Category Archives: ecommerce

August 21, 2026 · 10:59 am

Call for papers: Strategic governance and ecosystem management in AI-enabled digital marketplaces

Deadline: 10th July 2027

Journal

Journal of Strategy and Management

Guest editor(s)

Ciro Troise, Mark Anthony Camilleri, Mohamed Hani Gheith, Jacopo Ballerini

Introduction

The special issue will focus on issues surrounding strategic governance and ecosystem management in AI-enabled digital marketplaces. Digital marketplaces have become central infrastructures through which firms design, implement, and revise competitive strategies. Across industries, platforms such as Amazon, Alibaba, and Booking.com increasingly shape how firms access markets, coordinate interactions, and capture value. These marketplaces are no longer simply transactional venues: they operate as strategic environments in which rules, data, and intermediation structures redefine the competitive landscape and reshape ecosystem-level outcomes (Bourai et al., 2024; Loonam & O’Regan, 2022). A key reason for the strategic relevance of marketplaces is that they embed governance directly into market processes. Pricing rules, commission systems, access regimes, ranking and recommendation logics, and enforcement routines influence participation incentives and competitive conduct. Marketplace governance thus becomes a strategic design issue rather than an operational detail. This aligns with research conceptualizing platforms as hybrid governance systems that blend market coordination, hierarchical control, and network interdependence, where governance mechanisms continuously evolve in response to ecosystem dynamics (Cuypers et al., 2021; McIntyre et al., 2020). This governance perspective also brings boundary decisions and distribution strategy back to the center of strategic management. For vendors—particularly SMEs—marketplace participation is a fundamental strategic choice affecting dependence, autonomy, capability development, and long-term positioning. Firms increasingly experiment with direct, indirect, and hybrid routes to market, integrating proprietary infrastructures with third-party marketplaces and offline channels. Recent evidence suggests that SME performance depends on how platform adoption interacts with commitment and organizational routines (Ballerini et al., 2023). These choices reflect strategic trade-offs between control and efficiency and are shaped by how firms design and govern multichannel systems (Homburg et al., 2020). Marketplace governance is also deeply intertwined with organizational learning, alliances, and transformation processes. Digital strategy effectiveness depends on cultural and organizational alignment (Cyfert et al., 2025), while dynamic capabilities shape firms’ ability to adapt and transform in digital contexts (Ellström et al., 2022). In turbulent environments, SMEs rely on agility and transformation capabilities to remain competitive (Troise et al., 2022). Moreover, alliances and tacit learning can enable recovery and resilience under constrained governance conditions, particularly in emerging markets (Aditchere et al., 2025). These dynamics highlight that governance is not only imposed by platforms but also shaped by how ecosystem actors learn, adapt, and coordinate over time (Öberg, 2024). At the same time, governance complexity is increasingly amplified by AI-enabled systems embedded in marketplace architectures. Algorithmic ranking, automated monitoring, fraud detection, dynamic pricing, and AI-supported customer management systems increasingly mediate competitive interactions and decision-making. Recent research suggests that generative AI can enhance market effectiveness through CRM-related applications, particularly under technological turbulence and with strong top management support (Kumar et al., 2025). Yet adoption is shaped by managerial cognition and organizational culture: technophobia, self-regulated learning, and open cultures influence managerial intentions to adopt generative AI (Zhao et al., 2025). Marketplace-based business models may also create competitive advantage by reducing time-related frictions for ecosystem participants, reinforcing the strategic role of platform architectures in enabling efficiency and coordination (Santoro et al., 2025). In practice, major marketplaces have already introduced generative AI tools for sellers and advertising optimization (e.g., Amazon’s AI listing tools and ad automation), illustrating how AI is increasingly integrated into governance and ecosystem management logics. These developments raise not only managerial and strategic issues but also broader societal and ethical questions. AI-enabled governance may increase efficiency and scalability, yet it may also intensify opacity, reinforce asymmetries, and raise concerns around accountability, contestability, and fairness. Understanding how governance mechanisms evolve under AI-enabled coordination therefore represents a timely and consequential research agenda. In addition, digital marketplace configurations may shape firm growth and internationalization trajectories in ways that depend on the strategic balance between platform reach and strategic autonomy (Ballerini et al., 2024).

