Title: Potential risks to e-commerce development using exploratory factor analysis

Authors: F.K.T. Wat, E.W.T. Ngai, T.C.E. Cheng

Addresses: Department of Management and Marketing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, PR China. ' Department of Management and Marketing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, PR China. ' Department of Logistics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, PR China

Abstract: Risk analysis has been widely used and applied in finance and engineering, but not much to the development of Electronic Commerce (EC). This paper identifies the potential risks associated with EC development. An empirical study was conducted and an exploratory factor analysis of the survey data revealed ten major dimensions of risk associated with EC development, namely: resources risk; requirements risk; vendor quality risk; client-server security risk; legal risk; managerial risk; outsourcing risk; physical security risk; cultural risk; reengineering risk. The findings of the risk categories and risk elements provide good insights into risk management for EC development.

Keywords: risk identification; e-commerce development; exploratory factor analysis; electronic commerce; risk assessment; risk management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSTM.2005.006544

International Journal of Services Technology and Management, 2005 Vol.6 No.1, pp.55 - 71

Published online: 21 Mar 2005 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article