Electronic Commerce Research and Applications aims to create and disseminate enduring knowledge for the fast-changing e-commerce environment. A major dilemma in e-commerce research is how to achieve a balance between the currency and the life span of knowledge.

Electronic Commerce Research and Applications will contribute to the establishment of a research community to create the knowledge, technology, theory, and applications for the development of electronic commerce. This is targeted at the intersection of technological potential and business aims.

E-commerce is a multi-disciplinary area, which should be developed in co-operation with existing fields such as Information Systems and Technology; Computing and Informatics; Marketing, Finance and Supply Chain Management; Business Strategy and Management; Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning; Data Science and Business Data Analytics; Public Policy; and Legal Studies. We will solicit papers on current technologies from these areas, as well as publish papers on completely new topics. We also seek proposals for special issues on new topics in e-commerce that will create new directions for research.

Electronic Commerce Research and Applications is inviting submission of articles, including but not limited to the following topics:Agent-based commerce; electronic auctions; e-business models; B2C and B2B EC; consumer behavior; customer relationship management and data mining; recommender systems; Internet search engines and Web mining; big data analytics; social media and commerce analytics; responsible and trustworthy artificial intelligence; pricing and marketing; digital economy and digital transformation; e-government, public policy and digital divide issues; electronic payment systems; sharing economy; (IT and e-services; exchanges and electronic marketplaces;) e-commerce in supply chain and inventory management; legal issues in e-commerce; (industry studies and case analysis;) economic and management science modeling; organizational and theory-building research; empirical studies of e-commerce problems; behavioral studies of e-commerce issues; protocols, technology and process standards for e-commerce; (transformation of industries;) security and trust; credit card and smart card applications; mobile-commerce and ubiquitous computing; inter-organizational systems in e-commerce; emerging technologies and technological innovation.

Special Issue on Digital Nudging in E-Commerce Empowering Behavioral Science with Data Science
Submission Date: 2024-12-31

The goal of this paper call is to bring together high-quality research that widens the knowledge of influencing customers through nudging and big data analytics in the context of e-commerce.

Guest editors:

Luis F. Martinez, PhD
Nova School of Business and Economics (Nova SBE), Universidade Nova de Lisboa,Portugal
luis.martinez@novasbe.pt 

Philipp Brüggemann, PhD
FernUniversität in Hagen, Germany
philipp.brueggemann@fernuni-hagen.de 

Francisco J. Martínez-López, PhD
University of Granada, Spain
fjmlopez@ugr.es 

Special issue information:

Nudging is a behavioral science concept which refers to influencing customers’ decision-making process through relatively small changes in the decision environment (Thaler and Sunstein, 2021). The nudge approach has been used extensively in marketing and psychology fields (e.g., de Ridder et al., 2022; Rees et al., 2022). For example, recent research has found that choice architecture compensates for low consumer knowledge (Mrkva et al., 2021). Also, providing supplemental information or alternative choices can subtly motivate customers to make a purchase, possibly even without them being fully aware of it, which may also raise ethical concerns (Kuyer and Gordijn, 2023).

In particular, the malleability of the digital environment facilitates the implementation of relatively minor changes to decision frames which could easily modulate decision outcomes. Digital nudging refers to a subtle persuasion technique in a digital environment. However, such relatively minor changes need to be highly precise and context-driven to be more effective. Specifically, research on nudging in a digital context has been (mostly) addressing the human-AI collaboration (e.g., Dennis et al., 2020; Ghose et al., 2023; Meske et al., 2020). Hence, existing studies on digital nudging are predominantly focused on theory-driven interface design rather than big data analytics (e.g., Caraban, 2019; Weinmann et al., 2016). On the other hand, the ongoing digitization and the evolution of digital marketing and e-commerce (Bala et al., 2018; Kannan, 2017; Statista, 2023a) leads to a massive increase in data availability (Statista, 2023b). Therefore, big data analysis is crucial when it comes to identifying new ways to nudge customers.

The goal of this paper call is to bring together high-quality research that widens the knowledge of influencing customers through nudging and big data analytics in the context of e-commerce. For this special issue, experimental work is particularly welcome (including both lab experiments and field experiments), although other approaches may be used. Given the specificity of the topic, we strongly encourage interdisciplinary research. Accordingly, we expect to open new avenues for dialogue on the importance of nudges in the digital marketing and e-commerce fields by integrating behavior science and big data analysis.

Contributions are welcome to focus on the following topics (this is a non-exhaustive list): 

    The role of nudging and nudge design in digital and data driven e-commerce ecosystems
    Threats and opportunities for e-commerce platforms using data-driven nudging
    Addressing cognitive biases and particular implementations of nudges in e-commerce
    The role of nudging in reducing AI and/or human biases in the context of e-commerce
    Default choices, opt-out mechanisms, user autonomy, and efficacy of systems in e-commerce
    Virtual and mixed reality applications to nudge customers using big data
    Artificial intelligence in data-driven nudging for e-commerce
    Using nudges to foster sustainability in digital marketing and e-commerce
    Ethical issues with nudges arising in digital marketing and e-commerce​
    Integrating behavioral science (behavioral decision-making approach) with big data analytics in the context of e-commerce

Manuscript submission information:

The Electronic Commerce Research and Applications’s submission system will be open for submissions to our Special Issue from 01/07/2024. When submitting your manuscript to Editorial Manager®, please select the article type “VSI: Short title”. Please submit your manuscript before 31/12/2024.

All submissions deemed suitable to be sent for peer review will be reviewed by at least two independent reviewers. Once your manuscript is accepted, it will go into production, and will be simultaneously published in the current regular issue and pulled into the online Special Issue. Articles from this Special Issue will appear in different regular issues of the journal, though they will be clearly marked and branded as Special Issue articles.

Please see an example here: ECRA | Electronic Commerce Research and Applications | E-commerce Ecosystem in the Platform Economy | ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier

Please ensure you read the Guide for Authors before writing your manuscript. The Guide for Authors and link to submit your manuscript is available on the Journal’s homepage at: ECRA | Electronic Commerce Research and Applications | Journal | ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier

Keywords:

Nudge; behavioral science; data science; e-commerce.