 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
to accommodate the social concerns rising from the use of
electronic commerce,
in order to create a ‘digital literate’
society that will fully exploit the technology at
hand while preserving their social interests and cultural identities.
A very important aspect of a national electronic commerce strategy is diffusion
of knowledge to business and society at large. Damsgaard and Lyytinen (1998)
use, in their analysis on the diffusion of EDI (business-to-business electronic
commerce), six government strategies defined by King et al. (1994). These are
knowledge building, knowledge deployment, subsidy, mobilization, innovation
directive, and standard setting. We extend these strategies for the diffusion of
electronic commerce, where apart from business, individuals are also the targets of
the government intervention. Thus, a grid can be created (see Table 1) with the
combination of these strategies and their target groups (business, society).
Companies are usually the direct beneficiaries of electronic commerce
policies. This is why all the diffusion strategies are applicable (see far right column
in Table 1). Policy makers try to persuade enterprises to invest in new technologies
and take advantage of the opportunities the new means can offer. The governments
may use a great number of the strategies to
influence companies and help them in
the implementation of electronic commerce technologies and practices. Companies
can first be made aware of the new technologies (knowledge deployment), receive
Table 1: Target groups of an electronic commerce strategy
Policies
Knowledge building
Knowledge deployment
Subsidy
Mobilization
Innovation directive
Standard/regulation setting
Individuals-
Companies-
Societal level
Business level
D
D
D
D
D
D
D
D