Abstract

Electronic commerce is at the conjunction of the advances in microelectronics, information processing, and telecommunication that have redefined the role of computers, first in enterprises and now in daily life, beyond that of process and production control. In the early phase, business supply networks or distribution channels were automated for optimal scheduling of production based on feedback from markets. Since the 1980s, a series of innovations opened new vistas to electronic commerce in consumer applications through automatic cash dispensers, bank cards, and Internet and wireless transactions. Simultaneously, money took the form of bits moving around the world, including the form of cryptocurrencies. Electronic commerce is also evolving in a virtual economy, focusing on services with looser temporal, geographic, or organizational obligations and with less consumption of natural resources and pollution hazards (Haesler, 1995).