Topic: State management of electronic commerce Major: Economic Management (Science of Management) – Code: 62.34.01.01 PhD candidate: Dao Anh Tuan Supervisor: 1. Le Du Phong INTRODUCTION 1. Necessity of the research topic The development of electronic commerce (E-commerce) in the world has created the change of business modes, drastic change of traditional transactions and brought enterprises, consumers and society great benefits. For Vietnamese enterprises, the e- commerce application in production and business activities (P&B) has increased competitiveness, expanded markets, created more business opportunities for enterprises. In the development process of e-commerce in Vietnam, the State with the role of a management subject has created basic premises for the application and implementation of e-commerce in enterprises. With management tools, the State has oriented and created the development environment for e-commerce. However, the implementation process of e-commerce in recent years has shown that the development environment for e-commerce in Vietnam has been formed, but it has not been met the effective development of e-commerce yet. Currently, there are still some main inadequacies in State management (SM) activities of E- commerce as below: strategic orientation in e-commerce development is short, law on e-commerce has not been adjusted for all new emerging fields of e-commerce, trust of consumers in e-commerce remains low; human resources for e-commerce is short in quantity and poor in quality; e-commerce examination and inspection have not been focused on. Furthermore, the incessant development of information technology (IT) in general and e-commerce in particular in the world will create big challenges for the implementation of SM functions of e-commerce in Vietnam. Proceeding from the above requirements, the SM of e-commerce in the future should be improved in terms of theory and implementation practice. In order to have the basis for completion of these contents, the SM activities of e-commerce should be strengthened in terms of theory such as clear determination of objectives, content, principles and requirements as well as tools which can be used by the State in the implementation process of the SM function of e-commerce. Moreover, in order to overcome the inadequacies, the current SM activities of e-commerce in Vietnam should be comprehensively assessed to find existent inadequacies as well as their causes. With the above reasons, research of the topic "State management of electronic commerce" has both theoretical and practical significance in order to contribute to improving the SM theory of e-commerce as well as complete the SM content of e- commerce in Vietnam. 2. Aims of research Aims of research of the thesis are to clearly determine theories of the SM of e- commerce and to propose some solutions to complete the SM of E-commerce in Vietnam. Furthermore, the thesis is also to develop the set of assessment criteria for the SM content of e-commerce in order to be a basis for assessment of the SM of e- commerce in Vietnam. 3. Subject and scope of research Subject of research: research subjects of the thesis are the implementation process of SM content of e-commerce and enterprises implementing e-commerce in Vietnam. Scope of research: Scope of research contents: About the concept of e-commerce, with the objective of completing the SM of e- commerce in Vietnam, the thesis uses the concept of e-commerce in broad meaning. Thus, E-commerce is interpreted as the implementation of a part or the entire process of business activities by electronic means with connection to the Internet, mobile telecommunications networks or other open networks. For the SM activities of e-commerce, the thesis only focuses on researching SM content of e-commerce in Vietnam with the approach from the management process, the contents include: (i) Elaboration of e-commerce strategies and development plans, (ii) Elaboration and promulgation of policies and laws on e-commerce, (iii) Implementation of e-commerce plans and development policies, (iv) Control of e- commerce. Scope of research subjects: For research enterprises, the thesis only focuses on researching enterprises which have applied e-commerce from level 2 or higher; are applying e-commerce models such as B2B, B2C and C2C. These enterprises operates in some main sectors such as trade, wholesale, retail; industrial production; finance and banking and information technology. Scope of the research period: the thesis assesses actual status of the SM of e- commerce from 2006 to 2012, this is the implementation stage of the general e- commerce development plan in the 2006-2010 period; the general e-commerce development plan in the 2011-2015 period and other important socio-economic plans of the country. 4. New contributions of the thesis 4.1. New theoretical contributions Firstly, in order to perform the state management (SM) function of electronic commerce (E-commerce) in current situation of international economic integration, the thesis has proposed that the concept of e-commerce should be considered in broad meaning. From this viewpoint, e-commerce is interpreted as the implementation of a part or the entire process of business activities by electronic means with connection to Internet, mobile telecommunications networks or other open networks. Secondly, on the basis of research on e-commerce development experiences of countries in the world, the thesis has shown that in order to develop e-commerce, the State should play an important role in construction and completion of information technology infrastructure (especially the Internet), legal infrastructure, human resources infrastructure and information security infrastructure, and be a pioneer in application of e-commerce in commercial activities of the Government at the same time. Thirdly, the thesis has researched, developed and proposed a set of assessment criteria for the SM activities of e-commerce on the basis of the Outcome model and methodology on assessment of World Bank’s policies. Indexes in this set of criteria are used to comprehensively assess the SM of e-commerce in accordance with following criteria: Efficiency, effectiveness, conformity and sustainability. 