A Systemic Approach of Electronic Commerce

Abstract

This chapter applies several concepts from classical Systems Theory to the growing area of E-commerce and agents. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how General Systems Theory principles are widely applicable to the state-of-the art field of Electronic Commerce. The Systems Approach can be used as a framework to model interaction in the electronic marketplace. Software agents play an important role in this system. The chapter describes the characteristics of an intelligent agent and its applications in Electronic Commerce from a systemic perspective.