The electronic revolution has proven to be a powerful stimulus for change in business practice. As a business tool however, the Internet must endure the same scrutiny under which other business activities are placed. If the use of the Internet in business is a sound strategy, then it must contribute toward competitive advantage. The sport business industry has not been isolated from the vagaries of Internet applications. Moreover, as the industry has become more competitive, forcing sporting organisations towards unprecedented levels of accountability and business practice, the Internet has been increasingly seen as a potential 'holy grail' for sport organisations struggling for revenue (Stewart & Smith, 1999). This research is a response to these pressures. It seeks to identify Internet based opportunities for competitive advantage, and to provide strategies and recommendations for the successful use of the Internet in Australian professional sport organisations. In realising this objective, a newly developed and integrated Business Activity Model has been constructed. The model assists in the identification of specific Internet based competitive advantage strategies, and provides a theoretical framework for this research. The Business Activity Model conceptualises, for the first time, the relationships between the value chain, constituents of electronically enabled competitive advantage, and the Internet. With Australia's limited group of fully professional sports capable of sustaining the human resources and budgets necessary to implement comprehensive e-commerce strategies, the organisations selected to participate in this research represent the pinnacle of Australian professional sport clubs. Specifically, the 55 clubs competing in the Australian Football League (A.F.L.), National Basketball League (N.B.L.), National Rugby League (N.R.L.), and National Soccer League (N.S.L.) constituted the research sample and population. In concert with the 87% participation rate, sampling approached a census. A telephone-administered survey, based primarily on the rigorously tested instrument developed by Sethi and King (1994), was employed for data collection. This research employs a comprehensive set of descriptive statistics, and is bolstered by a confirmatory and an exploratory factor analysis, undertaken on one component of the data. The outcome of this research was the identification of seven practical recommendations for Australian professional sport organisations seeking to improve competitive advantage via the Internet. These recommendations were based on an inventory of the 'gaps' between the strategies proposed by the literature, and the practices of the sample, and relate to both overall Internet strategy, and specific web site applications. The development of the new Business Activity Model and the identification of key online strategy themes support and complement these recommendations. An examination of variations in the practices of participating organisations, and some comparisons against United States sporting organisations, also provides depth and context to the findings. This research provides a platform for sport managers to effectively harness the potential of the Internet, through their web sites in particular, and realise significant competitive advantages. The Business Activity Model provides managers in all industries with a tool for the detection and understanding of potential elements of competitive advantage, and incorporates all activities critical to business in the new digital economy. Seven practical recommendations for improved online performance based on identified competitive advantage and strategies fulfils the primary objective of this research. E-commerce continues to grow at astronomical rates, and with the Internet poised to become the life-blood of 21st century sporting organisations, these recommendations will assist managers in their ongoing search for competitive advantage.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2007. / Naveen Donthu, committee chair; Detmar Straub, Corliss Thornton, Sevo Eroglu, committee members. Electronic text (149 p. : ill.) : digital, PDF file. Title from file title page. Description based on contents viewed Dec. 10, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 142-149).

Thesis (Ph.D. (Business Management))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2005.

The advancement in technology in the twenty first century has introduced new and exciting ways for artists to self-promote their artwork while traditional methods remain viable. To be competitive in the art market an artist must understand and implement a variety of marketing strategies. Effective marketing is particularly critical for an art teacher who is also a practicing artist in order to sell their artwork. Through a comparative analysis of readily available marketing tools for artwork, I explore in this study a variety of ways that an artist can establish a successful career in art through the use of technology, and create a roadmap that can be used to shorten their route.

The overall aim of this study was to research how music festivals in Oslo practise strategic Internet marketing and how these could improve their marketing throughout strategic Internet marketing. The interest of this study evoked since there was a lack in previous research in this field. Other issues to explore were marketing particularities and how these could be solved. Two music festivals in the city centre of Oslo were interviewed. The study was based on Chaffey and Smith’s (2008) SOSTAC planning framework, together with previous research findings in the field of strategic Internet marketing. The result showed a primarily use of informal goals, together with actions and evaluation based on gut feelings. Focus was placed on creating additional value and thus loyalty. Most applied marketing were connected to Web 2.0 techniques. The study found several shortcomings concerning the practise of strategic Internet marketing. Suggested improvements included use of online measurement systems and a strategic approach towards objectives and evaluation. The study found two distinct characteristics including the importance of visitor activity and loyalty. Web 2.0 techniques, the website and co-branding activities were concluded to be the most effective types Internet marketing. These together with an enhanced use of Web 2.0 techniques were also concluded to be the solution to marketing peculiarities.

The perceived risks would produce when consumers want to purchase, they would use the media to collect product information to reduce the risk. So this study would investigate the difference between the perceived risk and purchase intention in the single media or in the cross-media which is combined by telephone and internet. In this study, the product is set to shampoo to avoid the impact of product involvement, and the sample focus on people who have used two kinds of phone and Internet media. The study adopts the experimental method which used in the campus of National Sun Yat-sen University. The sample can be divided into 4 groups which included the experimental and control teams; they totally collect 188 valid questionnaires. The results showed that the cross-media which composed of phone and Internet can reduce the consumer perceived risk, but only one kind cross-media which is ¡§touching the internet after telephone¡¨ can increase the purchase intention. The results would help the company to market, but it should follow one principle which was committed to "reducing the financial risk perception". Besides, this study confirmed that the purchase intention has an opposite correlation to perceived risk in the cross-media and single media again, the conclusion is consistent with the previous studies.