4.2. New proposals from the research result From the analysis result of the SM status of e-commerce in Vietnam during the 2006-2012 period and the SM assessment result of E-commerce in accordance with the above criteria, in order to complete the SM of e-commerce, the thesis has proposed some main solutions as follows: (i) To elaborate the national e-commerce development strategy in order to create long-term orientations for development of e-commerce in Vietnam. (ii) To complete e-commerce policies such as business people policy, tax policy in e-commerce, consumer protection policy and human resources policy. (iii) To complete the law on e-commerce, focusing on the following contents: Recognizing e-commerce as a field in the system of national economic sectors; clearly defining responsibilities and powers of the e-commerce participants for the newly arisen e-commerce forms; completing regulations on cross-border e- commerce; recognizing the legal validity of electronic evidence; completing regulations on settlement of disputes in E-commerce. (iv) To strengthen e- commerce training activities, recognizing e-commerce as an official major in the national education system. (v) To strengthen e-commerce inspection, examination activities and establish specialized inspectorate of e-commerce. 5. Structure of the thesis In addition to the introduction, conclusion, list of references, thesis contents are presented in four chapters: Chapter 1. Overview of the research and research methods Chapter 2. Theoretical basis and lessons learnt in the state management of electronic commerce Chapter 3. Actual status analysis of the state management of electronic commerce in Vietnam Chapter 4. Some main solutions to complete the state management of electronic commerce in Vietnam CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW OF THE RESEARCH AND RESEARCH METHODS 1.1. Overview of research projects 1.1.1. Foreign research projects Since the emergence in the early 1990s of the 20 th century, e-commerce in general and SM of e-commerce in particular have been mentioned and studied by many organizations and scholars in the world. Within the scope of the research topic, this thesis only focuses on some following typical projects: In 2001, the book “Strategies for eCommerce Success” written by Professor - Bijan Fazlollahi, Georgia State University, USA and published by IRM Press mentioned some specific contents for successful application of e-commerce in each enterprise and e-commerce management of the competent authorities. After the research project of Professor-Bijan Fazlollahi, the research project on impacts of e-commerce in the global economy conducted by the research center of Irvine University in 2012 studied the impacts of environment and policies of the country on formation and development of e-commerce. The scope of this research was expanded in 10 different countries including: United States, Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Singapore and Taiwan with 2,139 enterprises. The results of this research have shown the impacts of environment and policies of the country on formation and development of e-commerce. Unlike the above researches, the book “The Economic and Social Impacts of E- Commerce” written by Sam Lubbe and Johanna Maria van Heerden in 2003 gathered many research projects on economic and social impacts of e-commerce of scholars from many different universities around the world to be the basis for elaboration of SM policies of e-commerce. Following researches on impacts of e-commerce, the book “Social and Cognitive Impacts of E-Commerce on Modern Organizations” written by Mehdi Khosrow- Pour et al and published by Idea Group Publishing in 2004 has particularly studied social, cognitive and cultural impacts of e-commerce on operation of organizations. 1.1.2. National research projects Although the e-commerce has developed in Vietnam for 10 years, we have had a lot of research projects on e-commerce in general, and State management of e- commerce in particular. In 2003, the state-level scientific research topic “Research on some main technical and technological issues in e-commerce and testing deployment", Code: KC.01.05. The project created an overview of common issues of e-commerce and some major technologies in e-commerce; tested the integration system of e-commerce technologies in reality; proposed some solutions for e-commerce development in Vietnam in the future. Since 2004, Vietnam E-Commerce and Information Technology Agency directly under Ministry of Industry and Trade has conducted a summary of e-commerce situation in Vietnam in the annual reports on e-commerce in Vietnam (Report title: Vietnam E-commerce Report). These reports have provided an overview of the actual status of e-commerce development in Vietnam in the year such as situation of e-commerce application in enterprises, actual status of e-commerce infrastructure, deployment of e-commerce policies in reality, etc. and given some recommendations for state management authorities to implement SM of e-commerce and enterprises to implement e-commerce. In addition to the above research projects, e-commerce textbook system of some universities in our country has also provided general knowledge as well as professional knowledge of e-commerce such as E-commerce textbook of National Economics University; Basic E-commerce textbook of Vietnam University of Commerce and Foreign Trade University. 