Final Exam Ch 1

Which of the following statements about the Web is not true? A) It is the technology upon which the Internet is based. B) It was developed in the early 1990s. C) It provides access to pages written in HTML. D) It provides access to Web pages that incorporate graphics, sound, and multimedia.

Answer: A It is the technology upon which the Internet is based.

The early years of e-commerce were driven by all of the following factors except: A) an emphasis on exploiting traditional distribution channels. B) a huge infusion of venture capital funds. C) an emphasis on quickly achieving a very high market visibility. D) visions of profiting from new technology.

Answer: A an emphasis on exploiting traditional distribution channels.

All of the following can be considered a precursor to e-commerce except: A) m-commerce. B) Baxter Healthcare's remote order entry system. C) The French Minitel. D) Electronic Data Interchange.

Answer: A m-commerce.

Above all, e-commerce is a(n) ________-driven phenomenon. A) technology B) government C) marketing D) user

Answer: A technology

Which of the following statements is not true? A) No one academic perspective dominates research about e-commerce. B) Information systems researchers take a purely technical approach to e-commerce. C) There are two primary approaches to e-commerce: behavioral and technical. D) Management scientists are interested in e-commerce as an opportunity to study how business firms can exploit the Internet to achieve more efficient business operations.

Answer: B Information systems researchers take a purely technical approach to e-commerce.

Which of the following is not an example of a Web 2.0 application? A) YouTube B) Yahoo C) Second Life D) Wikipedia

Answer: B Yahoo

Which of the following is not a major technology trend in e-commerce? A) Mobile computing begins to rival the PC platform B) The Internet broadband foundation becomes stronger in households and businesses. C) Computing and networking component prices increase dramatically. D) Wireless Internet connections grow rapidly.

Answer: C Computing and networking component prices increase dramatically.

Which of the following statements is not true? A) Information asymmetries are continually being introduced by merchants and marketers. B) Intermediaries have not disappeared. C) Overall transaction costs have dropped dramatically. D) Brands remain very important in e-commerce.

Answer: C Overall transaction costs have dropped dramatically.

All of the following were visions of e-commerce expressed during the early years of e-commerce except: A) a nearly perfect competitive market. B) friction-free commerce. C) persistence of information asymmetries. D) first mover advantage.

Answer: C persistence of information asymmetries

Which of the following is not true regarding e-commerce today? A) Economists' visions of a friction-free market have not been realized. B) Consumers are less price-sensitive than expected. C) There remains considerable persistent price dispersion. D) The market middlemen disappeared.

Answer: D The market middlemen disappeared.

Net marketplaces include all of the following except: A) e-distributors. B) exchanges. C) industry consortia. D) private industrial networks.

Answer: D private industrial networks.

None of the following technologies easily crosses national boundaries to a global audience except: A) television. B) radio stations. C) newspapers. D) the Internet.

Answer: D the Internet.

Which of the following is not a characteristic of a perfect competitive market? A) price, cost, and quality information are equally distributed. B) a nearly infinite set of suppliers compete against one another. C) customers have access to all relevant information worldwide. D) the growth of regulatory activity both nationally and internationally.

Answer: D the growth of regulatory activity both nationally and internationally.

Which of the following is not a limitation on the growth of B2C e-commerce? A) the sophisticated skill set required to use the Internet and e-commerce systems B) the persistent global inequality limiting access to telephone service, PCs, and cell phones C) saturation and ceiling effects D) the retrenchment and consolidation of e-commerce into the hands of large established firms

Answer: D the retrenchment and consolidation of e-commerce into the hands of large established firms

B2G e-commerce is a form of which type of e-commerce?

B2B

List and briefly explain the five main types of e-commerce. For the most part, what is the metric upon which the types of e-commerce are distinguished?

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) in online businesses reach consumers; Business-to-Business (B2B), in which businesses sell to other businesses; Consumer to Consumer (C2C), consumers can sell goods to each other; Peer-to-Peer (P2P), use of file sharing technology, eliminating a Web server; and mobile commerce or m-commerce the use of wireless digital devices to enable Web transactions. The metric upon which each of these types of e-commerce is distinguished is the nature of the market relationship--who is selling to whom, except m-commerce, which is defined by the method of transacting.

