The Research Project

Introduction

This research explores consumers' use of the Internet through the lens of knowledge management with the following research objectives:

• To investigate how consumers use the Internet in commercial activity.

• To explore the idea that consumers currently use the e-commerce facility as a knowledge management function, to seek and share knowledge about products and services.

• To explore the idea that consumers are 'empowered' by the Internet.

• To explore what business benefits are achieved through the social construction of knowledge and the empowerment of consumers via the Internet.

• To propose a framework for e-commerce to facilitate interaction, and integrate knowledge exchange with consumers into normal working practices.

Methodology

The approach selected for this research is informed by the debate into philosophical approaches to consumer research. As a generative exploration into the experiential perspective of consumers' uses of the Internet, with the aim of developing a framework for organizations to learn and benefit from the consumer experience, this research is rooted in the interpretive paradigm. The epistemological stance that is adopted is one of Social Constructionist-Critical Theory.

From the approach that this study took, it was important to survey relevant groups with 'high experience levels of the phenomena under study' (Pettigrew, 1990), in this case online shopping. Questionnaires were adopted as a preliminary data collection method, and as a means of identifying suitable interview participants with relevant experience. To ensure consideration of stable usage patterns the sample was made up of consumers who are experienced Internet users and have engaged in commercial activity (transaction, product/company research) on the Internet for at least one year.

Twenty-two semi-structured interviews with consumers were carried out, each one lasting between 30 and 60 minutes (for question guide, see Appendix 1). Interviews were recorded with the permission of the participant, and verbatim transcripts were produced from the recordings. In analysis, the researcher made use of transcripts, recordings and field notes. The method of data analysis selected is pattern coding and theme analysis. Such analysis is an iterative process involving data collection and analysis simultaneously . From emergent themes theories are generated and confirmed or refuted by further exploration.

Emergent Themes

The major themes that emerged from the pattern coding and theme analysis of the interview transcripts are:

• Interaction with commercial organizations

• Consumer-to-consumer interaction

• Power and control in business-to-consumer interaction

Before considering each one of these in more detail, and to 'set the scene,' we describe how the participants thought of the Internet. Participants see the Internet as a source of information (or knowledge), and a means of communication:

'It's a huge body of information. Like huge libraries ... So it represents a huge body of knowledge really, more so than anything.' (Interview 6, male, age 38)

'A source of information really on anything.' (Interview 10, female , age 52)

'It's actually made communication a lot easier for me.' (Interview 9, male, age 42)

'It's very easy to get in touch with people all over the world, and I find that very empowering, a very positive sort of thing. In terms of a source of information, if you want to know anything, it's all there.' (Interview 5, male, age 41)

When asked directly about their use of the Internet in commercially related activities, participants frequently referred to the information available about different products rather than the ability to purchase:

'We used it just to gather information really relating to the product.' (Interview 2, male, age 37)

'It tells you instantly all the information about it ... you can go on and compare the different prices that they have for the same thing.' (Interview 8, male, age 24)

More significantly, they referred to the range of perspectives available through the Internet:

'Because it's available, it's accessible, I'll get information about the product itself. Whereas before you'd rely on a salesperson to give you that information, I've got there from other sources. So it's different ways of getting information on products that I'm going to purchase.' (Interview 12, Female, age 32)

Interaction with Commercial Organizations

Given that participants related that the Internet has opened up communication and information channels, the strong sense of barriers separating customers and companies that emerged was surprising. Narratives using language which constructed dichotomies of oppressor/oppressed, and metaphors of power and control, invasion, and revolution were pervasive. The barriers participants experienced separating them from companies ranged from poorly designed or inefficient Web sites:

'Some Web sites you get a list of topics and it could be in there, it could be in there, so you click on here and that gets you to somewhere else where it might be there or it might be there. It's a labyrinth and you get fed up with it. They're thrown together by people who write PC software.' (Interview 5, male, age 41)

'When something hasn't worked and I've found a blockage that I couldn't get around, you know it gives you very negative feelings. Because you've got nobody directly to speak to it can be very frustrating. It's almost like dealing with a faceless bureaucracy kind of thing - you know, there's simply no way around the system and it leaves me feeling useless.' (Interview 4, male, age 49)

and lack of channel integration:

'I e-mailed them and I had to ask them by e-mail could they give me a phone number to contact them. They e-mailed me back with a telephone number and I phoned up, but I couldn't have dome that from their Web site alone so that was a problem.' (Interview 12, female, age 32)

To a more negative construct of companies as dishonest, deceitful and controlling: For example in interview 2 (male, age 37), the respondent says:

'they lie. Companies are selling products that they haven't got in stock.'

Interviewer probes:

'What do you mean? Have you had a problem with a company?'