1.1.3. Comments from an overview of research projects Firstly, these research projects have made an overall assessment of impacts of state management on e-commerce development in each country. However, most of these researches were implemented in the early years of the e-commerce development process and in developed and developing countries with favorable conditions for development of e-commerce which are different from environment for e-commerce development in Vietnam. Secondly, current conditions of the international and national environment as well as new trends of e-commerce have had many changes along with development of science, technology and the world economy, so impacts of the state management on e-commerce should also be considered in the new conditions. Thirdly, the above researches have not specifically mentioned theoretical issues of SM of e-commerce such as concept, objectives, principles and contents of SM of e- commerce; have not specifically mentioned management role of the State in e- commerce; have not proposed specific measures to assess SM of e-commerce content. The above "gaps" will be the basis for the thesis to focus on clarifying the outstanding issues in both theory and reality in the SM of e-commerce, then to propose completion solutions. 1.2. Research methods 1.2.1. General analytical method The general analytical method is used in the thesis to consider researches on SM of e-commerce, how they have been implemented and which results they have gained, etc. and to detect "gaps" in the previous researches to be the basis for implementing contents of the thesis. On the basis of dialectical relationship of research methods in socio-economic science, the thesis analyzes and clarifies impacts of state management on e- commerce through the implementation of SM of e-commerce; analyzes and clarifies causes affecting the SM of e-commerce; analyzes and assesses implementation of the SM of e-commerce through criteria. 1.2.2. Qualitative research method The qualitative research method is used in the thesis to determine research questions, assessment criteria for the SM of e-commerce, collect opinions of experts on issues in current SM of e-commerce and exchange some solutions to complete the SM of e-commerce in Vietnam. 1.2.3. Quantitative research method The quantitative research method is used in the thesis to measure implementation results of the SM of e-commerce in accordance with each criterion and examine the conformity of indicators in each criterion, and assess the SM of e-commerce on the basis of the developed criteria. CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL BASIS AND LESSONS LEARNT IN THE STATE MANAGEMENT OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCE 2.1. Electronic commerce 2.1.1. Concept of e-commerce E-commerce is interpreted as the implementation of a part or the entire process of business activities by electronic means with connection to Internet, mobile telecommunications networks or other open networks 2.1.2. Characteristics of e-commerce In e-commerce transactions, parties do not directly contact and have to know each other before. Traditional commercial transactions are made with the existence of national border concept, but e-commerce transactions are conducted in a market without borders (global unity market). E-commerce transaction activities include at least three subjects, of which an indispensable party is network service supplier, the certifying authorities. The information network is only a medium to exchange data in the traditional commerce, but it is the market of e-commerce. 2.1.3. E-commerce models E-commerce between business and business (Business to Business - B2B) E-commerce between business and consumer (Business to Consumer - B2C) E-commerce between consumer and consumer (Consumer to Consumer - C2C) E-commerce between business and the government (Business to Government - B2G) E-commerce between the government and employees (Government to Employee - G2E) 2.1.4. Benefits and limitations of e-commerce Benefits of e-commerce For organizations: e-commerce brings a lot of benefits such as market expansion, production cost reduction, improvement of distribution system; excess of the time limit; production on demand; creation of new business models; increase of putting speed on the market; reduction of communications costs; strengthening of customer relation; update of information. For consumers: from the perspective of buyers, e- commerce creates favorable conditions in both space and time, increases selection opportunities thanks to easy access to goods, services, and collects more information. Thus, demands can be better met. For scope of the whole society: for countries, e-commerce activities can improve competitiveness of the economy and bring the ability to improve the administration and investment environment. On national scale, e-commerce creates the basis for early access to digitized economy or knowledge economy. E-commerce directly stimulates development of IT. Limitations of e-commerce: Technical limitations: No international standards for quality, safety and reliability have been made; Internet connection speed still fails to meet requirements of users, especially in e-commerce; Internet connection speed cannot still meet requirements of users, especially in e-commerce, etc. Commercial limitations: security and privacy of consumers in e-commerce have not been cared appropriately; the trust in e-commerce and sellers in e-commerce transactions is lacked due to no direct meeting; many legal issues, tax policies have not been clarified etc. 2.2. State management of electronic commerce 2.2.1. Concept of state management of electronic commerce The SM of e-commerce is understood as the process that the State uses management instruments to make impacts on commercial activities in an electronic environment to achieve the e-commerce development objectives. Management subjects: the characteristic of e-commerce is to be implemented in an electronic environment through electronic means, so e-commerce should be secured by a technology