M.Comm. / In summary, e-commerce will absolutely change the way in which many company decisionmakers and business leaders think, as their companies compete in an online virtual world of business: a real-time, highly competitive marketplace. Companies will be required to rethink their core business processes and then create new strategies for performing e- businesses (Fellenstein & Wood, 2000:105). Forehand (2001:22), who is managing partner and CEO of Accenture, formerly known as Andersen Consulting, has the following views on succeeding in the New Marketplace: • "The New Economy pioneers have unearthed a few truths about how to win in the new marketplace. Speed is the new mantra. Change is the only constant. Content carries a premium. Consumers have perfect information. Brands signal trust. Value drives loyalty. And so on. These are quite important considerations, because when you take a step back and think about it, the way we conduct business really has been radically altered. Forever. • It's not easy to keep an organisation thriving as each new technology change surfaces. (And we've barely tapped the awesome potential for mobile commerce through wireless technology.) Success requires a sense of urgency across the entire organisation. It requires deep cultural change. It requires different and new relationships with customers, employees, alliance partners and even competitors. The end result is often significant business transformation that gets to a company's core business model. • Leading companies will put the customer at the centre of everything they do. Think about the implications of that to your business model. About a year ago we conducted research in the area of customer relationship management (CRM), which concluded that superior customer capabilities could account for 50 percent of the difference in return on sales between low and high performing companies. Those companies that can effectively put the customer at the centre of their business add tens of millions of dollars to the bottom line. • Leading companies will put technology on the personal agenda of every senior executive. Information technology has clearly progressed beyond the early days when it was relegated to the back office. But leaders of tomorrow will look at technology as much more than an enabler of business strategy. Technology will become a creator of business strategy. • Leading companies will apply the same rigour to human performance that they do to all areas of the business. There is an enormous challenge in getting the human element of an organisation equipped to operate in an increasingly digital world. Part of that challenge is finding and keeping talent. And the other is maximizing an individual's performance. Ensuring that people have the right skills, knowledge and behaviours is quickly becoming a company's biggest gating factor to future success. Not technology, not financial capital: human capital. • Leading companies will operate at speed. This is about an emerging leadership style that enables companies to be responsive to a dynamically changing marketplace. Leadership used to be structured and hierarchical. But now leadership requires quick wits, quick decisions, judgement calls, guts and passion. To operate at speed, companies will create internal environments that support and promote constant innovation. Success can often breed complacency, which dampens a company's sense of urgency and its ability to capitalise quickly on good ideas. The winners of tomorrow will realise the power of innovation and bring a start-up mentality inside". The above extract highlights various factors, which will become clearer as one progress through the dissertation. At the end, if one returns to this section, it is hoped that the new insight gained into the online world of the Internet will become apparent. This dissertation considers research into the various business models for Internet-based start-ups, the expectations of the customer, how to satisfy these expectations by means of customer service and how to build customer loyalty. Also considered are what relationships, if any, exist between a successful business model and customer loyalty. More emphasis will be placed on business-toconsumer as opposed to business-to-business transactions and models throughout the dissertation. The research method used in this dissertation is that of a literature study. A literature survey is conducted of the various business models used, customer expectations, customer service and the building of customer loyalty by Internet organisations. The collected information is described, interpreted and evaluated on a qualitative basis to address the purpose and the objectives of the study. With the above as background, this study proposes a business model and identifies factors that build customer loyalty, which will make a contribution towards guiding start-up ventures in strategically directing their business into a globally competitive and customer-focused world. The important findings that were identified in this study are: • Design a business model based on the following components — people, innovation, focus, speed, equity, technology, size, metrics, strategic vision and leadership. (These are the prime levers that today's Internet start-ups use to compete against the incumbent world of business.) • Carry out regular market research to establish exactly what it is that your customers expect from your web site. Constantly innovate, and by meeting or exceeding customer expectations, the customer expectation gap will be narrowed, which will lead to increased customer satisfaction, with a higher likelihood of customer retention. • Establish relationships with your customers and provide them with a unique online experience by utilising technology in such a way that every customer interaction is kept simple and saves the customer time and money. Providing this kind of customer service will build customer loyalty and enhance the company's brand name.

