Do E-business Systems Have Culture And Should They Have One?

E-business systems, the latest generation of information systems, are used by people from different countries and with different backgrounds. Cultural consideration of software products has been limited to interfaces through internationalization architectures and localization practices. There has been little discussion about the cultural values and practices that are embedded in the core of software e-business systems. These artefacts may lead to modification of cultures and cause their uniformity. To avoid it cultural artefacts need to be considered in both the interface and the core. Two complementary methods are proposed: one is based on the extension of software localization beyond the interface; the other utilizes emerging software design paradigms based on the meta-object orientation. 1. E-BUSINESS SYSTEMS AND CULTURE E-business systems are the latest generation of information systems that extend beyond the enterprise allowing for communication among organizations and between companies and consumers. The enterprise may be a business or any other organization that is involved in activities such as procuring products and services, exchanging information, and brokering. An e-business system (EBS) differs from other information systems in several key aspects. It is network-centric and relies on ever-present Internet connectivity. Business-to-business EBSs provide tight integration of intra-enterprise business processes (e.g., supply chain management). Business-toconsumer EBSs allow for a very large number of consumers to access the enterprise via the Internet. Their user interface is provided by the web browsers, it is easy to understand and common to many different applications. In addition, the availability and popularity of the Internet brings numerous other opportunities for transformation of business processes and creation of new forms of interaction (Buffam 2000). EBSs comprise some of the most recent advances of software and hardware technologies. They continuously expand incorporating decision and negotiation support systems, knowledge-based systems, software agents and other information systems. Their scope exceeds earlier information systems integrating frontand back-office; organizations within a value chain and those that share the marketplace. In effect EBSs are used by organizations and people from all over the world; they affect the way organizations are structured, business processes are conducted, and customers interact with organizations and make purchasing decisions. Dr. Sunil Noronha’s (IBM T. J. Watson Research Center) and Margaret Kersten’s comments and suggestions are gratefully acknowledged. This work has been partially supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Concordia University.