We welcome submissions to this special issue. The special issue seeks a mix of theoretical, conceptual, and empirical cases and is open to various methods (e.g., qualitative case studies, quantitative analysis of platform data, or formal modeling, etc.). It welcomes theoretically grounded and empirically rich contributions that advance strategy and management research on governance and ecosystem management in AI-enabled digital marketplaces. We encourage conceptual and theory-building contributions, qualitative and process-based studies, large-scale empirical analyses (including digital trace and platform data), mixed-method research, and comparative cross-country work. In line with emerging methodological developments, we also explicitly welcome innovative approaches such as agent-based modeling, longitudinal ecosystem mapping, and multi-level designs that connect governance mechanisms to ecosystem-level outcomes. Topics covered include (but are not limited to):

1. Designing and revising governance architectures in digital marketplaces

  • How governance systems are deliberately designed, experimented with, and revised over time
  • Strategic trade-offs between openness, control, and scalability across platform life cycles
  • Emergent governance practices beyond formal rules (e.g., informal coordination, adaptive enforcement, negotiated control)
  • AI-driven enforcement and adaptive governance (e.g., automated compliance monitoring, fraud detection, dynamic rule implementation)

2. Boundary choices and the strategic reconfiguration of distribution ecosystems

  • How firms navigate shifting boundaries between proprietary infrastructures, third-party marketplaces, and hybrid configurations
  • Experimental and transitional forms of direct–indirect–hybrid distribution under platform dependence
  • Governance implications of coordinating online and offline channels within platform-mediated systems
  • Boundary decisions under AI-enabled intermediation (e.g., AI-based pricing tools, automated advertising systems)

3. Ecosystem power, dependence, and the micro-foundations of value capture

  • How governance mechanisms redistribute bargaining power and strategic discretion across ecosystem actors
  • Vendor strategies for managing dependence, asymmetry, and multi-homing under algorithmic control
  • Long-term consequences of marketplace participation for autonomy, growth trajectories, and competitive positioning
  • Strategic implications of algorithmic visibility and attention allocation (e.g., ranking and recommendation regimes)

4. Capabilities, alliances, and organizational learning under platform governance

  • How firms build governance-specific capabilities to operate under rule-based and algorithmic coordination
  • Alliances, relational contracts, and tacit learning as complements or substitutes for formal governance
  • Co-evolution of corporate transformation and ecosystem-level change in platform settings
  • Learning mechanisms for adapting to AI-enabled governance and platform policy changes

5. AI-enabled governance and the transformation of managerial control

  • How algorithmic and generative-AI systems reshape monitoring, ranking, enforcement, and coordination practices
  • Managerial sense-making, learning, and resistance in the adoption of AI for governance and ecosystem management
  • Strategic consequences of opacity, automation, and explainability for trust, legitimacy, and accountability
  • Ethical and societal implications of AI-enabled governance (e.g., fairness, contestability, transparency)
  • The impact of GenAI on ranking algorithms
  • Governance of cross-border data in platforms

6. Ecosystem orchestration, global expansion, and institutional complexity

  • Governance challenges in platform-enabled global value chains and cross-border ecosystems
  • Orchestration strategies for resilience, reconfiguration, and ecosystem renewal under technological turbulence
  • Strategic responses to regulatory fragmentation and institutional pluralism in digital marketplaces
  • AI-enabled orchestration capabilities and ecosystem coordination across borders

Deadline and Submission Details

The submission will open May 10, 2027

The submission deadline for all papers is July 10, 2027

The publication date of this special issue is January 31, 2028

To submit your research, please visit the Scholar One manuscript portal. https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jsma 

To view the author guidelines for this journal, please visit the journal’s page. https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/jsma 

Contact the Guest Editor:

Ciro Troise, Department of Management, University of Turin, Ciro.troise@unito.it 

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December 8, 2022 · 1:28 am

Factors affecting intentions to use interactive technologies

This is an excerpt from one of our latest academic articles (that was accepted by the Journal of Services Marketing).

Theoretical implications

Previous studies reported that interactive websites ought to be accessible, appealing, convenient, functional, secure and responsive to their users (Crolic et al., 2021; Hoyer et al., 2020; Kabadayi et al., 2020; Klaus and Zaichkowsky, 2020; Rosenmayer et al., 2018; Sheehan et al., 2020; Valtakoski, 2019). Online service providers are expected to deliver a personalized customer service experience and to exceed their consumers’ expectations at all times, to encourage repeat business and loyal behaviors (Li et al., 2017; Tong et al., 2020; Zeithaml et al. 2002).