Respondent elaborates with:

'I ordered a little digital camera that's taken seven weeks. The big incentive with the Internet is the immediacy of it and all sorts of convenience and that all goes out of the window if you order something and it takes seven weeks to get there.'

Similarly in Interview 1 (male, age 48) the respondent says:

'Of course you hear loads of stuff like ... if you order online you get not so fresh produce. ˜Let's get rid of it on our Internet buyers '.'

Interviewer probes:

'Do you buy groceries online?'

Respondent elaborates with:

'No I don't. I wouldn't buy fresh produce anyway, I wouldn't trust them.'

Another respondent commented negatively on companies' use of his personal details:

'I've filled in enquiry forms and that sort of thing, where they are basically gathering data on me I just don't like the idea anyway because all they need to do is put in your postcode and your name and there you go! They've got you! And how do they link that up with other databases? You don't know do you?' (Interview 4, male, age 49)

Another barrier to consumer/company interaction was simply failure to reply to e- mails . Significantly, one participant responded that:

'If you talk to someone it's just that you feel like they're doing something about it. It might not actually be any different, it's just a perception. If I get something personal saying so and so has received you order, you know, you can tell when it's not just an automatic reply.' (Interview 6, male, age 38)

This suggests that standard automatic replies are not perceived as opening up communication channels, but reinforce the perception of barriers between customer and company. Similarly, electronic marketing communications prompted strong reactions expressed in terms of power and control and, in many cases, ending rather interestingly with imagery of closing down communication channels.

One respondent (interview 6, male, age 38) commented:

'I hate it. It irritates the hell out of me. I hate being bombarded with junk e-mail. I can't stand it. It's the scourge of the Internet. I really think that it needs controlling. There's no control, you know with the Internet it's unstoppable isn't it? It's going to put people off.'

Interviewer probes:

'So you wouldn't be likely to respond to a promotional e-mail?'

Respondent replies:

'If someone starts bombarding me with e-mails I'd just refuse to buy anything from them just out of principle.'

Another participant responded even more strongly to questions about electronic marketing communications:

'I don't like having to look at advertising. If you log onto the Internet, you're becoming increasingly bombarded with stuff coming into your computer. You come off the Internet and you realize that there's three or four windows up of advertising stuff and you weren't even aware that they had come into your machine and I don't like that. They do it so that the window is slightly shifted so that you can't get to the cross. Somebody's thought all this through and it's just irritating and they should be shot.' (Interview 5, male, age 41)

In the narratives of the participants in this research, the Internet does not facilitate communication with companies, nor does it enable the erosion of organizational boundaries, but appears to strengthen them. For them, the social processes that encourage knowledge construction are not taking place on commercial Web sites. While 'scientific' or factual information about products and services may be included on commercial Web sites, knowledge construction through socialization is not facilitated, blocking both outcomes of 'Business Benefits' and 'Consumer Empowerment' on the model of knowledge management adopted in this study (Figure 4-3). Consumer discussions, narratives and reviews could provide a company with a rich source of knowledge about their market sector, and their own services and products. In disregarding the contributions made by consumers interacting via the Internet, companies are not hearing a valuable source of knowledge about their products and services.

Consumer-to-Consumer Interaction

Participants were not asked directly about their participation in, or membership of online communities, but the theme strongly emerged. One participant noted that the Internet is 'a very good way of making contact with like minded people' (Interview 9). Field notes made by the researcher immediately after each interview frequently highlighted one point at which the participant became animated and enthusiastic. The change in tone was in stark contrast to that used in narratives of researching and buying products or in communicating with companies. One participant became animated when talking about the Web site of a farm where she regularly takes holidays:

'There's a place we go in Scotland who now have a Web site where you can keep up to date with the site. Because I'm into pigs and I collect pigs and this particular place we went was on a farm and they had pigs, so she puts photographs of the pigs on the Web site and you can e-mail and ask how the pigs are. She obviously sends out marketing information too about, you know, we've just bought another cow or whatever and they've built up a real base of people who go. She's even got a forum, I mean she's got the right idea.' (Interview 3, female, age 27)

For another, it was a self-help group for a specific medical condition that sparked enthusiasm (Interview 4, male, age 49):

Respondent: 'My wife was looking at medication , certain medicines that the doctor had recommended and before taking them, she'd sort of heard that they might be harmful and she's gone on there to collect all kinds of research. She got a lot of information on it, which altered what she actually settled for, got a lot of information about medical conditions and was much more informed about what options she should take and that sort of thing.'

Interviewer: 'Did what she found change her decision about what to take?'

Respondent: 'Yes, inevitably it did, yes, what to take and what action to take as well. It's a sort of non-standard product, but information is out there and it's there in such a way that people can understand it and it's an area of deep personal interest. Looking for this extra information, which five years ago wasn't available really helped.'