Cette thèse analyse les effets de la libéralisation du commerce des services en Tunisie. Le premier chapitre, étudie à l’aide d’un modèle DSGE, l'effet global de la libéralisation du secteur des services marchands sur la croissance économique tout en estimant les barrières à l'entrée que doivent supporter les investisseurs afin d’accéder à ce marché. Le deuxième chapitre analyse le cas particulier de la libéralisation du secteur bancaire ainsi que les effets sur l’accumulation du capital. En particulier, il suggère que l'accroissement de la concurrence via plus de libéralisation est bénéfique pour le secteur bancaire tunisien et permettra de doubler la quantité de capital réellement accumulé. Le troisième chapitre procède à l’estimation des effets direct et indirect de la libéralisation du transport aérien sur les flux de touristes dans les pays Méditerranéens. Les accords signés par ces pays seront considérés au même titre que ceux signés entre pays tiers. En effet, lorsque ces pays tiers disposent d'aéroports de transit par lesquels passent les touristes pour se rendre dans les pays de la Méditerranée, un accord de libéralisation les concernant peut ainsi être bénéfique aux derniers. Nous constituons une base originale pour tenir compte de tous ces accords. Nos résultats montrent que la libéralisation des secteurs de service en Tunisie a un effet positif et dépend essentiellement de la performance su secteur des biens et barrières à l'entrée, évalués à 37% de la production totale. En ce qui concerne le secteur bancaire tunisien, la libéralisation a un impact positif sur l'accumulation de capital pouvant aller jusqu'à 200% de l'accumulation actuelle. Enfin, l'étude de la libéralisation du transport aérien sur le tourisme montre qu'il y a une augmentation des flux de touristes utilisant des routes directes et indirectes. L'effet direct d'un accord (suite à l'accroissement d'une unité de l'indice de libéralisation) accroît de 3 à 4% les flux touristiques, tandis que l'effet indirect est compris entre 2% et 3%. / This dissertation focuses on the effects of trade service liberalization in Tunisia. Using a DGSE model, the first chapter studies the overall effect of service liberalization on economic growth while considering the non-tariff barriers preventing investors to access this market. The second chapter analyzes the particular case of the banking sector liberalization by estimating its effect on capital accumulation. In particular, it suggests that increasing bank competition via liberalization is benefitting to the Tunisian banking sector up to a doubling of its capital accumulation. The third chapter shall estimate the direct and indirect effect of air transport liberalization on tourist flows in the southern Mediterranean countries. The agreements signed by these countries will be considered as well as those signed between third countries. In particular, when these third countries have transit airports through which pass tourists to visit Mediterrenean countries, liberalization can also be beneficial to the latter. For this purpose we have collected an original database to account for all of these agreements. Our results show that the liberalization of the service sector in Tunisia has a positive effect and depends mainly on the performance of the goods sector as well as the value of non-tariff barriers, evaluated at 37% of total of production. Morever, the liberalization of the Tunisian banking sector has a positive impact on capital accumulation running up to about 200 % of the current accumulation. Finally, the study of air transport liberalization on tourism shows that there is an increase in tourist flows using direct and indirect routes. The direct effect (following one unit increase of the liberalization index) increases the tourist flows by 3 to 4 percent, while the indirect effect is between 2 and 3 percent.

by Abdrew Pang Kin Kwan & Chan Yiu Nin. / Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1988. / Bibliography: leaves 104-106.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- Mississippi State University. Department of Management and Information Systems. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis describes models and usage of e-services to support e-commerce. Services are di-vided according to their areas of application. Their characteristics are described from both the business and from the integration point of view. The objectives of thesis are divided into two areas: The first area is the market analysis of selected e-services of third parties to support e-commerce business in the Czech Republic in area of SME that can be supported by web services. The second area is simplified case study of the real deployment of selected services for real e-commerce solution. The work summarizes integration of services and analyzing their impact on the business.