Many service marketing researchers have investigated the individuals’ perceptions about price comparison sites, interactive websites, ecommerce / online marketplaces, electronic banking, and social media, among other virtual domains (Donthu et al., 2021; Kabadayi et al., 2020; Klaus and Zaichkowsky, 2020; Rosenbaum and Russell-Bennett, 2020; Rosenmayer et al., 2018; Valtakoski, 2019; Zaki, 2019). Very often, they relied on measures drawn from electronic service quality (e-SQ or e-SERVQUAL), electronic retail quality (eTailQ), transaction process-based approaches for capturing service quality (eTransQual), net quality (NETQual), perceived electronic service quality (PeSQ), site quality (SITEQUAL) and website quality (webQual), among others.

Technology adoption researchers often adapted TAM measures, including perceived usefulness and behavioral intentions constructs, among others, or relied on psychological theories like the Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 195) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991), among others, to explore the individuals’ acceptance and use of different service technologies, in various contexts (Park et al., 2007; Chen and Chang, 2018). Alternatively, they utilized IAM’s theoretical framework to investigate the online users’ perceptions about the usefulness of information or online content. Very often they examined the effects of information usefulness on information adoption (Erkan and Evans, 2016; Liu et al., 2017).

A review of the relevant literature suggests that good quality content (in terms of its understandability, completeness, timeliness and accuracy) as well as the sources’ credibility (with regard to their trustworthiness and expertise) can increase the individuals’ expectations regarding a business and its products or services (Cheung et al., 2008; Li et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2017). ELM researchers suggest that a high level of message elaboration (i.e., argument quality) as well as the peripheral cues like the credibility of the sources and their appealing content, can have a positive impact on the individuals’ attitudes toward the conveyors of information (Allison et al., 2017; Chen and Chang, 2018; Petty et al., 1983), could affect their intentions to (re)visit the businesses’ websites (Salehi-Esfahani et al., 2016), and may even influence their purchase intentions (Chen and Chang, 2018; Erkan and Evans, 2016).

This contribution differentiates itself from previous research as the researchers adapted key measures from ELM/IAM namely ‘information quality’ (Filieri and McLeay, 2014; Salehi-Esfahani et al., 2016; Shu and Scott, 2013; Tseng and Wang, 2016) and ‘source credibility’ (Ayeh, 2015; Leong et al., 2019; Wang and Scheinbaum, 2018) and integrated them with an ‘interactive engagement’ construct (McMillan and Hwang, 2002), to better understand the individuals’ utilitarian motivations to use the service businesses’ interactive websites. The researchers hypothesized that these three constructs were plausible antecedents of TAM’s ‘perceived usefulness’ and ‘intentions to use the technology’. Specifically, this research examines the direct effects of information quality, source credibility and interactive engagement on the individuals’ perceived usefulness of interactive website, as well as their indirect effects on their intentions to continue using these service technologies.

To the best of the researchers’ knowledge, there is no other research in academia that included an interactive engagement construct in addition to ELM/IAM and TAM measures. This contribution addresses this gap in the literature. The engagement construct was used to better understand the respondents’ perceptions about the ease-of-use of interactive websites, to ascertain whether they are captivating their users’ attention by offering a variety of content, and more importantly, to determine whether they consider them as responsive technologies.

Managerial implications

This study sheds light on the travel websites’ interactive capabilities during an unprecedented crisis situation, when businesses received higher volumes of inquiries through different channels (to change bookings, cancel itineraries and/or submit refund requests). At the same time, it identified the most significant factors that were affecting the respondents’ perceptions and motivations to continue using interactive service technologies in the future.

In sum, this research confirmed that the respondents were evaluating the quality of information that is featured in interactive websites. The findings reported they were well acquainted with the websites’ content (e.g. news feeds, product information, differentiated pricing options, images, video clips, and/or web chat facilities). The researchers presumed that the respondents were well aware of the latest developments. During COVID-19, a number of travel websites have eased their terms and conditions relating to cancellations and refund policies (EU, 2020), to accommodate their customers. Online businesses were expected to communicate with their customers and to clarify any changes in their service delivery, in a timely manner.

The contribution clarified that online users were somehow influenced by the asynchronous content that is featured in webpages. Therefore, service businesses ought to publish quality information to satisfy their customers’ expectations.  They may invest in service technologies like a frequently answered questions widget in their websites to enhance their online customer services, and to support online users during and after the sales transactions. Service businesses could integrate events’ calendars, maps, multi-lingual accessibility options, online reviews and ratings, high resolution images and/or videos in their interactive websites, to entertain their visitors (Cao and Yang, 2016; Bastida and Huan, 2014).  

