation of perceived usefulness.

TAM is also integrated with the innovation diffusion theory (IDT) to borrow two constructs in relation to innovative characteristics, namely relative advantage and compatibility, in order to enhance the explanatory power of the proposed research model. Besides, the normative accountability of the research model is strengthened by embracing two social influences, namely subjective norm and image. As the last antecedent to perceived usefulness, prior experience serves to bring in the time variation factor to allow level of prior experience to exert both direct and moderating effects on perceived usefulness.

The resulting research model is analyzed by partial least squares (PLS)-based Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach. The research findings reveal that all cultural dimensions demonstrate direct effect on perceived usefulness though the influence of uncertainty avoidance is found marginally significant. Other constructs on innovative characteristics and social influences are validated to be significant as hypothesized. Prior experience does indeed significantly moderate the two influences that perceived usefulness receives from relative advantage and compatibility, respectively. The research model has demonstrated convincing explanatory power and so may be employed for further studies in other contexts. In particular, cultural effects play a key role in contributing to the uniqueness of the model, enabling it to be an effective tool to help critically understand increasingly internationalized IS system development and implementation efforts. This research also suggests several practical implications in view of the findings that could better inform managerial decisions for designing, implementing, or promoting smart card-based E-payment system.