infrastructure (especially information technology and Internet). Therefore, in addition to the direct management subject as the State management agency of commerce (Ministry of Industry and Trade), the role of state management agency of information technology and communications (Ministry of Information and Communications) is particularly important in establishment of technology infrastructure for the e-commerce development. Information technology and e-commerce have a close relationship, or in other words, IT is the development foundation of e-commerce. On the basis of the applications, technical methods and tools of information technology, websites, modes of payment, and purchasing process, etc. will be set up to provide customers with the best online shopping experience. It means that e-commerce can not develop unless it is secured by a stable, modern technology infrastructure which updates the trend of technological development in the world. Management object: E-commerce is considered to be the inevitable development of commerce in the digitized economy, the expression form of commercial activities in the electronic environment. In addition to transaction participants as in traditional commercial transactions, there are also third objects as service infrastructure suppliers (Internet, mobile telecommunications services, etc.), electronic certification organizations (providing digital signatures, certificates, etc). Although these objects do not directly participate in e-commerce transactions, they are a factor to secure success of e-commerce transactions. Environmental factor in e-commerce activities always changes rapidly, the business forms in e-commerce becomes more diverse, complex and uses application of the latest technologies. This poses a huge challenge in state management activities, requiring the state management agency of e-commerce to have appropriate policies to promptly adapt to these changes. 2.2.2. Objectives of state management of electronic commerce: objective of e- commerce development orientation; objective of e-commerce development; objective of creation of environment and favorable conditions for e-commerce development; objective of democracy, justice consolidation for all individuals and all economic sectors to implement e-commerce activities in the economy. 2.2.3. Functions of state management of e-commerce Function of e-commerce development orientation Function of environment creation for e-commerce development Function of e-commerce activity regulation Function of e-commerce activity control 2.2.4. Contents of state management of e-commerce With the approach from the management process, state management of e- commerce includes contents: (i) Elaboration of e-commerce strategies and development plans, (ii) Elaboration and promulgation of policies and laws on e- commerce, (iii) Implementation of e-commerce development plans and policies, (iv) Control of e-commerce. 2.2.4.1. Elaboration of e-commerce strategy and development plan E-commerce strategies: are the national e-commerce development orientation in a relatively long period with the overall and specific objectives, and a system of solutions to mobilize maximum resources and implement e-commerce development objectives set by the State. The system of e-commerce development strategies in the national economy includes national e-commerce strategy, provincial (municipal) e-commerce development strategy, e-commerce development strategy of each enterprise. E-commerce Development Plans: are detailed plans to concretize e-commerce development strategies. Two main types of the e-commerce development plans are: medium-term plan and annual plan. 2.2.4.2. Elaboration and promulgation of policies and laws on e-commerce E-commerce development policy: E-commerce policy is a system of regulations, tools and appropriate measures applied by the State to regulate e-commerce activities in certain period in order to achieve the objectives stated in the e- commerce development strategy. E-commerce development policies include the following main policies: business people policy; consumer protection policy in e-commerce; tax policy; human resources training and development policy for e-commerce; technology infrastructure development policy for e-commerce. Elaboration and promulgation of laws on e-commerce E-commerce law is a system of general mandatory behavior rules which express the will of the state management agency of economics in general and of e-commerce in particular are made, enforced and protected by the State in order to develop e- commerce in accordance with objectives. Researches in the world summarized five legal issues of e-commerce that need to be specified in the national law, including: (i) Recognition of messages from data: Putting forth legal regulations for contents of commercial transactions through electronic means; (ii) Technical regulations on electronic signatures to ensure the authenticity, integrity and confidentiality of information exchanged in e-commerce; (iii) Protection of intellectual property rights in e-commerce; (iv) Consumer protection in e-commerce; (v) Prevention of crime and breaches in e-commerce. 2.2.4.3. Implementation of e-commerce development plans and policies This is the implementation stage of e-commerce development plans and policies in reality. This stage includes: communication and consultancy, implementation of development programs and projects; operation of funds; coordination to implement activities; assurance of operation of support service supply system. 