This research underlines the importance for service providers to consistently engage in concurrent, online conversations with customers and prospects, in real-time (Buhalis and Sinarta 2019; Chattaraman et al., 2019; Rihova et al., 2018; Harrigan et al., 2017). Recently, more researchers are raising awareness on the provision of live chat facilities through interactive websites or via SNSs like WhatsApp or Messenger (Camilleri & Troise, 2022). Services businesses are expected to respond to consumer queries, and to address their concerns, as quickly as possible (McLean and Osei-Frimpong, 2019), in order to minimize complaints.

AI chatbot technologies are increasingly enabling service businesses to handle numerous interactions with online users, when compared to telephone conversations with human customer services representatives (Adam et al., 2021; Hoyer et al., 2020; Luo et al., 2019; McLean and Osei-Frimpong, 2019; Van Pinxteren et al., 2019). The most advanced dialogue systems are equipped with features like omnichannel messaging support, no code deployment, fallback options, as well as sentiment analysis. These service technologies are designed to improve the consumers’ experiences by delivering automated smart responses, in an efficient manner. Hence, online businesses will be in a better position to meet and exceed their customers’ service expectations. Indeed, service businesses can leverage themselves with a responsive website. These interactive technologies enable them to improve their positioning among customers, and to generate positive word-of-mouth publicity.

Limitations and future research avenues

This study has included a perceived interactivity dimension, namely an ‘interactive engagement’ construct within an information adoption model. The findings revealed that the respondents believed that the websites’ engaging content was a significant antecedent of their perceptions about the usefulness of interactive websites. This study also reported that the interactive engagement construct indirectly affected the individuals’ intentions to revisit them again.

In conclusion, the authors recommend that future researchers validate this study’s measures in other contexts, to determine the effects of interactive engagement on information adoption and/or on the acceptance and usage of online technologies. Further research is required to better understand which attributes and features of interactive websites are appreciated by online users. Recent contributions suggest that there are many benefits for service businesses to use conversational chatbots to respond to online customer services. These interactive technologies can offer increased convenience to consumers and prospects (Thomaz et al., 2020), improved operational efficiencies (Pantano and Pizzi, 2020), reduced labor costs (Belanche et al., 2020), as well as time-saving opportunities for customers and service providers (Adam et al., 2021).

Prospective empirical research may consider different constructs from other theoretical frameworks to examine the individuals’ perceptions and/or attitudes toward interactive websites and their service technologies. Academic researchers are increasingly relying on the expectancy theory/expectancy violation theory (Crolic et al., 2021), the human computer interaction theory/human machine communication theory (Wilkinson et al., 2021), the social presence theory (Tsai et al., 2021), and/or the social response theory (Adam et al., 2021), among others, to investigate the customers’ engagement with service technologies.

Notwithstanding, different methodologies and sampling frames could be used to capture and analyze primary data. For instance, inductive studies may investigate the consumers’ in-depth opinions and beliefs on this topic. Interpretative studies may reveal important insights on how to improve the efficacy and/or the perceived usefulness of interactive service technologies.

The full paper is available here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366055918_Utilitarian_motivations_to_engage_with_travel_websites_An_interactive_technology_adoption_model

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June 23, 2021 · 6:15 pm

Customers are always right, even after their shopping cart checkout!

Photo by CardMapr.nl on Unsplash

The outbreak of COVID-19 and its preventative measures have led several businesses and consumers to change their shopping behaviors. Many individuals have inevitably reduced their human-to-human interactions in physical service environments and were increasingly relying on the adoption of digital media and mobile devices, including smart phones and tablets for their shopping requirements.

Consumers as well as businesses are benefiting of faster connections as the loading speeds of these devices is one of the critical determining factors as to whether visitors may (or may not) be willing to browse through e-commerce websites or apps, to proceed to check out, and to lay down their credit cards.

Advances in technological capabilities have improved the consumers’ online shopping experiences. As a result, more businesses are benefiting from the expertise of online marketplaces to deliver personalized services to their customers. For instance, Amazon provides product recommendations to its visitors, that are based on their previous searches.

Ecommerce giants utilize machine learning technologies to segment consumers by geographical location, age and gender, buying habits, total expenditure, and more. They capture data from online users, including their browsing and purchase histories. They distinguish between profitable, loyal customers, price-sensitive customers, and identify those who are likely to abandon their shopping carts.

