| The purpose of this study was to determine if value could be created in electronic commerce, as applied to the Internet, and what did businesses identify as value in this area.; A review of the literature reveals that individuals receive value in a means-end way, by the use of attributes, consequences, and goals (Woodruff, 1997). An individuals use of a product or service attribute allows them to realize certain consequences which helps them to achieve higher-level goals, and place value on that product or service. Models exist, e.g., laddering, that helps researchers uncover these value components (Gutman, 1982). Previous literature and research has described and attempted to look at value in traditional business commerce. This study expands on these value theories to uncover value in electronic commerce, and utilized the Delphi Group's (2000) B2B grouping which divided electronic commerce into eight categories, in which three were empirically tested in this research. Since conventional markets do not exist on the Internet, value in electronic commerce will have to be in its products and services (Kenny, 1999).; Data was collected in two phases. The first phase consisted of field interviews to obtain measures within each category to use in an electronic Web-based questionnaire the researcher had setup. In the second phase, emails were sent to 2,000 companies asking them to complete the Web-based questionnaire. Out of 190 returned surveys, 164 surveys were usable, for a rate of 11.4%.; Results of the data findings and analysis from the Web-based questionnaires, described in chapter four, show which measures initially obtained in the field interviews are supported. Out of the 69 hypotheses developed for this study, 36 were supported, 33 were not supported.; This research started with what was perceived to be a problem in delivering value in electronic commerce. The results of this research seem to indicate that businesses can uncover what is value to their customers. |