Since the tourism industry is thriving and robust recently in Taiwan, it encourages the demand of domestic tourism a lot. Moreover, the internet surfers and e-commerce is keeping increasing, so that we do the study regarding the On-Line Accommodation Reservation as our case study. In order to obtain the data and samples for this study, we choose the EasyTravel as our casey, and do the individual survey via qualitative interview. EasyTravel established in 1988 and the major business is offering the On-Line Accommodation Reservation service. They started doing the Internet Marketing planning and designing as they understand the acceptance level of Hotel industry for the Online-Promotion is the highest one. For now, owing to keep ploughing and weeding the On-Line Marketing, EasyTravel always occupies on the first page of search result when doing the searching. We hope we could obtain the influence of Internet activity and communicating for the On-Line Accommodation Reservation through understanding its history, the key factors of EasyTravel, and it will be the topic of this study. We found if we long for to build efficiency Internet Marketing activity for On-Line Accommodation Reservation and then prompt the business, we must consider four factors as below: (1).Multiple Integrated Marketing¡GTo run the On-Line Accommodation Reservation more efficiency and increasing the sales, setting the SEO (Search Engine Optimization), implement topical or diversified long term Internet promotion, Blogs Marketing, Community-based social management, and Mobile Service are five main schemes for achieving the goal. (2).Community marketing¡GAs the community-orientated network is being well developed, if we could utilize community tools and its influence effectively, it would be reached yield twice the result with half the effort. (3).To Customize and develop innovative service¡GBefore establishing the innovative service, industry characteristics, customer needs, main stream, and ICT tool should be all considered. Hence, it will not only create the uniqueness and the non-substitutable capabilities but also high up the barriers to entry level for other rivals. (4).Concentrating on core business with a continuous investment.¡GEasyTravel starts earning the profit since 2008, nevertheless they still ought to input more resource in original sales continuously. It is much more vital than step into new business at a profit.

In order to survive well in the rapidly changing and very competitive E-Commerce age, a website manager must discern the customer behavior all the times and carry out the necessary marketing research and therefore proceed the right marketing decisions at the right time. Although the Internet brings a new chance to the small and medium enterprises (SME), it is not easy for them to develop an online marketing research system by themselves due to the scarcity of resources. In order to let the SME have better online marketing capabilities, the purpose of this research is to develop a scaleable, flexible, and portable online marketing research system. What the flexibility means is that users can configure the system and implement the marketing analysis based on their requirements, whereas the scalability means that users can add new items into the available analytical models or new models into the system whenever there is new marketing research requirement. Regarding the portability, it means the system can be used in various system environments. With such a system, the marketing people of SME can carry out the required online marketing research easily without the assistance from IS people.

Electronic commerce model has made an impact on the travel industry of Taiwan. There are multiple distribution channels in the Internet while new technology customers have already inclined to buy straight from the supplier¡¦s Web site, especially a price-sensitive customer who loves to shop around will remain the natural constituent of an on-line travel agency. In my view, Travel agencies should know their resource including brand image, travel professional knowledge, selling capacity and E-Commerce management know how. In order to get travel product, brand, service, and price competitive advantages. How to adopt an optimal EC strategy in order to acquire travel reputation, financial, product, market, and employee performance advantages is the key issue of travel agencies. Furthermore, considering the environment, company, behavior, procedure and product uncertainties and transaction costs; travel agencies may construct an optimal transaction model for consumers; related business industry and themselves. This study uses multiple methods to collect data from multiple sources in order to improve its validity including qualitative and quantitative surveys. Besides, adopting longitudinal survey and three-stage research designs. The results provide us with an in-depth understanding of the impact of EC on the performance of travel agencies and explore more effective mechanisms for maintaining their competitive advantages. The high development of EC which has had revolutionary effect in the travel industry, especially travel agencies. Finally, the study has proposed an optimal EC business strategy model and contributed travel EC business theory to the travel agent business management.

Books and magazines are the two most popular merchandises traded through e-Commerce. This thesis is a case study of the largest online bookstore ¡§Books.com.tw¡¨ in Taiwan. It was founded in 1995 and was the first online bookstore for Chinese Internet customers. Without brick-and-mortar bookstore, ¡§Books.com.tw¡¨ has focused on the advances of information technology and the efficiency of e-commerce operation. This research analyzes the trends of online bookstore and the impact of the 24-hour delivery service by ¡§Books.com.tw.¡¨ The qualitative research method was adopted for the research design, data collection and analysis. The research results are summarized into the following four findings. First, the e-commerce strategies of ¡§Books.com.tw¡¨ have extended to from selling books, CDs or DVDs to become an e-retailer. Second, the word-of-mouth marketing and virus marketing play important role for the online bookstore that can effectively approach its target customers. Third, the success of ¡§Books.com.tw¡¨ can be comprised of the three online transaction characteristics that are convenience, safety and speed. The service has built customers¡¦ royalty and increased repurchase rate as well as the sales and the profits. Finally, with the information integration associated with the efficient logistic management, ¡§Books.com.tw¡¨ successfully executes the 24-hour delivery policy that has firmly assured its leading position of online bookstore in Taiwan for recent years.