Borsoi, Andrea

a.borsoi@lse.ac.uk

Italian Tour Operators and the Adoption of Web-based Electronic Commerce

An ethnographic perspective of electronic commerce as a symbolic and cultural object.

My research intends to provide an ethnographic perspective of the adoption of web-based electronic commerce by Italian tour operators. I will attempt to reveal the instrumental and symbolic needs that provoked the change from the traditional configuration of business model and IT systems and will confront it with the perception of the success/ failure as described by the actors. I will argue that the strategic intents set at the beginning of the process of adoption are not always met but that they create expectations that lead to peculiar cultural elaboration.

The use of ethnography should help revealing hidden functions that electronic commerce fulfils, beyond its primary instrumental role. For instance its ceremonial or mythological values. I hope to gain insight into the symbolic interpretation of electronic commerce contributing to a better understanding of the phenomenon that seems to pervade the most recent developments of IT and business.

Supervisor: Carsten Sørensen PhD

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