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Article
The Role of Online Trading Communities in Managing Internet Auction Fraud
MIS Quarterly: Management Information Systems
  • Cecil Eng Huang Chua, Missouri University of Science and Technology
  • Jonathan Wareham
  • Daniel Robey
Abstract

Internet auctions demonstrate that advances in information technologies can create more efficient venues of exchange between large numbers of traders. However, the growth of Internet auctions has been accompanied by a corresponding growth in Internet auction fraud. Much extant research on Internet auction fraud in the information systems literature is conducted at the individual level of analysis, thereby limiting its focus to the choices of individual traders or trading dyads. The criminology literature, in contrast, recognizes that social and community factors are equally important influences on the perpetration and prevention of crime. We employ social disorganization theory as a lens to explain how online auction communities address auction fraud and how those communities interact with formal authorities. We show how communities may defy, coexist, or cooperate with the formal authority of auction houses. These observations are supported by a qualitative analysis of three cases of online anticrime communities operating in different auction product categories. Our analysis extends aspects of social disorganization theory to online communities. We conclude that community-based clan control may operate in concert with authority-based formal control to manage the problem of Internet auction fraud more effectively.

Department(s)
Business and Information Technology
Keywords and Phrases
  • Auction fraud,
  • Authority,
  • Clan control,
  • Communities,
  • e-commerce,
  • Informal social control
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2007 Management Information Systems Research Center, University of Minnesota, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
12-1-2007
Publication Date
01 Dec 2007
Disciplines
Citation Information
Cecil Eng Huang Chua, Jonathan Wareham and Daniel Robey. "The Role of Online Trading Communities in Managing Internet Auction Fraud" MIS Quarterly: Management Information Systems Vol. 31 Iss. 4 (2007) p. 759 - 781 ISSN: 0276-7783
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/cecil-chua/38/