A Multi-Agent Smart E-Market Design at Work for Shariah Compliant Islamic Banking

Though quite fast on growth, Islamic financing at large, and its diverse instruments, is a controversial matter among scholars. This is evident from the ongoing debates on its Shariah compliance. Arguments, however, are inciting doubts and concerns among clients about its credibility, which is harming this lucrative sector. The work here investigates, particularly, some issues related to the Tawarruq instrument. The work examines the issues of linking Murabaha and Wakala contracts, the reselling of commodities to same traders, and the transfer of ownerships. The work affirms that a multi-agent smart electronic market design would facilitate Shariah compliance. The smart market exploits the rational decision-making capabilities of autonomous proxy agents that enable the clients, traders, brokers, and the bank buy and sell commodities, and manage transactions and cash flow. The smart electronic market design delivers desirable qualities that terminate the need for Wakala contracts and the reselling of commodities to the same traders. It also resolves the ownership transfer issues by allowing stakeholders to trade independently. The bank administers the smart electronic market and assures reliability of trades, transactions and cash flow. A multi-agent simulation is presented to validate the concept and processes. We anticipate that the multi-agent smart electronic market design would deliver Shariah compliance of personal financing to the aspiration of scholars, banks, traders and potential clients.

Value Co-Creation in Used-Car Auctions: A Service Scientific Perspective

Electronic market place plays an important intermediary role for connecting dealers and retail customers. The main aim of this paper is to design a value co-creation model in used-car auctions. More specifically, the study has been designed in order to describe the process of value co-creation in used-car auctions, to explore the co-created values in used-car auctions, and finally conclude the paper indicating the future research directions. Our analysis shows that economic values as well as non-economic values are co-created in used-car auctions. In addition, this paper contributes to the academic society broadening the view of value co-creation in service science.

Examining Effects of Electronic Market Functions on Decrease in Product Unit Cost and Response Time to Customer

Electronic markets in recent decades contribute remarkably in business transactions. Many organizations consider traditional ways of trade non-economical and therefore they do trade only through electronic markets. There are different categorizations of electronic markets functions. In one classification, functions of electronic markets are categorized into classes as information, transactions, and value added. In the present paper, effects of the three classes on the two major elements of the supply chain management are measured. The two elements are decrease in the product unit cost and reduction in response time to the customer. The results of the current research show that among nine minor elements related to the three classes of electronic markets functions, six factors and three factors influence on reduction of the product unit cost and reduction of response time to the customer, respectively.

Electronic Markets has Weakened the “Tradeoff between Reach and Richness“ in the Internet

This paper has two main ideas. Firstly, it describes Evans and Wurster-s concepts “the trade-off between reach and richness", and relates them to the impact of technology on the virtual markets. Authors Evans and Wurster see the transfer of information as a 'trade'off between richness and reach-. Reach refers to the number of people who share particular information, with Richness ['Rich'] being a more complex concept combining: bandwidth, customization, interactivity, reliability, security and currency. Traditional shopping limits the number of shops the shopper is able to visit due to time and other cost constraints; the time spent traveling consequently leaves the shopper with less time to evaluate the product. The paper concludes that although the Web provides Reach, offering Richness and the sense of community required for creating and sustaining relationships with potential clients could be difficult.

A New Method for Complex Goods Selection in Electronic Markets

After the development of the Internet a suitable discipline for trading goods electronically has been emerged. However, this type of markets is not still mature enough in order to become independent and get closer to seller/buyer-s needs. Furthermore, the buyable and sellable goods in these markets still don-t have essential standards for being well-defined. In this paper, we will present a model for development of a market which can contain goods with variable definitions and we will also investigate its characteristics. Besides, by noticing the fact that people have different discriminations, it-s figured out that the significance of each attribute of a specific product may vary from different people-s view points. Consequently we-ll present a model for weighting and accordingly different people-s view points could be satisfied. These two aspects will be discussed completely throughout this paper.

Identification of Factors Influencing Company's Competitiveness

Fast development of technologies, economic globalization and many other external circumstances stimulate company’s competitiveness. One of the major trends in today’s business is the shift to the exploitation of the Internet and electronic environment for entrepreneurial needs. Latest researches confirm that e-environment provides a range of possibilities and opportunities for companies, especially for micro-, small- and medium-sized companies, which have limited resources. The usage of e-tools raises the effectiveness and the profitability of an organization, as well as its competitiveness. In the electronic market, as in the classic one, there are factors, such as globalization, development of new technology, price sensitive consumers, Internet, new distribution and communication channels that influence entrepreneurship. As a result of eenvironment development, e-commerce and e-marketing grow as well. Objective of the paper: To describe and identify factors influencing company’s competitiveness in e-environment. Research methodology: The authors employ well-established quantitative and qualitative methods of research: grouping, analysis, statistics method, factor analysis in SPSS 20 environment, etc. The theoretical and methodological background of the research is formed by using scientific researches and publications, such as that from mass media and professional literature; statistical information from legal institutions as well as information collected by the authors during the surveying process. Research result: The authors detected and classified factors influencing competitiveness in e-environment.  In this paper, the authors presented their findings based on theoretical, scientific, and field research. Authors have conducted a research on e-environment utilization among Latvian enterprises. 

The Impact of Semantic Web on E-Commerce

Semantic Web Technologies enable machines to interpret data published in a machine-interpretable form on the web. At the present time, only human beings are able to understand the product information published online. The emerging semantic Web technologies have the potential to deeply influence the further development of the Internet Economy. In this paper we propose a scenario based research approach to predict the effects of these new technologies on electronic markets and business models of traders and intermediaries and customers. Over 300 million searches are conducted everyday on the Internet by people trying to find what they need. A majority of these searches are in the domain of consumer ecommerce, where a web user is looking for something to buy. This represents a huge cost in terms of people hours and an enormous drain of resources. Agent enabled semantic search will have a dramatic impact on the precision of these searches. It will reduce and possibly eliminate information asymmetry where a better informed buyer gets the best value. By impacting this key determinant of market prices semantic web will foster the evolution of different business and economic models. We submit that there is a need for developing these futuristic models based on our current understanding of e-commerce models and nascent semantic web technologies. We believe these business models will encourage mainstream web developers and businesses to join the “semantic web revolution."

Design an Electronic Market Framework Using JADE Environment

The daily growing use of agents in software environments, because of many reasons such as independence and intelligence is not a secret anymore. One of such environments in which there is a prominent job for the agents would be emarketplaces in which a user is able to give those agents the responsibility of buying and selling, instead of searching the emarketplace himself. Making up a framework which has sufficient attention to the required roles and their relations, is the first step of achieving such e-markets. In this paper, we suggest a framework in order to establish such e-markets and we will continue investigating the roles such as seller or buyer and the relations in JADE environment in details.