In this thesis, we consider how service platforms can provide personalized service to incoming consumers in order to improve ease and convenience for their users, or to enhance their own revenues. With an increasing trend toward digitalization, there is now a massive amount of data that can be leveraged to accomplish this goal. In this thesis, we explore how to leverage feature data about the consumers and products, as well as the way consumers interact with the platforms, in order to make better operational decisions, such as pricing, ranking, and recommendations of products and services. In Chapters 1 & 2, we study platforms in which consumers' purchasing decisions are strongly influenced by reviews that are posted by previous consumers. In Chapter 1, we consider how a platform can learn from the choices that consumers make, as well as the reviews they leave, in order to form increasingly accurate estimates about product quality and consumer preferences, so that the platform can provide better personalized product rankings. In Chapter 2, we focus on platforms where each consumer forms an impression of a product by browsing the available reviews in a chosen order following a cascade click model. We consider how to rank the reviews as well as how to price a product given the reviews, in order to maximize short- and long-term revenue. In Chapter 3, we study a platform that offers a menu of memberships of different durations to a pool of heterogeneous consumers. A consumer's choice depends on both the menu prices and his personal intended usage time. The platform wants to maximize the long-term revenue while considering the choices made by heterogeneous customers. We show insights into the optimal solution of each problem when all the parameters are known. For the case where some parameters are initially unknown, we propose a joint learning and optimization algorithm, and provide theoretical guarantees for its performance.

Dans le cadre d'un travail sur les pays en développement, cette thèse analyse les effets de la libéralisation du commerce des services financiers sur le développement économique. La théorie prévoit des effets positifs de la libéralisation sur les économies. Cette étude y participe en explorant des nouvelles formes de corrélation entre la libéralisation et le développement économique. La méthode utilisée dans notre recherche est de traiter de la libéralisation du commerce des services en abordant trois de ces aspects. Il s'agit donc de l'aspect théorique, de l'aspect légal et de l'aspect empirique.

Thesis (MTech (Information Technology))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2007 / Over a period spanning approximately twenty five years Information Systems (IS) researchers have been plagued by the problem of how to evaluate IS effectiveness or success. After the advent of the World Wide Web (WWW) in the 1990s, questions have arisen regarding the relevance of previously established evaluation approaches to the evaluation of web-based IS. Subsequently, firms have invested billions of dollars anually in information systems but the lack of appropriate frameworks for evaluating their effectiveness made it difficult to determine the return on IS investment. In a period spanning 20 years IS researchers proposed a diverse number of approaches e.g. the communications research of Shannon and Weaver (1949) and the information "influence theory" of Mason (1978). These were subsequently incorporated into a single model in 1992, called the IS Success Model (Delone & McLean, 1992). The principal objective of this research project was to develop a generic methodology for web-based Information Systems (IS) success evaluation from a multi-stakeholder perspective for specific IS contexts. The Delone and McLean IS Success Model (Delone and McLean, 1992) provides an underpinning framework for measuring IS effectiveness. In the latter 1990's the concept of service-quality was introduced into the IS effectiveness literature. In their updated IS Success Model, Delone and McLean (2003) then included service quality as key measure in the evaluation of IS success. Consequently this research project focused on how service quality concepts could be applied as a measure of IS effectiveness within e-commerce. A 3-pronged approach to IS evaluation was proposed viz. identification of generic stakeholder groups such as e-Customer, sponsoring manager, internal users etc.; identification of the context of the IS evaluation for each stakeholder i.e. what is the main function and context of operation of the IS; and lastly identification of stakeholder specific e-SQ criteria. The study demonstrates that the success of IS deployed within online environments, could be evaluated and measured differently by each stakeholder for the various e-Service Quality (e-SQ) dimensions within a particular IS context. The study presents the results of an investigation into a web-based IS at a national telecommunications company in South Africa which was evaluated using e-Service Quality (e-SQ) constructs. The study demonstrates the operationalisation of an e-SQ instrument for the purposes of evaluating IS effectiveness amongst multi-stakeholders. Evidence is provided that measuring attitudes of different stakeholders provides a more holistic perspective of IS success. The primary conclusion reached is that by using a step-by-step methodology of IS success measurement, the objective of establishing whether companies have received a return on web-based IS investment, can be achieved. Furthermore, the outcomes of the study has contributed to existing literature on IS effectiveness measurement. In particular, it will add to the existing body of knowledge regarding the use of e-SQ instrument to evaluate multi-stakeholder perceptions.