Prospective consumers will usually compare a wide variety of products and their corresponding prices, in different virtual marketplaces, before making their purchase decision. They will probably check out the consumer reviews to confirm the reputation and trustworthiness of online merchants. At times, they will not be in a position to confirm the legitimacy of certain websites and to determine if it is safe to disclose their payment details to anonymous vendors.

A few websites may require consumers to join their mailing list. They may expect them to provide their email addresses, that they may share with third parties. As a result, consumers could receive unwanted ads and scams in their inboxes. Moreover, they may experience phishing and spoofing. Therefore, shopping web pages should use SSL certificates to prove that their transactions are safe and secure.

Furthermore, e-commerce websites ought to feature accurate, timely and reliable content. They have to be as transparent as possible with online users. They should clarify their terms and conditions as well as their refund policies. The smallest thing that’s out of place in their e-commerce pages could rapidly erode the customers’ trust in their products and services.

Online users cannot inspect (or try) their chosen products until they receive them. They may experience delays in the delivery of their shopping items, particularly, if they get lost, detoured or delivered in the wrong address. Once they receive the product they ordered, they may decide to return it, if for some reason they are not satisfied by its quality. In this case, they could (or could not) be reimbursed for incurring shipping and packaging costs. Shopping websites are increasingly offering synchronous communications facilities to enhance their personalized services through web chat facilities that enable instantaneous conversations with online users.

This development has significantly improved the consumers’ perceptions about the service quality of e-commerce websites and their satisfaction levels. They also increased the chances of their repeat purchases. In sum, this contribution suggests that online businesses and marketplaces should identify the critical success factors that are differentiating e-commerce websites from one another. The most popular online marketplaces are capable of attracting repeat consumers through a consistent delivery of personalized customer service, thereby increasing their sales potential and growth prospects

This research confirmed that the consumers’ satisfaction with e-commerce websites has a significant effect on their loyalty as well as on their electronic word-of-mouth publicity. This is an important finding, considering that there are several shopping websites and online marketplaces where consumers can find identical or alternative products. In this case, the respondents suggested that e-commerce websites delivered good value to them and that they triggered their loyal behaviors. The research participants indicated that they were satisfied with the quality of the shopping websites and with their electronic services.

This study showed that customers were intrigued to share their positive or negative experiences with products and/or services with other online users. Hence, they were willing to cocreate online content for the benefit of prospective consumers. Many customers are increasingly voicing their opinions and recommendations through qualitative reviews and/or quantitative ratings to support other individuals in their purchase decisions. They may either encourage or discourage others from shopping from a particular vendor and/or website.

This research confirmed that the online users’ satisfaction levels with the service quality of the e-commerce website relied on different factors, including website attractiveness, functionality and security as well as on consumer order fulfillment, during and after a purchase. The websites’ designs and layouts can capture their visitors’ attention and may possibly improve the online consumers’ experiences during their purchase transactions.

The e-commerce websites’ appearance and their functionality may entice online users to continue browsing through their content and to revisit them again, in the future. Online users would be satisfied if the e-commerce websites are informative, useful and easy to use. They utilize shopping websites to access relevant content on the attributes and features of products, including consumer reviews. Therefore, the technical functionality of these websites’ inventory systems should feature accurate and timely information on the availability of items as well as on their prices and costs of delivery.

In this day and age, shopping websites should provide approximate shipping dates, estimated delivery times, et cetera. Online sellers should also establish clear information on their returning policies. They may direct online users and past consumers to frequently answered questions, and/or to chatbots. Alternatively, they may offer webchat facilities to engage with their valued customers, in real time.

Key Takeaway

Although there are many studies that have explored the service quality of e-commerce websites during a purchase transaction, only a few of them have focused on consumer fulfillment (and on their after-sales services). The findings from this research reported that timely deliveries, and the provision of personalized services have a highly significant effect on consumer satisfaction and loyalty.

Service providers ought to meet and exceed their customers’ expectations in different stages of their order fulfilment in online retailing contexts. They ought to deliver the ordered items as expeditiously as possible, to improve their service quality. Online retailers should respond to consumer enquiries, in a timely manner. This way, they can increase consumer satisfaction, minimize complaints and reduce the likelihood of negative criticism (and damaging e-WOM) in review websites and social media.

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This is an excerpt of my latest academic article that was published in the Journal of Strategy and Management. It is available here: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JSMA-02-2021-0045/full/html

A prepublication version is available through ResearchGate.

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