A theoretical study on commodity material how

Abstract

This paper is consisted of four parts. The first part argues that e-commerce and e-commercial affairs are two different concepts. The second part discusses the property of commodity; that is, a commodity is characterized by six important characteristics including material, flow, owner, region, time and information. The third part puts forward a theory on commodity material flows (MFs) in which the concept of 'six essential commodities for production and living' is proposed. It is the first time that the movement rules of 'six essential commodities for production and living' and 'input-production- circulation-consumption' in the social economic development process was proposed. Commodity physical flow, commodity capital flow and commodity information flow are considered as the three different states of commodity MFs, and they must follow the rule of the entire commodity movement. The theory of commodity MF includes commodity physical flow theory, commodity capital flow theory and commodity information flow theory. The core is commodity physical flow theory. The fourth part further discuses three flows, i.e. commodity physical flow, capital flow and information flow, indicating that three flows are contradictory but complementary, suggesting the systems thinking of 'three flows integration', 'three flows combination' and 'three flows incorporation'. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.