E‐commerce in the aerial mapping industry: A New Zealand case study
| Date | 01 June 2003 |
| Pages | 67-92 |
| Published date | 01 June 2003 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/13287260380000774 |
| Author | Nabeel A. Y. Al‐Qirim |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management |
Journal of Systems & Information Technology 7
67
E-COMMERCE IN THE AERIAL MAPPING INDUSTRY: A NEW
ZEALAND CASE STUDY
Nabeel A. Y. Al-Qirim
School of Computer and Information Sciences
Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
ABSTRACT
This research describes the adoption and the usage of Internet commerce
technologies (EC) in a small to medium-sized business (SME) in New Zealand. The case
study is part of the aerial mapping ind ustry. By relying on the technologica l innovation
theories in the co ntext of small business, this research looks at determinants of EC
adoption and success in this S ME. The findings in this research highligh t the
importance of the technological factors in genera l and the relative advantage
characteristic specifica lly in driving the EC phenomenon in the case study. The
individual context has further endorsed the central role of the CEO and his
characteristics in adopting new technological innovations. However, EC u sage in
business in the ca se stud y was limited and its success expected to happe n in the long
terms projections only. The research addresses both theoretical as well as professional
contributions and highlights implication s in EC research in the case study.
Key words: Internet commerce techno logies, adoption, usage, SMEs, CEO, factors,
case study, innovation diffusion.
INTRODUCTION
The Internet in general and the World Wide Web (WWW or Web) in particular has
revolutionised business activities (Abell & Lim, 19 96). They are beco ming more and
more essential tools for organisations in general and for small businesses specifically in
order to gain competitive advantages and to have access to global markets (Poon &
Swatman, 1995). This will assist smaller businesses maintain their flexibility and
innovativeness in facing stiff and growing competition.
Electronic commerce describes the process of buying and selling o r exchanging
products, services, and information via computer networks including the Internet. The
Internet is the network of networks that spans public and global communication
networks and that complies with the transmission control protocol/Internet protocol
(TCP/IP) communication standard. The term “electronic business” is gradually replacing
the earlier phrase “electronic commerce”, as some researchers viewed the term
“commerce” as limited to financial (selling and buying) transactions between close
trading partners (Turban et al., 2000). Historica l d efinitions of EC were externally
focused and concentrated on conducting business transactions with buyers (Kalakota &
Whinston, 1996; Kalakota and Whinston 1 997). Later definitions (Kalakota and
Robinson, 1999), however, showed more maturity in defining EC by replacing the term
“commerce” with the term “business”, as being more encompassing and as
acknowledging the importance of the seamless integration across intra- and inter-
Journal of Systems & Information Technology 7
68
organisations systems in order to develop successful business models and to gain real
benefits from EC endeavours.
Since the scope of this study is to tackle Internet technologies in small businesses
only, the term “electronic commerce” will be used interchangeably with “electronic
business” to represent Internet commerce technologies in this research. Accordingly, this
research adopts a definition provided by Poon (1999) for small business Internet
commerce, “the use of Internet technology and applications to support business activities
of a small firm.” According to Poon’s (1999) definition, a business activity can be
internally or externally focused and of transactional or strategic nature. Table 1 depicts
important Internet technologies, tools and applications.
Sl/No. INTERNET TECHNOLOGIES
1
Internet communication tools
Internal Email: using email within the organisation
ii. External email: using email with outside parties (i.e., suppliers, buyers, partners,
etc.)
iii. Email lists (List servers): Joining/creating email lists for announcements,
discussions, and electronic publishing
iv. Bulletin boards (Usenet News): Access to millions of news groups and in
creating discussion threads
2
Internet retrieval tools
i. File Transfer Protocol (FTP): For software downloads/transfer
ii. Gopher: A text retrieval tool
iii. Telnet: Remote log in to a secured server through the Internet
iv. WWW (Web): hypermedia architecture. Usually browsed using Microsoft
explorer or Netscape Navigator
3
Internet retrieval tools
i. Intranet: is a corporate local/wide area network that uses the Internet technology
and is secured behind the corporate firewall (A firewall: hardware and software
protection from the outside)
ii. Extranet (extended Intranets): Using the Internet (TCP/IP prot ocol) to link
Intranets in different locations
iii. Internet based electronic data interchange (Internet-EDI): using the Intern et as a
communication medium to electronically exchange documents in standardised
format directly between business applications on a continuous basis
iv. Web site: to establish a Web site for your organisation
4
Internet commerce enabling technologies (Patrick, 1999)
i. Mobile data systems: like hand held terminals or using wireless communications
to access the Internet.
ii. Teleconferencing: Using audio conferencing equipment, usually supplement the
telephone system.
Video conferencing: Using video conferencing equipment. Usually needs higher
communication bandwidth (i.e., ISDN, frame relay, and lately the Internet)
Table 1: Internet tools, applications and technologies.
The universal importance of small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) resulted
from their main contribution to the overall national economy. Generally, SMEs
constitute around 95 percent of enterprises and account for 60 to 70 perce nt of
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