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Advanced Topics in Global Information Management is the third in a series of books on advance topics in global information management (GIM). GIM research continues to progress, with some scholars pushing the boundaries of thinking and others challenging the status quo. *Note: This book is part of a new...

In many international settings, regional economies are declining resulting in lowered opportunities for these communities. This result attacks the very fabric of cohesion and purpose for these regional societies, and increases social, health, economic and sustainability problems. Community informatics...

This chapter discusses the importance of identifying cultural problems of the online globalization and points out that payment and logistic systems and language are the primary factors that every firm should take into account in the process of their online globalization. Next, the chapter identifies...

While e-commerce would seem to be a unique opportunity for poor countries with limited local markets to sell goods to richer nations, limited research is available on the current status of e-commerce efforts in Least Developed Countries (LDCs). This study reviewed the efforts of the nine countries...

Customer retention, or repurchase, is one of the main factors that help to create and maintain the competitiveness and sustainability of an organization. With the proliferation of B2C electronic commerce, retention has become even more important to Internet merchants who sell online, where customers...

Software applications are designed around user interaction. One interaction component is the user interface; the other deeper components represent the applications’ logic and core functionality. Internationalization architectures recognize the need for localizing user interfaces to particular cultures....

This chapter deals with the use of a group support system (GSS) to support virtual team-building. Literature review on Group Support Systems (GSS) indicates that most prior GSS research focuses on supporting face-to-face teamwork, and few studies were conducted in supporting virtual teamwork and...

We have studied the evolutionary stages of pure e-tailers, click & mortar (C&M) and brick & mortar (B&M) retailers for three points of time: June 1999, June 2000, and June 2001. To evaluate the dynamic stages of e-tailing business as an innovative venture, we propose four stages: exploration...

The purpose of this study is to find the factors that enhance member participation in virtual communities. Although there are many factors influencing member participation, this study limits its independent variables to those of managing strategy and information system quality. In addition to finding...

This chapter seeks to understand inter-organizational-trust as an antecedent factor in the adoption of and participation in e-commerce. Exploratory research from different theoretical perspectives including the inter-organizational relationship theory, transaction cost economics theory, resource...

It is widely recognized that eCommerce represents a critical resource for most business organizations. With over 1.25 billion people and double-digit economic growth, China could potentially emerge as the largest Internet and telecommunications market in the world if certain economic, environmental...

This chapter reports on a study of issues across the ERP life cycle from the perspectives of individuals with substantial and diverse involvement with SAP Financials in Queensland Government. A survey was conducted of 117 ERP system project participants in five closely related state government...

Most of the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of information systems and their determinants is confined to the use of data from Western countries. Evidence from other environments, where the social, economic, and cultural characteristics vary, is needed before generalizations can be made. This...

This chapter provides a reflection on Community Informatics (CI) practice as a means of contextualising its role in emerging civil society and its governance at the local or regional level. CI is more than electronically enabled interpersonal communication; it has a pluralistic potential, it is...

This chapter considers the significance of digital storytelling as a force for community cultural development in global and regional contexts and as a means of transforming regions. The primary focus is on practice, which will prove useful to both the community informatics practitioner and ethnographic...

Schools appear in some accounts of community informatics as part of community, one of a number of organisations that need to be taken into account, perhaps on the basis of them being useful physical or human resources around which community informatics might be based. For their part, schools, at least...

Communication technology initiatives have proved to be an important influence in rural communities in recent years. Our research has demonstrated that such initiatives have far-reaching effects on a community’s formal and informal social networks and, as a result, on its social capital. Given this...

This chapter explores the challenges of establishing and sustaining online communities and regional portals. Theory relevant to online communities, particularly in a regional and rural context, is introduced to provide a background for the MainStreet Regional Portal case study. The author hopes that...

The concept of ‘digital divide’ draws attention to the social context of technology usage. Current IT solutions are technology driven and are focussed on elite consumers in cities. In contrast, regional Australian communities face a number of problems such as remoteness, small population and distance....

How can the Internet help organize a country’s population who wishes to change their political system? The crisis that crashed the Argentine financial system in December 2001 did not just generate a powerful social explosion; it also created a new citizens information outburst. The night of December...

This chapter uses a case study approach to highlight issues surrounding the provision of government agency sponsored programs aimed at increasing Electronic Information Literacy (EIL), as a basic requirement for community engagement in an electronically enabled world. The Skills.net program was...

The chapter poses questions about the goal of building community through the creation of local networks, using the example of an entrepreneurial scheme to create a resident-run computer network in the Atherton Gardens high-rise housing estate in inner Melbourne, Australia. The scheme stems from a...

In regional Australia there is a growing interest and investment in community capacity building and this is beginning to be formalised in a desire to integrate information communications technology opportunities with other forms of community development. This paper explores the opportunity for greater...

The 10,000 Steps Rockhampton project is a community-based, multi-strategy health promotion program focussing on physical activity and the social determinants of health in a regional Australian setting. As yet there is no available literature about the process of constructing health promotion Web sites....

This chapter describes the development of the E-News project which examined an interactive journalism approach in Rockhampton, Australia. This project provided an opportunity to examine how the introduction of this new technology into regional media and communication brings into question the...