2.2.4.4. Control of e-commerce E-commerce control is a group of activities of the state management agency to promptly detect and handle errors, congestion, disruption, difficulties and obstacles as well as e-commerce development opportunities to ensure that e-commerce activities comply with the set e-commerce development orientations and objectives. Forms of e-commerce controls include: examination, inspection, supervision and state auditing, of which the form of e-commerce examination plays the particularly important role. 2.2.5. State management apparatus of electronic commerce State management apparatus of electronic commerce is a constituent part of the state management apparatus of economy and has relative independence, including State authorities performing the e-commerce management function from central to grassroots levels. State management of e-commerce is implemented at 2 levels: central and grassroots levels. At the central level, state management agency of e-commercial is central state management agencies including the National Assembly, Government, People’s Court. Agencies assisting the Government in performance of state management function of e-commerce are ministries and ministerial-level agencies. With the characteristics of e-commerce as stated above, in order to manage e- commerce activities, it is very necessary to have the participation of many management agencies with different management functions including: state management authorities of commerce; state management agency of IT and [...]... Factors affecting the state management of electronic commerce include human resources of state management authorities of e -commerce, level of IT application in state management authorities; international commitments in ecommerce development; e -commerce development trend in the world 2.2.7 Assessment of state management of e -commerce The thesis uses four assessment criteria of the SM of e -commerce, including... basis studies and learning of State management of Ecommerce will have considerable contributions to State management of E -commerce completion, creating a basis for State management activities of E -commerce The thesis content as: State management of E -commerce has partially satisfied the needs of theory and reality in State management of E -commerce Owing to the constraints of research extent, the thesis... that many of the E -commerce areas have not been mentioned in the State management duties of E -commerce of State management agencies or there has been no transparent and specific regulation on State management duties of Ecommerce in these agencies The shortcomings of these management duties are demonstrated in these following contents: Firstly, State management duties of electronic payment in E -commerce. .. State management function of Ecommerce Apart from Ministry of Industry and Trade, other Central level agencies participating in performing State management functions related to E -commerce include: Ministry of Information and Communications; the State Bank of Vietnam; Ministry of Education and Training; Ministry of Public Security During the process of performing the State management function of E -commerce, ... performing State Management function of E -commerce Pursuant to State Management functions and duties assigned by the Government, at Central level, Ministry of Industry and Trade is assigned duties to perform the State management function of E -commerce In Ministry of Industry and Trade, the agency directly assisting Minister to perform the State management function of Ecommerce is Vietnam E -Commerce and... assessment of E -commerce State management content Assessing specific indicators in each of the criteria showed the results and inadequacies in State management of E -commerce as follows: 3.4.1 Results Firstly, in terms of E -commerce development strategy and plan design: Ecommerce State management offices have recently made great efforts in making Ecommerce development plan, in which the overall E -commerce. .. management apparatus of E -commerce The Central level State management apparatus needs to regulate specific State management duties and functions in E -commerce for State management offices According to current regulations, Ministry of Industry and Trade is assigned for Ecommerce state management functions by the Central Government Besides, for State management function execution, Ministry of Industry and... structure of Department of Industry and Trade and District-level Division of Economy (or Division of Industry and Trade) in Ecommerce State Management function performance process 4.4 Main Conditions for implementing solution to complete State management of E -commerce 4.4.1 For State management agencies: It is necessary to establish transparent regulations on functions and duties of E -commerce State management. .. deployment process of e -commerce, the governments of countries often build centers to support e -commerce deployment of enterprises The mission of these centers is to find the most modern and suitable e -commerce model to apply and deploy in enterprises of the countries CHAPTER 3 ACTUAL STATUS ANALYSIS OF STATE MANAGEMENT OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCE IN VIETNAM 3.1 Actual status of electronic commerce development... challenge for State Management offices Supervision, examination and inspection activities have only been inspection of information content supply in Electronic Information website pages and examination of conformity level with Circular No 09/2008/TT-BCT of several typical E -commerce websites 3.3 State management apparatus of E -commerce in Vietnam 3.3.1 Central level State management apparatus of E-commerce . clarified etc. 2.2. State management of electronic commerce 2.2.1. Concept of state management of electronic commerce The SM of e -commerce is understood as the process that the State uses management instruments. the state management of electronic commerce Chapter 3. Actual status analysis of the state management of electronic commerce in Vietnam Chapter 4. Some main solutions to complete the state management. and state auditing, of which the form of e -commerce examination plays the particularly important role. 2.2.5. State management apparatus of electronic commerce State management apparatus of electronic