Applying the stakeholder concept to electronic commerce: extending previous research to guide government policy makers Anastasia Papazafeiropoulou, Athanasia Pouloudi and Wendy L. Currie Department of Information Systems and Computing, Brunel University, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, United Kingdom Tel: +44 1895 203375 Fax: +44 1895 251686 {Anastasia.Papazafeiropoulou, Nancy.Pouloudi,Wendy.Currie}@brunel.ac.uk Abstract Stakeholder analysis has become popular in the management literature, since the 1980s but is usually accompanied by debate about its use and scope. Later on, the view that the consideration of various types of stakeholders is beneficiary for organisations has been borrowed by the information systems literature where it was realised that successful implementation of information systems does not depend only on technical aspects. In this paper we examine how the use of stakeholder concept can be expanded outside the boundaries of a company or a group of companies, helping at the implementation of a successful electronic commerce policy from national governments. 1. Introduction Electronic commerce is a new technological phenomenon that has the potential to offer great advantages to companies and individuals. It is a powerful new way of contacting business that raises a lot of opportunities for companies to cut transaction costs and offer better services, while individuals may take advantage of better products and services (e.g. [1-5]). The beneficiaries from the use of electronic commerce technologies and practices can be individuals or companies, public authorities or any other physical or virtual entities acting in the electronic commerce marketplace. It seems appropriate for companies and public authorities today to realise the benefits of electronic commerce technologies and act as early adopters, exploiting the new business opportunities. It is obvious that governments and governmental agencies have a vital role in this procedure as their decisions can influence the evolution of electronic commerce adoption [6]. Policy making in electronic commerce therefor is an important aspect that demands special attention from governments today (e.g. [7-10]). The challenge that governments face today in order to implement an efficient electronic commerce policy is twofold. First, they need to provide the business community with a robust technical infrastructure and an efficient legislation framework (e.g. [11-15]). Second, they need to accommodate the social concerns rising from the use of electronic commerce, in order to create a "digital literate" society that will fully exploit the available technology (e.g. [16- 20]). The challenge for governments is even grater considering the fact that the network of entities involved in the policy making is extremely complex and the number of stakeholders that explicitly or implicitly participate in the process is growing fast [6]. In this paper we argue that it is very important for governments to have a holistic view of the stakeholders acting in the field of electronic commerce. In this way they can be sensitive to the specific needs of different interest groups, they can be more effective in the application of their strategies and act proactively in a rapid technologically changing environment. The argument proceeds as follows. First, we describe the use of the stakeholder concept in the management literature where it originates. Then we examine the use of the stakeholder notion in information systems research with emphasis on the latest developments in the field. In section 4 we introduce the descriptive aspect of the stakeholder concept in electronic commerce research and especially in electronic commerce policymaking. In section 5 we examine the 0-7695-0981-9/01 $10.00 (c) 2001 IEEE 1 Proceedings of the 34th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2001