Interviewer: 'What sort of sites were they?'

Respondent: 'Yes, they were self help for users - people with medical conditions had set up these self help groups and so on and they have discussion boards and they put on their own experiences of taking certain medicines and that sort of thing.'

Interviewer: 'So she got some information from other people who had used these products?'

Respondent: 'Yes, so there was so-called ˜factual information' and then actual users' experiences were on as well.'

Interviewer: 'Assuming that you were involved in this as well, that she talked to you about it, what value did you place on the other consumers that you'd never met or never had anything to do with?'

Respondent: 'Well, they had no reason to put any falsities on there so it was sometimes they weren't saying anything you didn't already know it was all supporting information and it's very valuable because it's things that you don't normally get.'

A third participant spoke very animatedly about eBay:

'Then because I had some questions I actually e-mailed the fella and he was just brilliant because he kept e-mailing me back saying, ˜Hello, Susan. Now let me just tell you about this game that I'm sending you,' and it was brilliant , it was like making a new friend. It was really, really good. I was very impressed with eBay. It's like a community. It's like you see names coming up time and time again and you can read what they've done in the past with other people and how good they've been and things like that. They say things about you and you say things about them, it's a two-way thing so it's worth it.' (Interview 12, female, age 32)

This contrasts greatly with another participant's comment that corporate marketing messages are 'a one-way thing' (Interview 11), preventing social interacting and exchange. These accounts also illustrate how meaningful and valued interchanges are most frequently constructed around an area of interest rather than within a purely commercial interaction. More significantly, even though participants spoke of how they valued reviews by other consumers 'because they had no reason to put any falsities on there' (Interview 4), a totally different belief about consumer reviews within a commercial Web site emerged:

'It's whether you would actually trust that as a source. Would they actually put very disparaging comments from consumers on their particular site or would they just be full of glowing reviews for their products?' (Interview 3, female, age 27)

As another participant responded, 'you're looking for a negative to prove the positive' (Interview 1, male, age 48), and ultimately:

'If you wanted something a bit less biased perhaps you could go to a forum, there's lots of forums where they discuss anything and everything so if you wanted to know what someone really thought about a subject you'd go on one of those.' (Interview 6, male, age 38)

Power Relations in Business-to-Consumer Interaction

Throughout the interviews a discourse of power and control strongly emerged. So, too, did a sense of resigned acceptance on the part of the consumers. Critical to this is the sense of communication breakdown between companies and consumers. One participant narrated his experience of house hunting on the Internet:

'I saw one yesterday , phoned up and it was gone because they haven't updated their Web site. Well, why not? This is really annoying, especially over something like that I mean, I, being the kind of person I am, I was [ makes action to imply speaking on the telephone] WELL, WHY NOT?' (Interview 1, male, age 48)

When asked what the response from the company was, the participant responded, 'Oh, they just gave me some line, you know,' suggesting a resigned acceptance of a corporate message. Habermas proposed that 'where power is present, communication is systematically distorted ,' and further that 'power would act as a barrier to the free and unconstrained realization of the human interest in achieving rational truth or enlightenment' (Clegg, 1989). The model of knowledge management proposed for this explorative research is a model of socially constructed knowledge, which brings about consumer emancipation and business benefits. The process of socially constructing knowledge depends upon effective communication networks.

The participants of this research do not construct a view of the Internet as opening up communication channels with companies where social interaction may facilitate the construction and exchange of knowledge. When asked how commercially oriented use of the Internet could be improved, one participant responded that they would like to see more transparency or transaction tracking devices. It was significant that the language he used to express this constructed an image of the company as a fortress to be invaded. Three times he used the phrase, 'You could go right into the company':

'If you could search right into the company without having to phone them up, you could track the progress of where my house purchase is just now, where my will is just now where my injury claim is just nowI think some companies are starting to put these gateways in to go right into the company so you don't have to talk to anybody, but the security implications must be a minefield because you go right into the company. ' (Interview 1, male, age 48)

This image of invasion also reinforces the idea of organizational boundaries, and barriers between companies and consumers.

Significantly, the participants generally did not feel that the Internet empowered them as consumers. Some participants did say they felt empowered, quoting convenience, choice, or competitive prices available through the Internet. However, the same respondents commented that they tend to return to the same sites, or only use 'well known and well trusted' companies' Web sites (Interview 8), implying limitation. Generally however, participants responded that the Internet was ' potentially very empowering' for consumers (Interview 6) or simply that they did not feel empowered by it. Several participants commented that they were aware of Web sites where consumers can post their complaints or reviews of companies, but commented that they hadn't done that as, 'They just hadn't got round to it' (Interview 3) or because, 'There's not much point' (Interview 8), implying a resigned powerlessness.