Few studies have examined the impact of portfolio concentration upon the realised volatility of stock index portfolios, such as the FTSE 100. Instead, previous research has focused upon diversification across industries, across geographic regions and across different firms. The present study addresses this imbalance by calculating the daily time series of four concentration metrics for the FTSE 100 Index over the period from January 1984 through March 2003. In addition, the value weighted variance covariance matrix (VCM) of daily FTSE 100 Index constituent returns is decomposed into four sub-components: two from the diagonal elements and two from the off-diagonal elements of the VCM. These consist of the average variance of constituent returns, represented by the sum of diagonal elements in the VCM, and the average covariance represented by the sum of off-diagonal elements in the VCM. The value weighted average variance (VAV) and covariance (VAC) are each subdivided into the equally weighted average variance (EAV) the equally weighted average covariance (EAC) and incremental components that represent the difference between the respective value-weighted and equally weighted averages. These are referred to as the incremental average variance (IAV) and the incremental average covariance (IAC) respectively. The incremental average variance and the incremental average covariance are then combined, additively, to produce the incremental realised variance (IRV) of the FTSE 100 Index. The incremental average covariance and the incremental realised variance are found to be negative during the 1987 crash and the 1992 ERM crisis. They are also negative for a substantial part of the study period, even when concentration was at its highest level. Hence the findings of the study are consistent with the notion that the value weighted, and hence concentrated, FTSE 100 Index portfolio is generally less risky than a hypothetical equally weighted portfolio of FTSE 100 Index constituents. Furthermore, increases in concentration tend to precede decreases in incremental realised volatility and increases in the equally weighted components of the realised VCM. The results have important implications for portfolio managers concerned with the effect of changing portfolio weights upon portfolio volatility. They are also relevant to passive investors concerned about the effects of increased concentration upon their benchmark indices, and to providers of stock market indices.

Cette thèse analyse les effets d'une libéralisation du commerce de services en Afrique. Au-delà d'un chapitre introductif (chapitre 1), la thèse contient trois chapitres: le chapitre 2 analyse les déterminants du pouvoir de marché dans le secteur des télécommunications. Le troisième étudie l'impact du commerce des services sur la croissance économique en mettant l'accent sur les services de télécommunications et de finances. Le quatrième procède à la simulation de l'impact de la libéralisation des services sur la pauvreté en s'appuyant sur le cas des télécommunications au Cameroun. Les chapitres 2 et 3 sont basés sur des données agrégées de 30 pays africains entre 1997 et 2004. Ils s'appuient sur les modèles structurels et utilisent les estimations du 3SLS. Leurs principales conclusions empiriques sont les suivantes: (i) Concernant les télécommunications, l'industrie africaine est confrontée à un fort pouvoir de marché. Trois facteurs politiques semblent avoir une incidence négative sur le pouvoir de marché: les efforts unilatéraux, en termes de libéralisation (en nombre d'opérateurs) et de renforcement de la réglementation sectorielle, aussi bien que les engagements multilatéraux à libéraliser dans le cadre de l'AGCS. Toutefois, il apparaît que l'effet des contacts multi-marchés des opérateurs de télécommunications est un important facteur de renforcement des comportements de coopération et de collusion. (ii) En ce qui concerne l'effet sur la croissance, le niveau de la concurrence a un effet important sur l'accès aux services de télécommunications, qui à son tour, influence de manière significative la croissance des revenus. (iii) Dans le cas du secteur financier, la libéralisation du commerce s'avère être un important déterminant de la structure du marché, mesurée par le niveau de concentration, tandis que les indicateurs de performances sectorielles (crédit au secteur privé) apparaissent comme d'importants déterminants de la croissance. Le quatrième chapitre utilise les elasticités déterminées dans les deux précédents et adopte l'approche de micro-macro simulation pour analyser la pauvreté (Shen et Ravallion, 2004). Il se base sur la MCS camerounaise de 2001 et sur l'enquête sur les revenus de ménages camerounais en 2001 (ECAM II). Les résultats montrent que la libéralisation des télécommunications contribue à réduire la pauvreté au Cameroun, l'essentiel des gains étant généré par les effets de productivité.