________ refers to the displacement of market middlemen.

Disintermediation

Define the terms e-business and e-commerce and explain the difference. What is the key factor in determining if a transaction is "commerce"?

E-business refers primarily to digitally enabled transactions within a firm, involving information systems under the control of the firm. E-business does not include commercial transactions in which an exchange of value across organizational boundaries takes place. E-commerce, on the other hand, is a revenue generating operation. The key factor in determining if a transaction is commerce therefore is "exchange of value." In order to be e-commerce, a transaction must include the direct production of revenue.

Has e-commerce changed the marketing of goods? If so, how?

E-commerce has greatly changed the marketing of goods. Before, the marketing and sale of goods was a mass-marketing and sales force-driven process. Marketers viewed consumers as passive targets of advertising. The Internet and Web can deliver, to an audience of millions, rich marketing messages with text, video, and audio, in a way not possible with traditional commerce technologies such as radio, television, or magazines. Merchants can target their marketing messages to specific individuals. Much information about the consumer can be gathered from the Web site the consumer visits. With the increase in information density, a great deal of information about the consumer's past purchases and behavior can be stored and used by online merchants. The result is a level of personalization and customization unthinkable with existing commerce technologies.

________ refers to any disparity in relevant market information among parties in a transaction.

Information asymmetry

________ Law quantifies the network effect, by stating that the value of a network grows by the square of the number of participants.

Metcalfe's

Which type of e-commerce is distinguished by the type of technology used in the transaction rather than by the nature of the market relationship?

Peer-to-Peer (P2P)

The most popular service that runs on the Internet infrastructure is the ________.

World Wide Web/Web

E-commerce during the early years of e-commerce was:

a technological success and a mixed business success.

Which of the following is required for commerce to occur?

an exchange of value

An economist is most likely to be interested in a ________ approach to e-commerce.

behavior

Business-to-consumer B2C e-commerce is:

expected to return to a growth rate of 10 percent a year after the recession.

A firm that is first to market in a particular area and that moves quickly to gather market share is referred to as a(n) ________.

first mover

An Internet ________ is defined as any IP address that returns a domain name in the in-addr.arpa domain.

host

Which of the following is one of the three primary societal issues related to e-commerce?

individual privacy

Tangible works of the mind such as music, books, and videos are called ________.

intellectual property

A(n) ________ extends the marketplace beyond traditional boundaries.

marketspace

Which of the following is the top-selling online retail category?

mass merchant/department store

A(n) ________ occurs when everyone in a group receives value because all participants use the same tool or product.

network effect

Unfair competitive advantages occur when:

one competitor has an advantage others cannot purchase.

One of the predictions for the future of e-commerce is that:

overall revenues from e-commerce will grow by 10-12 percent a year from 2010 through 2013.

The targeting of marketing messages to specific individuals by adjusting the message to a person's name, interests, and past purchases is called ________.

personalization

Which of the following is a characteristic of the re-invention phase of e-commerce?

proliferation of small online intermediaries renting the business processes of larger firms

Which of the following types of merchants has the highest share of retail online sales?

retail chain

Which of the following qualities is least likely to decrease a consumer's search costs?

richness

The integration of video, audio, and text marketing messages into a single marketing message and consuming experience is an example of:

richness.

Which of the following is a characteristic of the consolidation phase of e-commerce?

strengthening of intermediaries

Which of the following is the best definition of transaction costs?

the cost of participating in markets

E-commerce technologies have changed the traditional tradeoff between the richness and reach of a marketing message. Prior to the development of the Web:

the larger the audience reached, the less rich the message.

E-commerce can be defined as:

the use of the Internet and the Web to transact business.

Network externalities are related to which of the following features of e-commerce technology?

universal standards

Which of the following are all unique features of e-commerce technology?

universal standards, richness, information density, interactivity

The most significant technology that can reduce barriers to Internet access is:

wireless Web technology.

Which business improvement is associated with the technological development of local area networks and client/server computing?

workgroup automation for example document sharing