Title: The web and the consumer-company and buyer-seller interfaces - making sense of the the architecture of demand and supply chain management

Authors: Rauno Rusko

Addresses: Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Lapland, P.O.B. 122, FI96101, Rovaniemi, Finland

Abstract: Contemporary society and business life have changed remarkably because of radical changes in lifestyle, which are associated with digitalisation. The ways in which consumers use the web influence the ways in which (the same) purchasers of companies, associations, and organisations use the web in the workplaces as a tool in B2B transactions. In other words, it is not possible to isolate the practices of treating information in organisations from the practices of information consumption. In this study, we analyse the attitudes of individuals to web-based transactions and their implications on B2B transactions and supply chain management. This study focuses on the blurred roles of purchasers in web-based transactions related to work, business, and leisure. Especially, we emphasise the importance of the web and information consumption practices and culture in making sense of the contemporary architecture of demand and supply chain management. The roles of social construction and consumer culture of information cannot be neglected anymore in supply chain management discussions.

Keywords: web usage; consumer culture; sense-making; demand chain management; supply chain management; SCM; buyer-seller interfaces; web-based transactions; business-to-business; B2B transactions; social construction; information consumption.

DOI: 10.1504/IJVCM.2017.082683

International Journal of Value Chain Management, 2017 Vol.8 No.1, pp.1 - 21

Received: 19 May 2016
Accepted: 03 Sep 2016
Published online: 06 Mar 2017 *

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