Texte remanié de: Habilitationsschrift--Wirtschaftsgeschichte--Bonn, 1974. / Bibliogr. p. 327-337. Index.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Florida, 2001. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xii, 237 p.; also contains graphics. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 235-236).

Th. doct.--Faculté de droit--Fribourg--Université de Fribourg, 1999. / Notes bibliogr.

Zugl.: Mannheim, Universiẗat, Diss., 2004.

The Internet has played and still plays a vital role in people's lives in recent years. One of the most important aspects of technology relating to the Internet is electronic commerce (e-commerce). Despite the tremendous growth in the number of Internet users in Saudi Arabia, adoption of on-line shopping by individuals is still in its early stages. The two main reasons that motivated the researcher to conduct this study to investigate the factors that affect individuals in Saudi Arabia to use and adopt on-line shopping are belief in the importance of on-line shopping for the economy in general and for people's lives in particular, as well as the limited studies conducted in this regard. This research adopts a quantitative methodology to answer the research question: What factors enhance the likelihood of adoption of on-line shopping in Saudi Arabia? This research adopts a Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use Technology (UTAUT). The constructs used in this model are: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, facilitating conditions, attitude toward using technology, computer self-efficacy, computer anxiety and behaviour intention. The proposed additional constructs for this study are perceived credibility (security, trust, privacy and risks), cultural background (religion and language) and prevention factors (legislation availability, delivery services, postal address and quality of Internet services). The findings from this study show that there is a statistical effect of the factors noted above on behavioural intentions to use the technology; the research hypotheses have been achieved except four hypotheses in addition to the absence of the effect of moderator's factors, such as age, gender, education and experience. The finding also proved the importance of additional factors effecting on-line shopping adoption such as saving time, price, ease, faster shopping and delivery services.

In the recent years, e-commerce has gained much importance. Traditional commerce (in which case the customer physically goes to the merchant’s shop, purchases goods and/or services and makes a payment) is slowly being replaced with e-commerce and more people tend to prefer doing their shopping online. One of the main reasons for this attraction is the convenience the e-commerce provides. Customers can choose from a lot of different merchants at the convenience of their homes or while travelling by avoiding the hassle and stress of traditional shopping. However, e-commerce has lots of challenges. One key challenge is trust as transactions take place across territories and there are various legal & regulatory issues that govern these transactions. Various protocols and underlying e-commerce technologies help in the provision of this trust. One way to establish trust is to ensure fair exchange. There is also a question about traceability of transactions and customers’ need for privacy. This is provided by anonymity – making sure that the transactions are untraceable and that the customers’ personal information is kept secret. Thus the aim of this research is to propose a protocol that provides fair exchange and anonymity to the transacting parties by making use of a Trusted Third Party. The research is also aimed at ensuring payment security and making use of a single payment token to enhance the efficiency of the protocol. The proposed protocol consists of pre-negotiation, negotiation, withdrawal, purchase and arbitration phases. The analysis of the protocol proves that throughout all the phases of the e-commerce transaction, it is able to provide fair exchange and complete anonymity to the transacting parties. Anonymity provides the privacy of customers’ data and ensures that all Personally Identifiable Information of the transacting parties are kept hidden to avoid misuse. The protocol proposed is model checked to ensure that it is able to show that the fair exchange feature is satisfied. It is implemented using Java to show that it is ready-to-use and not just a theoretical idea but something that can be used in the real-world scenario. The security features of the protocol is taken care of by making sure that appropriate cryptographic algorithms and protocols are used to ensure provision of confidentiality and integrity. This research explores those areas that have not been covered by other researchers with the idea that there is still a lot of scope for improvement in the current research. It identifies these v opportunities and the ‘research gaps’ and focuses on overcoming these gaps. The current e-commerce protocols do not cover all the desirable characteristics and it is important to address these characteristics as they are vital for the growth of e-commerce technologies. The novelty of the protocol lies in the fact that it provides anonymity as well as fair exchange using a Trusted Third Party that is entirely trustworthy unlike certain protocols where the trusted third party is semi-trusted. The proposed protocol makes use of symmetric key cryptography wherever possible to ensure that it is efficient and light weight. The number of messages is significantly reduced. This overcomes the drawback identified in various other protocols which are cumbersome due to the number of messages. Anonymity is based on blind signature method of Chaum. It has been identified that usage of other methods such as pseudo-identifiers have resulted in the inefficiency of the protocol due to the bottlenecks created by these identifiers. It also ensures anonymity can never be compromised unlike certain protocols whereby an eavesdropper can find out the customer’s identity as the customer is required to disclose his/her public key during transactions. Further to this, the protocol also provides immunity against message replay attacks. Finally, the protocol always assumes that one or more parties can always be dishonest which is unlike certain protocols that assume only one party can be dishonest at any point. This ensures that all scenarios are taken into consideration and two parties cannot conspire against the other thus compromising on the fairness of the protocol. Detailed analysis, implementation, verification and evaluation of the protocol is done to ensure that the research is able to prove that the protocol has been carefully designed and the key goals of fair exchange and anonymity. All scenarios are taken into consideration to prove that the protocol will indeed satisfy all criteria. The research thus expects that the protocol could be implemented in real-life scenarios and finds a great potential in the e-commerce field.

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

published_or_final_version / Business Administration / Master / Master of Business Administration

Consumer awareness and interest in ethical issues is growing with sustained and significant rises in sales of ethical products (L. Vickery (personal communication, January 12, 2007); The Co-operative Bank 2010); despite this, little research has been conducted into how ethical factors affect consumers’ choices. The clothing sector accounts for over 12% of UK retail expenditure (Office for National Statistics 2011a), and a wide range of potential ethical issues are present within the industry including very low wages paid throughout the supply chain, poor working conditions and the extensive use of chemicals leading to long term injuries and deaths (World Trade Organisation 2008). Given the importance of the clothing sector, the significance of ethical issues in clothing manufacture and supply, and the recent growth in consumer interest in ethical issues, research in this area is both necessary and timely. A conceptual framework developed from a comprehensive evaluation of the literature examining consumer behaviour, ethical decision-making, and clothing selection is presented, and informed a sequential mixed methods primary research strategy. Indepth, semi-structured interviews and focus groups were used to inductively probe the research area before exploring the possible relationships using a quantitative survey (n=384) distributed to a random sample of the UK population. The research found that the boycotting of brands, stores or products for ethical reasons is important to some consumers. Ethical indicators provided influence in guiding final purchase decisions, and post-purchase reflection on items purchased may trigger positive or negative emotions depending on the product’s perceived ethical credentials. Survey data verified these relationships, measuring their importance in clothing purchase decisions. Results also show that while ethical factors are secondary to most consumers, they exert a clear influence on decisions in some situations. Female respondents were found to be more sensitive to ethical issues and those with higher household incomes likely to be less strongly influenced. The key findings from the study are synthesised into a theoretical model which provides a clear account of the role of ethical considerations in clothing purchase decision-making. This research provides the first thorough examination of ethics within the purchase of clothing. Given the scale of the clothing industry, the findings are of significant academic and commercial interest.

This thesis examines the prospects for international implementation of E-Commerce (EC) in the contexts of the armed forces of Brazil and South Korea. It describes the functions, roles and infrastructure of EC technology. It weighs the advantages and disadvantages of E-Commerce. Particular attention is paid to legal issues, electronic funds transfer and on-line reverse auctions. An E-Commerce implementation plan is presented, benchmarked on the experience of the United States military in using EC to reduce costs and enhance readiness. This plan includes measures of organizational outcomes to evaluate the success of an EC implementation.