Customer integration and web interactivity. A literature review and analysis of the role of transaction costs in building value webs

Abstract

Newspapers are facing a variety of profound and disruptive challenges that come to threaten the printed publishing industry’s race for survival. By offering interactive e-commerce applications and services, and thereby actively engaging consumers in the communication process, news publishers are increasingly are emphasizing solid and sustainable relationships that may help them achieve improved economic viability and sustainable competitive advantages in the electronic marketplace. In contrast to the thesis that net-enabled business exchange automatically leads to transaction costs efficiencies (Bakos, MIS Quarterly 15(3): 295-310, 1991; Benjamin and Wigand, Sloan Management Review 36: 62-72, 1995; Brynjolfsson and Smith, Management Science 46(4): 563-585, 2000; Cordella and Simon, The impact of information technology on transaction and coordination cost. Paper presented at the Conference on Information Systems Research in Scandinavia (IRIS 20), Oslo, Norway, 1997), this chapter argues that although interactivity may potentially reduce transaction costs, these costs are contingent upon different forms and practicalities of interactivity, and its impacts on the value of the interaction. It is assumed that offering interactivity-driven B2C e-commerce goods and services may involve transaction costs that exceed efficiency thresholds on both sides of the transaction which will negatively affect the welfare of both news publisher and online consumers. The author develops a conceptual model of web interactivity and its potential effects of transaction costs. This model aims at fostering the theoretical development in social media management research in news publishing by drawing from disparate theoretical concepts and analytical frameworks.